ATHLONE CASTLE
The castle of Athlone is situated on the Connaught side of the river Shannon in the Barony of Athlone, County Roscommon, sixty miles west-by-north of Dublin.
The name is derived from ath, “a ford,” and luain, “the moon,” and signifies “the ford of the moon,” to which it is supposed to have been dedicated in pagan times. Some gold lunettes and crescents found in a neighbouring bog seem to bear out the statement.
The castle commands the bridge, and is built upon a spur of the hill upon which the town on the Connaught side is built. It is overlooked by the houses of the town, while on the river side it is supported by a great buttress of masonry.
The entrance is on the road which leads from the bridge up to the town, and is by a modern drawbridge.
The fortress consists of a strong curtain wall having circular towers mounted with cannon at irregular intervals. Most of them have been restored with fresh blue limestone.
The Connaught tower, which stands isolated in the courtyard, is considered the oldest part of the fortress, and usually supposed to have formed the keep of the first Norman castle built in King John’s reign. It is decagonal in form, but owing to having been pebble-dashed and whitened of late years, it does not retain an appearance of antiquity.
The English stronghold was erected on the site of an old Celtic fortress of the O’Connors. It is recorded that the castle and bridge of Athlone were built in 1129 by Turloch O’Connor, “in the summer of the drought.”
The following year they were demolished by Murogh O’Mleghlin and Feirnan O’Rorke, and in 1153 the castle was burned.
Between 1210 and 1213 the Norman fortress was erected by John de Grey, Bishop of Norwich, in his capacity of Lord Justiciary of Ireland. During its building a tower fell and killed Lord Richard Tuit, who founded the Cistercian Abbey of Granard, County Longford.