The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 46, May 15, 1841

The ruins of Dangan Castle, situated about two miles of the village of Summerhill, in the county of Meath, stand in the centre of an extensive demesne, once richly wooded, and within which, formerly spread the placid waters of a small but handsome lake, since drained. The grounds have been almost entirely deprived of their ancient timber, but still retain some traces of their former beauty. The remains of this once noble mansion, of which our engraving represents the rere, consist of a massive keep, which, with outworks long since destroyed, formed the ancient fortress: attached to this is the mansion built in the Italian style, the front of which is surmounted by a heavy and richly-moulded cornice. Of this part of the building (apparently erected about the beginning of the last century) nothing but the outer walls remain, and the interior space, once formed into ample hulls and chambers, has been converted into a flower garden.
It would perhaps be impossible now to determine with any degree of certainty the age to which the original erection of this castle should be referred, its ancient architectural peculiarities having been completely destroyed in the endeavour to make it harmonize with the buildings of more recent erection, which have been appended to it, and the property having changed masters so often; but it is doubtless of no small antiquity.
Dangan afterwards (but at what time we are uncertain) became the property of the De Wellesleys or Westleys, alias Posleys, a family of the greatest antiquity and of Saxon origin, who had settled in the county of Sussex in England, one of whom was standard-bearer to King Henry II., in which capacity he accompanied that monarch into Ireland, and was rewarded for his services with large grants of lands in the counties of Meath and Kildare. From this illustrious ancestor sprang a numerous and respectable family, who received several distinguished marks of royal favour: and we find that in the year 1303 “Wulfrane de Wellesley and Sir Robert Percival were slain the second day before the calends of November” fighting against the Irish; and that John de Wellesley, who received from King Edward II. a grant of the custody of the Castle of Arden, was the first of the family created a Baron of Parliament, these honours being conferred on him as a reward for having in the year 1327 overthrown the Irish of Wicklow in a battle in which their leader David O’Toole was taken prisoner.