Dunseverick Castle
Historical Moyle, Northern Ireland
About Dunseverick Castle
Perched on a steep basalt promontory above the Atlantic on County Antrim's Causeway Coast, Dunseverick is one of the oldest fortified sites in Ireland. Recorded in the Irish Annals as Dun Sobhairce — the fort of the chieftain Sobhairce — it was already an important place by the 5th century AD, and from around the 7th century it served as a stronghold of the Dál Riada, the Gaelic kingdom that spanned northeast Ireland and western Scotland. One of ancient Ireland's five great royal roads, the Slige Midluachra, had its northern terminus right here, connecting this windswept headland all the way to Tara. Saint Patrick is said to have visited and baptized a local man who went on to become a bishop. The Vikings attacked it twice, and Cromwellian forces finally destroyed it in the 1650s. What remains today is little more than the ruined gatehouse walls and some earthworks, which are actually all the more atmospheric for it. The Causeway Cliff Path passes directly by, placing it between Giant's Causeway to the west and Dunseverick Harbour to the east.
Location & details
- Category
- Historical
- Region
- Moyle, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom
- Coordinates
- 55.23836, -6.44820
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