magilligan martello tower

Martello towers get their name from a place in Corsica named Mortella where there was a round tower which proved impregnable when attacked by the English in 1794, twenty-six years after Napoleon's birth on the island.

When, in 1804, it looked as if he might turn the tables and invade England, the English built similar towers around the coast of Ireland which, they feared, Napoleon might use as the 'back door' to England. Though the fears proved groundless, the towers still stand as a memento of the threat.

The earliest of these towers were erected along the east coast around 1804. A second batch was built about 1812 around other parts of the coast when there were renewed fears of a possible French attack, and the war in the United States might also have been a contributory factor.

The tower at Magilligan dates from around 1812 and, together with its sibling at Greencastle on the opposite shore of the River Foyle, it was designed to defend the approaches to the city of Derry.