Roughan Castle

17th Century Plantation Castle

This sturdy three storey castle was built before 1618 for Sir Andrew Stewart, a Scottish nobleman and one of the chief 'undertakers in the plantation of Ulster. The unusual structure is not typical of the Scottish plantation castles, it has few Scottish features. It consists of a 6.1 metre square central tower with four robust corner towers and string courses that run around the entire structure. The overall appearance is that of a medieval keep. The entrance to the castle was in the west tower where a spiral staircase provided access to the upper floors. The majority of the windows are very small and simple in design. In the image below you can see scaring in the south tower where the, now missing, bawn was attached to the main building.

The castles defence with guns seems totally inadequate, but you can see a number of gun loops in each tower as you walk around the castle. There is a high arch linking the south and east towers, it is similar to some of the machicolations on earlier castles, but strangely there is no doorway below it. The corbelling at the springers of the arch, see image below left, are in the Scottish style, further examples of this type of Scottish corbelling can be seen on the plantation castles at Monea in Fermanagh, Parke's Castle Leitrim and Rathlee Castle in County Sligo.

South tower left, east tower right