O’Doherty’s Keep

O'Doherty's Keep, also previously known as Buncrana Castle, was one of the chief residences of the Ó Dochartaigh(O'Doherty) clan of Inishowen. The Ó Dochartaigh dynasty ruled Inishowen, a large peninsula on the northern coastline of Ulster, from the early fourteenth century up until 1608. The O’Doherty clan had replaced the Mac Lochlainn (McLaughlin) dynasty as the Gaelic rulers of Inishowen.

The ‘keep’ itself is not actually a castle keep, in the strict sense of the term. The building is a small tower house, the type of fortified residence favoured by Gaelic chieftains in Ireland generally, but especially across Ulster, during the late medieval period. It is unknown when exactly O’Doherty’s Keep, as it is popularly known, was originally constructed. The Normans had spent most of the thirteenth century trying to conquer and occupy Inishowen and the adjacent monastic settlement of Derry, with only limited success. They eventually abandoned this effort in the early fourteenth century. Ultimately, the Normans failed to conquer Inishowen and most of the rest of Ulster. However, at some stage during the thirteenth or the very early fourteenth century, it is possible that the Normans may have built some sort of fortification on this strategic site at Buncrana.

Most archaeologists believe that the current structure was probably built no earlier than the fifteenth century. Certainly the lower parts of the current tower house would appear to date to this era. The tower house, especially its upper levels, would appear to have been remodelled and extensively rebuilt on several occasions thereafter, in particular for Hugh Boy O’Doherty in 1602, near the end of the Nine Years’ War. The tower house was captured and burnt by English Crown forces in 1608, during the rebellion of Sir Cahir O’Doherty, the last Gaelic Lord of Inishowen. Sir Cahir had used the tower house as his chief residence.

Later in 1608, in the immediate aftermath of Sir Cahir O’Doherty’s rebellion, the English Crown seized all of Inishowen from the O’Doherty clan. The Crown then ‘granted’ almost all of Inishowen, including O’Doherty’s Keep, to Sir Arthur Chichester (later created The 1^st Baron Chichester), who served as the Lord Deputy of Ireland from 1605 until 1616. Chichester, one of the main organisers of the Plantation of Ulster, almost immediately sublet, on a long lease, O’Doherty’s Keep and the surrounding village of Bun Cranncha (Buncrana) to Captain Henry Vaughan, an officer in the English Army. It seems that Henry Vaughan had O’Doherty’s Keep, then usually known as Buncrana Castle, partially rebuilt as a small fortified residence circa 1611, at the very start of the Plantation of Ulster.

It now seems probable, according to more recent research, that Henry Vaughan also built a new, larger residence right beside O’Doherty’s Keep at the same time, during the early years of the Plantation of Ulster. This new residence, immediately to the south-west of O’Doherty’s Keep, was located in the middle of the original village of Buncrana. The new residence appears to have been greatly enlarged in size about a century later, when it was remodelled as a Georgian manor house for George Vaughan, around 1718. The new ‘manor house’ has, rather confusingly, been known as Buncrana Castle since at least the early eighteenth century. According to local tradition, the bawn surrounding O’Doherty’s Keep was demolished at this time in order to provide building stone for the newly enlarged manor house. It is likely that O’Doherty’s Keep, the original ‘Buncrana Castle’, fell into ruin at some stage during the eighteenth century.

It was George Vaughan who also had the original village of Buncrana demolished in the early eighteenth century. He did this in order to make way for his enlarged manor house and its new gardens, which were to occupy the site of the original Buncrana. At the same time, Vaughan had a brand new town, also called Buncrana, constructed a short distance away, on some high ground on the eastern side of the River Crana. This ‘new town’ now forms the centre of the modern town of Buncrana, which today remains the largest town in Inishowen, and is the second largest town in County Donegal, after Letterkenny.

O’Doherty’s Keep is located on what is, in the words of Prof. Alistair Rowan, ‘a curiously indefensible position’. The tower house is located at the bottom of a ‘wee knowe’ (small hill) on the west bank of the River Crana, near to where that river enters Lough Swilly, on the western coastline of Inishowen. The tower house is externally, at ground level, 9.9 metres in length by 8.6 metres in width and was originally surrounded by a bawn. The structure is three storeys high, and all of its floors were originally wooden. The original main door into the tower house was probably on its north wall at ground floor level; this was later blocked up. The current main entrance into the tower house is at first floor level on the east wall. A stone mural staircase, which is built into the east and south walls, gave access to the upper floors of the keep. The structure is entirely built of large stone blocks and rubble laid in mortar. The building has long been a ruin, its floors and roof now long gone.

O’Doherty’s Keep stands in the townland of Tullyarvan, on the north-western edge of the modern town of Buncrana. The tower house is now in a wooded location, and is beside both Castle Bridge and the main gate into the grounds surrounding the later Buncrana Castle (which remains privately owned). Castle Bridge, the impressive stone bridge that was built around 1718 for George Vaughan, connects Buncrana Castle with the rest of modern-day Buncrana. There is no public access to the interior of O’Doherty’s Keep.

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This national monument is protected in accordance with the National Monuments Acts 1930 to 2014