dundrum castle

The mightiest of the castles along the County Down coast, Dundrum was probably built by John de Courcy in the last decades of the 12th century. It is first mentioned in the historical records when it was unsuccessfully besieged in 1205, though taken by King John five years later. The upper of the two wards, on the top of the commanding hiss, is dominated by a tall, round keep or donjon with immensely thick walls, from the top of which a splendid view may be had over the sea and many parts of south County Down. This upper ward is protected by a rock-cut ditch and an extensive curtain wall entered from the south, where two towers (one with a semicircular bastion) guard the entrance, which overlooks the lower ward now containing the shell of a 17th century house. The castle passed through the hands of the Earl of Ulster in 1227 to the Magennis family, which occupied it in the Later Middle Ages.