It bears an inscription to that effect, as well as the name of its sculptor, Mr. Samuel Hastings, of Downpatrick.
In 1688-89 Sir Robert Maxwell resided in the castle, having married the widow of the Earl of Clanbrissal. Captain Savage asked to be allowed to garrison the gate-tower so as to be some check upon the disturbances the Protestant party were making in the North. Sir Robert took two days to consider the matter, but in the meantime the soldiers were attacked by Hunter, and the captain and lieutenant taken prisoners.
Soon after the castle was reduced by the Royalists, and in the investigation which followed much credit was taken from the fact that no plundering was allowed. It was stated that such forbearance was wonderful in the face of great provocation, inasmuch as the very day the castle was taken part of Colonel Mark Talbot’s wig was shot off by a bullet from the fortress.
The celebrated United Irishman, Archibald Hamilton Rowan, owned and lived in the castle. He was secretary of the Dublin Society of United Irishmen in 1791, and in 1794 he was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for seditious libel.
The embroidered lavender dress coat, which he wore at his presentation to Marie Antoinette in 1781 or 1782, when in attendance on the Duchess of Manchester, is still preserved as an heirloom in the castle. A pair of pistols presented to Captain Hamilton, R.N., C.B., after the battle of Navarino, by the French Admiral De Rigny, for his gallant services to the French squadron, are also to be seen at Killyleagh.
In 1842 Captain Archibald Rowan Hamilton married Miss Caldwell, of Cheltenham, and seven years later they began to restore the castle.
In 1862 the marriage of the late Lord Dufferin and Clandeboye, with Hariot Georgina, eldest daughter of the late Captain Archibald Rowan Hamilton, 5th Dragoon Guards, was celebrated in the evening of October 23rd, in the drawing-room of the castle.
When the present owner of the castle, Colonel Gawen Rowan Hamilton, came of age in 1864, Lord Dufferin handed him the keys of the gate-tower, to which reference has already been made, saying, “The time is now come for me to hand over to you this gate-house, a gift which I had originally destined for your father, but which, with equal pleasure, I now make to you. I trust that you and your descendants may long continue to enjoy it.”
| Authorities Consulted. |
| Lowry, “The Hamilton Manuscripts.” |
| Knox, “History of County of Down.” |
| Praeger, “Official Guide to County Down.” |
| S. M. S., “Killyleagh Castle, County of Down,” in Dublin Penny Journal. |
| Hanna, “The Break of Killyleagh,” in Ulster Journal of Archæology. |
| Newspaper Cuttings lent by Mrs. Rowan Hamilton. |