It was not, however, long after this event till the English, taking advantage of the civil wars which raged in Connaught between the sons of Roderick and the sons of Cathal the Red-handed, got the peninsula of Rinn-duin into their own hands, and, fortifying it in their own more skilful manner, erected the noble castle, the ruins of which still remain, and form the subject of our prefixed illustration. The erection of this castle is thus recorded in the Annals of the Four Masters:—
“A.D. 1227. Hugh, the son of Roderick O’Conor, and William de Burgo, marched with a great army to the north of Connaught, burned Inis Meadhoin, plundered the country as they passed along, and took hostages. Geoffry Mares (or de Marisco), and Turlogh, the son of Roderick O’Conor, marched with an army into Magh Aoi (county of Roscommon), erected a castle at Rinn-duin, and took the hostages of Siol-Muireadhaigh.”
It was at this period also that the lower portion of the peninsula was artificially insulated as an additional protection to the castle, by a broad ditch, still to be seen, though no longer filled with water, and which is connected with a beautiful little harbour for boats, called Safe Harbour, immediately beneath the castle.
But though, as we have shown, the peninsula of Rinn-duin was thus fortified by the English, it was not till the power of the O’Conors was still more broken by their own divisions, that the former were able to keep permanent possession of it. From a subsequent record in the Annals of the Four Masters, we find it shortly after in the possession of Turlogh O’Conor, the son of Roderick, who had been set up by the English in opposition to his cousin and rival Felim, the son of Cathal the Red-handed, and by whom he was ultimately slain. This record gives a curious picture of the mode of warfare of the time, and is worth presenting to our readers in full:—
“A.D. 1236. Felim, the son of Cathal the Red-handed, returned to Connaught after his banishment, being invited thither by some of the Connacians, namely, by O’Kelly, O’Flynn, the son of Hugh, who was son of Cathal the Red-handed O’Conor, and the son of Art O’Melaghlin, all forming four equally strong battalions. They marched to Rinn-duin, where Brian, the son of Turlogh (O’Conor), Owen O’Heyne, Conor Boy, the son of Turlogh, and Mac Costelloe, had all the cows of the country; and Felim’s people got over the enclosures of the Island; and the leaders and subleaders of the army drove off each a proportionate number of the cows, as they found them on the way before them; and they then dispersed, carrying off their booty in different directions, and leaving only, of the four battalions, four horsemen with Felim. As Brian, the son of Turlogh, Owen O’Heyne, and their troops, perceived that Felim’s army was scattered, they set out quickly and vigorously with a small party of horse, and many foot soldiers, to attack Felim and his few horsemen. Conor Boy, the son of Turlogh, came up with the son of Hugh, who was the son of Cathal the Red-handed, and with his party; and mistaking them for his own people, he fell by Roderick, the son of Hugh, who was the son of Cathal the Red-handed. Felim (the king) strained his voice calling loudly after his army, and ordering them to return to oppose their enemies. Many of the host were killed by Felim upon the island; and outside the island were slain many bad subjects, and perpetrators of evil, as they all were, excepting only Teige, son of Cormac, who was son of Tomaltagh M’Dermott.”
Our records are too scanty to enable us to trace the history of this castle and its various possessors with any clearness or consecutive order. It may, however, be inferred from the subsequent annals that it fell into the hands of Felim O’Conor after the attack above stated, and also that he kept possession of it till his death in 1264. During this period, though harassed by the De Burgos or Burkes, and still more by factious rivals of his own race, he usually preserved at least the semblance of peace with the English monarch, and had more than once his hereditary patrimony of five cantreds of land in Roscommon secured to him by royal charters. Upon one of those occasions the scene of conference between the representatives of the British monarch and the Connaught king was the Castle of Rinn-duin, as thus stated in the Annals of the Four Masters:—
“A. D. 1256. A lord justice arrived in Ireland from England, and he and Hugh O’Conor (the son of Felim) held a conference at Rinn-duin, when a peace was established between them, on condition that while the lord justice should retain his office, no part of the province of Connaught should be taken from O’Conor.”
By the death of Felim, however, the house of O’Conor received a blow which it never thoroughly recovered; for, though his son Hugh, who succeeded him in the government, inherited to the full extent his father’s energy and valour, if not his prudence, he was less successful in his enterprises, and his death in 1274 gave additional strength to the English interest in Connaught. From a record in the Annals of the Four Masters it appears that the Castle of Rinn-duin was in the possession of the English settlers some years before his death, for it is stated at the year 1270 that
“The castle of Ath-Angaile, the castle of Sliabh-Lugha, and the castle of Cill Calman, were demolished by O’Conor; Roscommon, Rinn-duin, and Uillin-Uanach, wore also burned by him.”
From this period forward the Castle of Rinn-duin appears to have been permanently garrisoned by the English, and its history can be traced only in the English records. In the great roll of the pipe, 1 Edward I. (1273), among the disbursements of John de Saundford of the escheats and wards of the Lord the King, it is stated that £12 18s was paid to Geoffry de Geneville, chief justice of Ireland, for the re-edification and repairs of the Castle of Rendon; and also that 45 shillings were paid to Master Rico le Charpentier (or the carpenter) for 40 stone and 5 pounds of steel for the construction of a certain mill at the same place. Again, in the account of the expenses of the same Geoffry de Geneville, from Wednesday next after the Assumption of the Virgin, anno 1 Edward I., to Michaelmas, 2 Edward I. (1273 to 1274), the following item occurs:—