Tully Castle - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Tully Castle is a castle

Castle

A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...

situated in 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...

, near the village

Village

A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...

of Blaney

Blaney

Blaney is a small village and townland in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. It lies on the southern shore of Lower Lough Erne, west of Enniskillen. It is within the Fermanagh District Council area.- History :...

, on Blaney Bay on the southern shore of Lower Lough Erne

Lough Erne

Lough Erne, sometimes Loch Erne , is the name of two connected lakes in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. The lakes are widened sections of the River Erne. The river begins by flowing north, and then curves west into the Atlantic. The southern lake is further up the river and so is named Upper...

. The Blaney area takes its name from Sir Edward Blaney

Edward Blaney

Sir Edward Blayney, also Blainey or Blaney was a Welsh soldier in Ireland. He became Baron Blayney of Monaghan in the Peerage of Ireland....

, who was among the English advance party sent to Fermanagh to organise the Plantation

Plantation of Ulster

The Plantation of Ulster was the organised colonisation of Ulster—a province of Ireland—by people from Great Britain. Private plantation by wealthy landowners began in 1606, while official plantation controlled by King James I of England and VI of Scotland began in 1609...

.

Tully Castle is a fortified house with a rectangular 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...

and was built for Sir John Hume, a Scottish planter, in 1619. The bawn had four rectangular corner towers. During 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...

, Rory Maguire set out to recapture his family’s lands. He arrived at Tully Castle with a large following on Christmas Eve, and found the castle full of women and children. Most of the men were away. Lady Mary Hume surrendered the Castle, believing that she had assured a safe conduct for all in her care, but on Christmas Day the Maguires killed 60 women and children and 15 men, sparing only the Humes. The castle was burnt and the Humes never went back. Captain Patrick Hume later testified about the events of Christmas Day, 1641, saying:

And afterwards that same day, the rebels having stripped the Protestants of all their clothes (except the said Lady Hume), they imprisoned them in the vaults or cellars of the said castle, where they kept them with a strong guard all that night, and the next morning, being the Lord’s Day, and the 25th day of December, 1641, they took the Lady Hume, Alexander Hume, John Grier, and this examt., with their wives and children, away from the rest of the prisoners, forth of the said castle, and placed them in the barn of one John Goodfellow at Tully, aforesaid, within a stone’s cast from the castle, putting them in hopes that they meant to convey them to the Castle of Monea, upon horses which they provided for them, but as for the rest that were then left behind in the Castle of Tully, the rebels told those in the barn that they should go on foot after them to Monea aforesaid. But immediately after, upon the 25th of December, 1641, at Tully Castle and within and about the bawn and vaults of the same, in the county of Fermanagh, the rebels did most cruelly and barbarously murder the said Protestants, to the number of men and 60 women and children or thereabouts, the names of the persons so murdered followeth, viz.: Francis Trotter, Thomas Trotter, Alexander Sheringfield, Alexander Bell, George Chearnside, Robert Black, James Barry, Thomas Anderson, Robert Lawdon, John Brooke, David Anderson, James Anderson, and many others - men, women, and children - whose names this deponent doth not now remember. The actors in this massacre, this examt. saith, for the most part are since that time dead, or slain as he heard, and as for such of them as survive, this examt. remembers not their names. And this examt. saith, after the said rebels did pillage and plunder the said castle, they did burn it on the day and year aforesaid. And further this examt. deposeth not anything material. PTK. HUME.

Thereafter, the Hume family seat was replaced nearby with Castle Hume Hall designed by Richard Cassels

Richard Cassels

Richard Cassels , who anglicised his name to Richard Castle, ranks with Edward Lovett Pearce as one of the greatest architects working in Ireland in the 18th century. Cassels was born in 1690 in Kassel, Germany. Although German, his family were of French origin, descended from the...

.

Tully Castle and village site are State Care Historic Monuments 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 Tully, 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: H1267 5664.

See also