The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 24, December 12, 1840

The ruins of the old castellated Mansion of Donegal are not only interesting as affording, to use the words of Sir R. Colt Hoare, “a good subject for the pencil,” but still more as a touching memorial of the fallen fortunes of a long-time powerful and illustrious family, the ancient lords of Tirconnell. These ruins are situated on the north bank of the little river Easky, or the fishy river, at the extremity of the town to which, as well as to the county, it has given its name. This name, however, which signifies literally the Dun, or Fort of the Foreigners, is of much higher antiquity than the castle erected here by the O’Donnells, and was, there can be no doubt, originally applied to a fortress, most probably of earth, raised here by the Danes or Northmen anterior to the twelfth century; for it appears unquestionable that the Irish applied the appellations Gaill exclusively to the northern rovers, anterior to the arrival of the English. Of the early history of this dun or fortress there is nothing preserved beyond the bare fact recorded in the Annals of Ulster, that it was burnt by Murtogh M’Loughlin, the head of the northern Hy-Niall race, in the year 1159. We have, however, an evidence of the connection of the Danes with this locality more than two centuries earlier, in a very valuable poem which we shall at no remote time present to our readers, addressed by the Tirconnellian bard, Flan Mac Lonan, to Aighleann and Cathbar, the brothers of Domhnall, from whom the name of O’Donnell is derived. In this poem, which was composed at the commencement of the tenth century, the poet relates that Egneachan, the father of Donnell, gave his three beautiful daughters, Duibhlin, Bebua, and Bebinn, in marriage to three Danish princes, Caithis, Torges, and Tor, for the purpose of obtaining their friendship, and to secure his territory from their depredations; and these marriages were solemnised at Donegal, where Egneachan then resided.
But though we have therefore evidence that a fort or dun existed here from a very remote time, it would appear certain, from a passage in the Annals of the Four Masters, that a castle, properly so called, was not erected at Donegal by the O’Donnells till the year 1474. In this passage, which records the death of Hugh Roe, the son of Niall Garve O’Donnell, at the year 1505, it is distinctly stated that he was the first that erected a castle at Donegal, that it might serve as a fortress for his descendants; and that he also erected as it would appear, at the same time, a monastery for Observantine Franciscans near the same place, and in which he was interred in the seventy-eighth year of his age, and forty-fourth of his reign. From this period forward the Castle of Donegal became the chief residence of the chiefs of Tirconnell, till their final extinction in the reign of James I., and was the scene of many a petty domestic feud and conflict. From a notice of one of these intestine broils, as recorded in the Annals of the Four Masters, at the year 1564, it would appear that shortly previous to that period a tower, called “the New Tower,” had been added to the older structure. This tower being at that time in the possession of Hugh, the grandson of the builder of the original castle, while the latter was inhabited by his fraternal nephews, Con, the son of Calvarch, then Prince of Tirconnell, in the absence of his father, attempted to get possession of both, and nearly succeeded, when he was made captive by O’Neill.