Monea Castle is a castle in Monea

Monea

Monea is a small village and townland in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, about northwest of Enniskillen. In the 2001 Census it had a population of 114.- Places of interest :...

, County Fermanagh

County Fermanagh

Fermanagh District Council is the only one of the 26 district councils in Northern Ireland that contains all of the county it is named after. The district council also contains a small section of County Tyrone in the Dromore and Kilskeery road areas....

, Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

. It is a State Care Historic Monument sited in the townland

Townland

A townland or bally is a small geographical division of land used in Ireland. The townland system is of Gaelic origin—most townlands are believed to pre-date the Norman invasion and most have names derived from the Irish language...

 of Castletown Monea, in Fermanagh District Council

Fermanagh District Council

Fermanagh District Council is a local council in Northern Ireland. The borders of the district are very similar to those of the traditional County Fermanagh, containing all of that county plus a small section of County Tyrone in the Dromore Road and Kilskeery Road areas. Council headquarters are...

 area, at grid ref: H1647 4937.

Features

The design of the castle, started in 1618, appears to be strongly Scots influenced. It is a rectangular tower house three storeys high, with tall attics and vaulted ground floor. Two massive semi-cylindrical towers sit on either side of the entrance, flanking the short west end of the castle. On the top of the towers are corbel

Corbel

In architecture a corbel is a piece of stone jutting out of a wall to carry any superincumbent weight. A piece of timber projecting in the same way was called a "tassel" or a "bragger". The technique of corbelling, where rows of corbels deeply keyed inside a wall support a projecting wall or...

s and crow-stepped gable

Crow-stepped gable

A Stepped gable, Crow-stepped gable, or Corbie step is a stair-step type of design at the top of the triangular gable-end of a building...

s, giving the Scots appearance.

History

Monea Castle is situated where a Maguire castle would have been based prior to the Plantation and a crannog is still visible.
Building was started in 1616 by the Rector of Devenish, the Reverend Malcolm Hamilton

Malcolm Hamilton (archbishop)

Malcolm Hamilton was a Scotsman who became the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Cashel from 1623 to 1629.He was Rector of Devenish, before being appointed Chancellor of Down in 1612. He was consecrated archbishop of Cashel at Drogheda by Archbishop Christopher Hampton of Armagh on 29 June 1623...

. It had a bawn

Bawn

A bawn is the defensive wall surrounding an Irish tower house. It is the anglicised version of the Irish word badhún meaning "cattle-stronghold" or "cattle-enclosure". The Irish word for "cow" is bó and its plural is ba...

 built later, in 1622, shortly before Hamilton was promoted to become Archbishop of Cashel

Archbishop of Cashel

The Archbishop of Cashel is an archiepiscopal title which takes its name after the town of Cashel, County Tipperary in Ireland. The title is still in use in the Roman Catholic Church, but in the Church of Ireland it was downgraded to a bishopric in 1838....

 in 1623.

In the Irish Rebellion of 1641

Irish Rebellion of 1641

The Irish Rebellion of 1641 began as an attempted coup d'état by Irish Catholic gentry, who tried to seize control of the English administration in Ireland to force concessions for the Catholics living under English rule...

 it was attacked by Rory Maguire, who "slew and murthered eight Protestants

Protestantism

Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...

" here. In 1688 it was occupied by Gustav Hamilton

Gustav Hamilton

Baron Gustaf or Gustav Ludvigsson Hamilton , known as the governor of Enniskillen in Northern Ireland, was colonel, and de jure 3rd friherre of Deserf in peerage of Sweden.-Biography:...

, the Governor of Enniskillen

Enniskillen

Enniskillen is a town in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. It is located almost exactly in the centre of the county between the Upper and Lower sections of Lough Erne. It had a population of 13,599 in the 2001 Census...

, who died in 1691. His wife and children continued to live at Monea, but had to sell the estate in 1704. A few decades later the castle was gutted by fire and subsequently abandoned.