From Ballyboyle to Corglass... a Boyle family's story
Part 1 - Ballyboyle - our ancient ancestors
Where did they live? (cont.)
Ballyweel (or Ballyboyle)
In the south of their territory is Ballyweel, in Irish Baile UI Bhaoighill, (Boyle’s settlement) in which a substantial castle on the water’s edge guarded the entrance to Donegal town, then an important abbey and residence of the O’Donnells. This castle is described as the principal castle of the Ó Baoighill, its importance emphasised by its location close to the Ó Domhnaill centre of power in Donegal town.
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In an issue of the Donegal Annual is it described as follows:
At Ballyweel are the ruins of O’Boyle’s castle on the edge of the sea, for here was the seat of the Chief of Boylagh Uachtarach (Upper) just as Kiltoorish was the stronghold of Boylagh Íochtarach (Lower). Probably this keep was built in the 1400s like its Normanesque neighbours, the castles of Donegal and Ath Seanaigh, and was perhaps O’ Boyle’s answer in hard stone to the threat of the Connacht Mac Sweeneys, who had now partitioned in two the ancient realms of Boylagh.
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It is first mentioned by the Four Masters under the year 1440:
“The castle of Ballyweel [Caisleán Bhaile Uí Bhaoighill] was taken by the son of Donal, who was the son of The O’Donnell [Domhnall, son of Domhnall, son of Neachtain] at a time when he found it unguarded: and he found in it great spoils in money, apparel and armour. The same castle was again taken by The O’Donnell [Aodh Rua I] and given back to The O’Boyle: and the sons of Donal O’Donnell were taken prisoners in it and kept in captivity by The O’Donnell for their evil deeds.”
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The Four Masters in 1592 describe the castle thus: “a castle on the serrated edge of the harbour, two miles to the west of Donegal…the place belonged to O’Boyle, the chosen leader of the race of Conall Gulbán”.
In 1601 Sir Robert Cecil notes that “Over against Donegal, two miles on the other side of the water, stands O'Boyle, where the ships used to ride. O'Boyle's chief house”[1].
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It is clearly marked as a typical tower house on the Baxter/Boazio map of Donegal Bay, published about 1600. It would appear that the castle was demolished during or just after the Nine Years' War , as in Pynnar's Survey of the Land Grants Given in 1608 it is noted “Town of Donegall. Fort built by Captain Bassill Brooke. Two miles from thence Captain Paul Goare has erected a stone house out of the ruins of O'Boyles old castle upon the sea side.”[2]
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However, Goare had to cede the castle and lands to Lord Broughton the Scottish undertaker under the terms of the Plantation of Ulster. By 1622 it was described as the 'ruinous castle of Ballyboyle; to which is adjoined the walls of a house, built about 7ft high by Sir Paul Gore’, and no trace of it remains.
The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage describes it as follows, based on a 1983 survey: Ballyboyle Castle is first mentioned in 1440 when it was taken by a son of the O'Donnell but subsequently returned to O'Boyle (AFM)….It is noted in the Civil Survey, 1654-6, as 'ye old walls of ye Castle called Balliweill'. There is no visible trace of this 'castle' and the out-houses are all that remain of the Cottage.
To the S, the ivy-covered ruins of a subcircular corner tower and adjoining sections of wall, standing on the cliff edge, are probably the remains of a bawn. The foundations of the wall can be traced from the tower along the cliff edge to the E as far as a ruined gate-lodge. The outer section of the tower has fallen since Davies described the remains in the early 1940's; he noted four gun-loops at ground-floor level and that the tower was originally roofed by a mortared, corbelled vault.
The doorway has a modern lintel and may have been inserted when some repointing and plastering were carried out here during the present century. Some 2.7m of adjoining NW wall survives, c. 1m high.
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[1] Calendar of State Papers 1601
[2] The descendants of these two English captains who fought in the Nine Years’ War continued to influence events in Ireland for centuries. Brooke’s descendant, also called Basil served as Prime Minister of Northern Ireland in the 1950s and 60s as Viscount Brookeborough, and his brother, Alan Brooke, was a noted General in WW2. Countess Markievicz (nee Gore-Booth), Irish socialist and revolutionary was a descendant of Paul Goare, as were (possibly) novelist Gore Vidal and US Vice-President Al Gore.
Faugher House
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Another house linked to the Ó Baoighill stood at Faugher, near Dunfanaghy in north Donegal. Following the grant of lands to Turlough Roe O’Boyle in 1611, he 'built a good bawn and a house of lime and stone in which he with his family dwelleth'.
Building a substantial house was probably a condition of the grant of lands. However he may not have lived there for long, as he mortgaged the lands soon after to John Stanton, whose wife is recorded as living at Faugher in 1622. Quite likely, he returned to live at Kiltoorish. The house is described in that year as 'of clay and stone rough cast with lime, 48 ft long, 25 ft broad and 13 ft high…
Adjoining to this house, there are three stone houses and a timber house, thatched' The bawn (stone enclosure) still survives, but the house itself was extensively rebuilt sometimes between 1670 and 1700 by William Wray following Turlough Roe’s dispossession. The house was abandoned by the mid-eighteenth century (possibly just after 1708 when the Wrays built a new ‘mansion’ at nearby Ards), and is depicted as ‘in ruins’ on the Taylor and Skinner map of the area 1777-83.
Faugher is an important survival marking the transition from the fortified dwellings and castles of the late-Medieval and early post-Medieval periods to the ‘open’ houses of the eighteenth century where defence was no longer a primary consideration, and is an integral element of the built heritage of Donegal.
This building photographed in the late 19th century is also called Faugher House, but it does not appear to fit the description of the 17th/18th century house as described above.