Our group went to the Aughnanure Castle which is located in
County Galway near the shores of Lough Corrib. The name Aughnanure comes from
the Gaelic the Fields of Yews, since
the castle was surrounded by these sorts of trees near the river bank. The
castle was built around the 1500’s by the O’Flaherty family and sits on what is
virtually a rocky island. This is one of over 200 towers houses/castles built
in County Galway by wealthy Gaelic families. An example of this is when Donal
an Chogaidh O’Flaherty married Grace O’Malley, bringing together two well-known
and powerful families into the castle. We learned that there had been a
constant battle for the lands and castle grounds by Sir Edward Fitton, the
Crown, the Earl of Clanrickard, etc. Even though it eventually was reclaimed by
the O’Flaherty family, it later fell into the hands of Lord St. George ass the
foreclosure of a mortgage.
Even though there isn’t a lot of in depth history
on the Castle and what went on within the castle walls, it was still a fun
place to go and visit. It of course wasn’t like most castles since it was not
particularly large and surrounded by huge walls and housing numerous
passageways, but the grounds and towers were beautiful. Unfortunately it had
been raining when we went to go visit but it gave us a good excuse to go and
explore the insides of the tower and castle. We learned that the castle housed
a trap door that was sometimes used to hold unwanted party crashers which we
all thought was hilarious; and we all wouldn’t mind having one of those
ourselves.
We all thought that the castle and
the grounds were fun to explore and pretty, but nothing like the other castles
we had seen earlier on in the trip. We had assumed it would’ve been as big as
Blarney or as elaborate as Cahir Castle, but we all enjoyed the simplicity of
the grounds and the river that ran right next to it. We all enjoyed walking
around and using the murder hole as a way to scare everyone that was walking
into the castle. It is definitely a nice castle to visit if you ever head on
over to Galway.
(The Aughnanure Castle Grounds; includes one of the towers and the Castle itself.)
