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Siege of Carrigafoyle Castle

Siege of Carrigafoyle Castle
Part of the Second Desmond Rebellion
Date Easter 1580
Location Near Ballylongford, Kerry, Ireland
52°34′08″N 9°29′42″W / 52.569°N 9.495°W / 52.569; -9.495Coordinates: 52°34′08″N 9°29′42″W / 52.569°N 9.495°W / 52.569; -9.495
Result English victory
English forces take castle
Belligerents
Irish rebels allied to the Earl of Desmond, Spanish troops  Kingdom of England
Commanders and leaders
Captain Julian Sir William Pelham
Strength
roughly 66 soldiers, more civilians 600

The Siege of Carrigafoyle Castle took place at Easter in 1580 near modern-day Ballylongford, County Kerry, Ireland on the southern bank of the Shannon estuary. The engagement was part of the English crown's campaign against the forces of Gerald Fitzgerald, 15th Earl of Desmond during the Second Desmond Rebellion. The castle was held by rebel troops in the service of Desmond and some Catholic troops from continental Europe.

Carrigafoyle Castle - built by Conor Liath O'Connor-Kerry in the 1490s and considered one of the strongest of Irish fortresses - was a large tower house, of the type particularly common across the north of the province of Munster. It stood on a rock in a small bay off the Shannon estuary, and its name is an anglicisation of the Irish, Carraig an Phoill ("rock of the hole").

The castle was known as The guardian of the Shannon because of its strategic command of the shipping lanes that supplied the trading city of Limerick, some 20 miles (32 km) upriver. The bay at Carrigafoyle was shielded from the estuary on the northern side by a wooded island; within the bay the castle-rock was defended on the west and south sides by a double defensive wall; the inner wall enclosed a bawn, and surrounding this was a moat covered on three sides (the east lay open) by the outer wall, where a smaller tower stood. The tower-keep itself was 86 ft high, and the precipitous sides of the castle-rock were layered with bricks and mortar. At high tide the walled landing within the moat was capable of accommodating a ship of 100 tons displacement.

During the rebellion the castle was held by 50 Irish, along with 16 Spanish soldiers who had landed at Smerwick harbour the previous year in the 1579 Papal invasion; there were also women and children present. Months earlier an Italian engineer, Captain Julian, had set about perfecting the castle's defences under the direction of Desmond's countess, Eleanor. By the time of the siege she had retired to her husband's company - some forty miles (64 km) distant, at Castleisland - while Julian was still at his task.


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