Historic Places in County Down

Narrow Water Castle is a sixteenth-century tower house at Warrenpoint in County Down, Northern Ireland, standing at the narrows where the Newry River enters Carlingford Lough with views across to the mountains of County Louth. The castle controlled this important waterway, which provided the main sea route for trade to the town of Newry and the agricultural hinterland of south Down and south Armagh. The tower house is one of the better-preserved examples of its type in south Down, its compact form reflected in the still waters of the lough at high tide. The castle is in the care of the Historic Environment Division and is accessible from the A2 shore road between Newry and Warrenpoint. The surrounding landscape at the head of Carlingford Lough, with the Mountains of Mourne rising behind Rostrevor, provides one of the most dramatic scenic settings of any castle in Northern Ireland.

Bangor Castle is situated in Castle Park in the town of Bangor 12 miles from Belfast. The castle has the appearance of a three storey Elizabethan - Jacobean mansion house made from limestone attached to an earlier abbey which has a steeply pitched roof. The castle sits in formal gardens with flower beds, which have won awards for their outstanding blooms and trees around the perimeter; a large car park has also been built at the front. Facilities Bangor Castle is now used by the local council and not open to the general public. The original building on the site was an abbey founded in around 555AD by St. Comgal. The building was destroyed in the 9th century by the Danes and rebuilt in 1120 after which it was used by Franciscan monks until the abbey was dissolved in 1542. The manor house on the site was completed in 1852 for the Honorable Robert Edward Ward and consisted of no less than 35 bedrooms and a large saloon for music recitals. Bangor Borough Council acquired the castle and it became the Town Hall. It is now the seat of its successor the North Down Borough Council.

Moyry Castle is a small but strategically significant tower house ruin located in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, positioned at the southern end of the Gap of the North — the ancient mountain pass through the Fews Mountains that served for centuries as the principal route between Ulster and the rest of Ireland. Despite the listing here placing it within the Republic of Ireland, the castle and its immediate surroundings sit just north of the border, in the townland of Moyry near Jonesborough, and the BT35 postcode confirms its Northern Irish location. It is one of the most historically important defensive structures in Ireland, punching well above its modest physical weight in terms of its role in shaping the course of Irish history. The castle was built in 1601 on the orders of Lord Deputy Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, during the final and most decisive phase of the Nine Years' War — the great Gaelic rebellion led by Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone. O'Neill had long used the Gap of the North as a natural chokepoint, exploiting the narrow pass hemmed in by boggy ground and wooded hills to stymie English military advances into Ulster. The construction of Moyry Castle was a deliberate and bold counter-move, intended to seize and hold this critical passage and deny O'Neill his most powerful geographical advantage. The castle was erected with considerable speed under difficult and dangerous conditions, with English forces working under constant threat of harassment. Its completion effectively broke O'Neill's stranglehold on Ulster's southern approaches and opened the way for the campaign that would ultimately end in the Battle of Kinsale and the collapse of the Gaelic order. It stands, therefore, as a physical marker of one of the most pivotal turning points in Irish history. The structure itself is compact and robustly built, characteristic of the functional military architecture of the Elizabethan period in Ireland rather than any grand palatial tradition. It is a three-storey tower of roughly rectangular plan, constructed from local stone, with the remains of a bawn wall — a defensive enclosure — still partially visible around its base. The walls are thick and purposeful, pierced with gun loops rather than decorative windows, reflecting its origins as a garrison post rather than a residence of comfort. Much of the upper portions have collapsed over the centuries, and the castle today is a consolidated ruin rather than an intact structure, maintained by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency as a state care monument. The stonework has a pleasing weathered grey quality, and mosses and small ferns colonise the joints and ledges where mortar has crumbled away. The landscape surrounding Moyry Castle is one of the most atmospheric and historically resonant in the region. The Gap of the North is a genuine geographical feature — a natural corridor through the drumlin and moorland country along the Ulster border — and standing at the castle, one can immediately appreciate why generations of armies, cattle raiders, pilgrims and merchants used and contested this passage. The ground falls away in gently rolling fields and patches of rough pasture, with the Fews Mountains rising to the northwest and the drumlin landscape of south Armagh stretching toward the horizon. It is quiet, border country with a slightly liminal quality, the kind of landscape that feels like it exists slightly outside ordinary time. Jonesborough village, known locally for its Sunday market, lies a short distance to the north, and the town of Newry is approximately eight kilometres to the northeast. Visiting Moyry Castle is a low-key and largely self-directed experience. There is no visitor centre, no entry fee, and no staffing — it is an open-air heritage site accessible on foot via a short walk from a small parking area off the B113 road near Jonesborough. The paths can be muddy in wet weather, and appropriate footwear is advisable. The site is reasonably well signed locally, though not extensively promoted, which contributes to its pleasingly unfrequented atmosphere. It is best visited in spring or early autumn when the vegetation is manageable and the light tends to be clear and angled, bringing out the texture of the stonework and the drama of the surrounding hills. Summer visits are also pleasant but the surrounding grass and scrub can obscure some of the lower wall remains. One of the more fascinating and lesser-known aspects of Moyry Castle is how thoroughly it embodies the broader tragedy of the Nine Years' War through sheer architectural understatement. A small, quickly built garrison tower managed to accomplish what years of English military campaigning had failed to achieve — not by defeating O'Neill in open battle, but simply by being there, occupying the pass, and making the old Gaelic defensive geography redundant. In a conflict full of dramatic set pieces, the quiet erection of a modest stone tower in a mountain pass may have been the most consequential single act. The castle is a Scheduled Historic Monument and is in state care, meaning it is protected and maintained, though visitors should expect a genuine ruin rather than a restored or interpreted site. For those with an interest in the late medieval and early modern history of Ireland, it is close to essential.