Finding the Three Castles at the Edge of the World

Dunlough

       Down at the tip of the Mizen peninsula, on Three Castle Head, is a place that is rarely visited, hardly seen, barely spoken about. It is a ruin, three towers tall with high walls connecting them and it is beautiful.
       My first visit to Dunlough was on a bright breezy October day. From Clonakilty we drove south, glimpsing the sea along the way, traveling through woods, past rolling hills  and through the towns and villages of Leap and Skibbereen, Skull and Goleen, the land growing wilder by the mile, the fertile farming landscape changing to rugged heather hills and rocky scraps of land.    
       We passed Barley Cove, a beautiful beach with high sand dunes where local legend has it that a startled farmer discovered a mermaid there one day. At the end of a winding road we parked in a lay-by, the waves crashing against the jagged rocks of Dunlough Bay, the wind whipping through the air.
     

Dunlough Bay

After exploring the steep slip way and playing with the rusting winch we followed the little wooden signs across the fields that would lead us to the ruin.

Winching...

All the long drive Gavin had talked up the beauty of Three Castle Head, how wonderful we would find it, so much so that as we climbed the last hill on the approach to the castle he fretted that perhaps he'd over enthused, that maybe it would fail to live up to his enthusiasm.

A rainbow arcs above grazing sheep on the walk to Dunlough

      He didn't need to worry.
      It's impossible to exaggerate  how it makes you feel, to struggle up that last heather clad hill, puffing and red cheeked, to come to the top and see there, below you, the three connected towers, the plunging cliffs, the raging sea, the ancient walls and the still blue lake.This is a place you need to see.

A Brief History:

The O’Mahonys, a powerful Gaelic clan, descendants of the Kings of Munster, ruled over Fonn Iartharch, the Western Lands, for over four centuries. Their earliest castle stood here at Dunlough, built by Donogh na hImirce in 1207, as defence against the Norman invaders.

Driven westwards, Donogh, nicknamed the migrator for his pilgrimages to the Holy Lands and Santiago, in turn drove out the indigenous clans of the O’Cowhig and the O’Driscoll. The abundance of the coastal fishing waters, the isolation and distance from the Norman invaders and fierce MacCarthy clan combined to make Ivagha a desirable location for their future survival.

Over the next three centuries the O’Mahonys not only survived, they thrived. A further eleven Castles came to tower over the Mizen peninsula in strategic positions, extracting fishing dues and protection fees from the visiting continental fleets. As well as foreign income the shoals of pilchards provided the clan a rich winter diet, and the wooded peninsula, rich in hazels fed their herds of pigs, and timber from oak trees built their ships.

Strong in mind as well as muscle the O’Mahonys valued scholarship. Their Chieftains spoke Latin and French; they built a bardic school, translated books into the Gaelic and were renowned in the Annals for being an educated and hospitable people.

Participation at the catastrophe of the Battle of Kinsale in the winter of 1601 led to the unceasing decline of the O’Mahony's control over their region. Tudor power was unleashed and in 1627 Dunlough Castle was let to a Coghlan who later shared his rights with Richard Boyle, the first Earl of Cork, thus ending over 400 years of O’Mahony habitation at Dunlough.

Architecture

        While it appears to be three separate castles it is one structure built of dry stone masonry, with battlements, a three story tower and two flankers placed along the ninety meter rampart of a prehistoric promontory fort.   

    

        The overall design is reminiscent of castles built in Spain. The tower is entered at ground and first floor levels with straight stairs reaching from the ground to second floor. The roof of the top floor was arched with a number of separate arches bridged by large slabs.  The tower by the lake had a manhole entrance and stairs to the floors above. The whole structure covers the entire isthmus one side crumbling from the cliff and the other sinking into the lake.

       None of the O'Mahony castles would have been luxurious, damp walls, no fireplaces, little light coming through the few windows. Their entrances are 15 or 20 feet above ground to protect against attack and they must have been reached by a ladder.

French traveler Le Gouz de Rochefed quoted in Donovan in 1644 observed “The castles or houses of the nobility consist of four walls extremely high, thatched with straw; but to tell the truth they are nothing but square towers without windows, or at least, having such small apertures as to give no more light that a prison. They have little furniture, and cover the floors with rushes. Of this they make their beds in summer, and straw in winter.”

The Legends:
A ghostly white lady haunts the lake shore, to see her is said to mean you will die shortly after. On all the days I have visited Three Castle Head I've never been unlucky enough to spy this White Lady though I have pretended to, almost giving a heart attack to one of our companions there that day. So even pretending to see her is risky...

The walls of the stronghold reach 6 meters high in places

There is also told another tale that long ago there were two sons of  O Donoghue that terrorized the district until one day they were set upon and their bodies disposed of. Filled with grief their father dumped their accumulated treasure in the lake and hung himself. It is said that a drop of blood falls for each day of the year in the place where their father ended his life. Any attempt to find the hoard results in the lake waters rising in anger.

A final word of warning: it is said that all madmen can find their way to the castle without need of direction, so your sanity might be judged by your need for a map...

Evening draws in over Dunlough