Lough Rynn Castle

Lough Rynn Castle (Irish: Caisleán Loch na Reanna) is a luxury castle hotel on the shores of Lough Rynn in Gortletteragh County Leitrim, Ireland situated on the historic grounds of the medieval castle and estate of the Mac Raghnaill family of Muintir Eolais.

Lough Rynn Castle and estate is located on an isthmus between the lakes of Lough Rynn and Lough Erril. It is some 4 km from Mohill, 145 km from Dublin City on the N4 and 155 km from Galway City. The nearest airport is Ireland West Airport, 99 km away.

The current Lough Rynn estate is built on the ancestral lands of Clan Maelsechlainn-Oge Mac Raghnaill, the pre-Conquest rulers of this part of County Leitrim known as Muintir Eolais. The Annals of Loch Cé and Annals of Connacht refer to "the crannóg of Claenloch" (Lough Rynn) in the High Middle Ages (1247 AD), with the structure marked on some maps as "Crannoge" or "Crane Island", while the medieval Mac Raghnaill's Castle is mentioned in 1474 AD. The ruins of Mac Raghnaill's Castle are located close to the lake and some 500 metres from the existing Lough Rynn Castle. Historian Fiona Slevin describes the structure of the castle as "fairly standard for the time, but it did have a few unusual - and clever - features.

Although a square shape, the castle had rounded corners that made it more impervious to artillery attacks and it had a straight stairway carved into the hollow of a wall, rather than the more usual spiral stair in one corner."

The Mac Raghnaill family played an important role in the Nine Years War as allies of Aodh Mór Ó Néill in resisting the English conquest of Ireland.

In the English Plantation of 1621, the Mac Raghnaill lands in Lough Rynn were confiscated and granted to an English family named Crofton. The Croftons brought British Protestant settlers with them and in the 1620s and 1630s the native Irish were gradually removed from the land.

In 1750 the Croftons were replaced by another English family named Clements. Daniel Clements, an officer in Oliver Cromwell's army, had been granted land in County Cavan which had been confiscated from the Irish following the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. In 1750, Nathaniel Clements acquired the Lough Rynn estate, while remaining on his lands in Cavan. Nevertheless, the Clements became involved in political life in Leitrim with Robert Clements becoming sheriff for the county in 1759.

Text adapted from “Lough Rynn Castle” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lough Rynn Castle ranks #5,317 of 8,134 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #93 of the 173 mapped in Ireland. See how Ireland compares in the castle statistics.

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