dunamase

The most celebrated and dramatic site in the county. It was purchased by the state from the estate of Lord Congleton about four years ago, and taken into its care and protection. Its name is from Dun Masg "the fort of Masg". An important fortress before the Normans, it was granted to Strongbow in 1170 by Diarmait Mac Murchada as part of his daughter Aoife's dowry, and became the Normans' most important fortification. Wiliam Earl Marshall, the most famous and honourable Norman, lived here in the early thirteenth century. In the fourteenth-century it was burned at least twice by the Irish. In 1609 the castle was granted to Donat O'Brien, Earl of Thomond. The violence of the 1640s enveloped it: In 1641 it was captured from O'Mordha