Ashford Catle
Castles are big attractions on the Irish landscape. They owe their origin to the Anglo-Norman colonisation of Ireland which began in 1169 and changed the course of its history. Anglo-Normans settled initially in the provinces of Leinster and Munster, but Connacht held out for some time. The Norman conquest of Connacht began in earnest in 1235, and the province was quickly carved up between some barons. The Anglo-Norman conquest led to a change in the fortunes of many Gaelic lords and chieftains. Gradually, the new Anglo-Norman settlers assimilated, beginning to adopt Gaelic customs and to marry into the native Irish ruling families, thus becoming as the phrase has it ‘more Irish than the Irish themselves’.
At first, the settlers erected wooden towers on artificial mounds or mottes, with enclosures known as baileys. These were followed by the erection of substantial stone castles, fortified residences built in strategic locations to secure newly acquired territories from attack by the native Irish. They were also status symbols for local lords whose prestige depended on their wealth, as reflected in the size of their estates and the number of staff employed. In County Mayo, Ballylahan Castle close to the river Moy near Foxford, built by Jordan d’Exeter in the middle of the thirteenth century, is a fine example of an early Anglo-Norman structure. The best-known castle in the county is Ashford Castle in Cong, now a five-star hotel, situated on a beautiful demesne of 141 hectares at the north-east corner of Lough Corrib. Ashford Castle was originally built in the thirteenth-century by the Anglo-Norman de Burgo family. The place stayed in the hands of the de Burgos (or Burkes, as they became known) for three and a half centuries until, following their overthrow in 1589, the building came into the possession of Sir Richard Bingham, President of Connacht. In the 1670s it passed into the hands of the Browne family, who erected the splendid French-style chateau; their coat of arms and a double-headed eagle are on the roof. Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness (of the Dublin brewing family) purchased Ashford Castle in 1852. It was then restored and expanded by architect Joseph Franklin Fuller, with two large Victorian-style extensions, including the castellated towers.
A smaller type of castle, known as the hall-house, was erected from the early Norman times. These are two-storey, rectangular-shaped buildings, with a first floor entrance. Examples in County Mayo are located at Shrule, Ballisnahyny, Kinlough, Ballycurrin in South Mayo near the Galway border, Ballykine, near Cong, Castlecarra beside Lough Carra and Castleconor beside the river Moy near Ballina.
From about 1450 to 1620, new castle structures, known as tower houses, were erected to serve both as protective buildings and comfortable dwellings. Some of the native Irish emulated the Anglo-Normans/ English, and built their own tower houses. They are the most numerous type of castle in Ireland, with almost 1,200 decorating the landscape, chiefly south of a line from Galway to Louth, with many fine examples in Munster and County Kilkenny. These are large square or rectangular stone towers, generally three or more storeys in height, with stone vaults over the ground floor and pitched slate (or thatched initially) roofs.  The roofs are protected by battlements over the entrances so that objects could be dropped on any intruders.  Projecting angle-towers are used for stairs and garderobes (latrines). Immediately over the vaulted ground floor there is a hall and in the upper storeys the private rooms of the owner. They were originally surrounded by high stone walls, often with towers at the corners. The best-known examples of tower houses in Mayo are associated with the maritime lordship of Grace O’Malley, the legendary seafaring warrior along the west coast of Connacht during the second half of the sixteenth-century: on Clare Island, Kildavnet on Achill Island, Rockfleet, near Newport, and Doona, near Ballycroy. Other examples in County Mayo include Deel and Rappa Castles in north Mayo, Robeen Castle, as well as Moyne Castle beside the Black River at the Galway border. As their owners slipped down the social ladder, many tower houses in the county went into shared ownership in an effort to preserve them. However, most surviving tower houses in the county are now in a poor state of preservation.


Exploring Mayo by Bernard O’Hara is now available Worldwide as an eBook for the amazon Kindle application.
The print version of Bernard O’Hara’s book Exploring Mayo can be obtained by contacting www.mayobooks.ie.
Bernard O'Hara's book entitled Killasser: Heritage of a Mayo Parish is now on sale in the USA and UK as a paperback book at amazon.com, amazon.co.uk or Barnes and Noble
It is also available as an eBook from the Apple iBookstore (for reading on iPad and iPhone), from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk (Kindle & Kindle Fire) and from Barnesandnoble.com (Nook tablet and eReader).
An earlier publication, a concise biography of Michael Davitt, entitled Davitt by Bernard O’Hara published in 2006 by Mayo County Council , is now available as Davitt: Irish Patriot and Father of the Land League by Bernard O’Hara, which was published in the USA by Tudor Gate Press (www.tudorgatepress.com) and is available from amazon.com and amazon.co.uk. It can be obtained as an eBook from the Apple iBookstore (for reading on iPad and iPhone), from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk (Kindle & Kindle Fire) and from Barnesandnoble.com (Nook tablet and eReader).