Monea castle facts for kids
Monea Castle is an old castle found in Monea, a village in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. It's a special historical site looked after by the government. You can find it in an area called Castletown Monea, within the Fermanagh District Council region.
What Does Monea Castle Look Like?
The building of Monea Castle started in 1618. Its design looks a lot like castles from Scotland. It's a tall, rectangular building with three main floors and high attic rooms. The ground floor has a strong, arched ceiling.
Two very large, round towers stand on each side of the entrance, at the shorter, west end of the castle. On top of these towers, you can see special stone supports called corbels and stair-shaped roof edges known as crow-stepped gables. These features really give it that Scottish style.
A Brief History of Monea Castle
Monea Castle was built where an even older castle, belonging to the Maguire family, might have stood before the Plantation period. You can still see signs of an ancient island fort, called a crannog, nearby.
Building the castle began in 1616. The person who started it was Reverend Malcolm Hamilton, who was a church leader in Devenish. A strong outer wall, called a bawn, was added later in 1622. This was just before Hamilton became a very important church leader, the Archbishop of Cashel, in 1623.
During the Irish Rebellion of 1641, the castle was attacked by Rory Maguire. Sadly, eight Protestant people were killed there during this time. Later, in 1688, Gustav Hamilton, who was in charge of Enniskillen, lived in the castle. He passed away in 1691. His family continued to live at Monea for a while, but they had to sell the property in 1704. A few decades later, a fire badly damaged the castle, and it was left empty after that.
