Arial views of Donovan Castle, County Cork, Ireland

Arial views of Donovan Castle, County Cork, Ireland. Filmed in 4K with a DJI Mavic 3 on a grey and windy day.
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Castle Donovan, also spelled as Castledonovan, lies on a rock on the east bank of the River Ilen in the townland of the same name, in County Cork in Ireland.
The castle is 47' long, 26' wide and 61' high with 6' thick walls topped with a parapet. The Castle was divided into various chambers or rooms. The bottom room was used for storage and gunpowder. It is built on a very solid rocky foundation and faces south of the valley. The main door was of heavy oak and was situated in the western-side.
It was the principal seat of the O'Donovan Clan and built c.1560 by Donal O'Donovan or Dónall na gcroiceann, so called because when he was a young child his mother had to wrap him in skins to conceal him from his enemies. It may have been built over an earlier fortification to guard the northern border of the sept’s lands. At that time it was called Sowagh Castle. Donal died in 1584 and was followed by his son, also called Donal. The son; Donal II, surrendered it to the English government in 1592. It was regranted to him in 1612. He repaired or further altered the castle in the 1620s but was not living there anymore at that time.
According to tradition the castle attacked with cannons by Oliver Cromwell's soldiers in 1649 in retaliation for Donal III O'Donovan siding with the Stuarts and participating in the Rebellion of 1641. This left the castle severely damaged and it was abandoned.
In 1654 the remains of the castle and its surrounding lands were confiscated again and granted to Nathaniel Evanson, a lieutenant in the Cromwellian army. The castle, however, was never rebuilt.
The damage caused by the 17th century attack had made the ruin unstable and in 1936 the southwest corner of the castle collapsed.
Tower Houses
Tower Houses are defended residences or small castles built by the better-off members of society in many parts of Ireland in late medieval times - the 15th and 17th centuries. They consist of tall, usually rectangular towers often of four or five storeys with either a spiral stairs or lengths of straight stairs within the walls giving access to the upper floors.
There was usually only one main room on each floor. Normally at least one of the floors consisted of a stone vault, while the others were of timber. In many examples the vault formed the floor of the main upper room of the tower house, which was the solar, the main reception room of the building, at the top of the stairs. The other floors contained more private rooms - bedrooms and living rooms for the family - while the ground floor, with only narrow defensive slits giving little light, was generally used for storage. The roof was usually surrounded by a parapet with stepped crenelations behind which the occupants could defend the building against attackers.
Though sometimes tower houses survive in isolation, they would originally have been surrounded by other buildings, often within a defensive walled enclosure known as a bawn. Sometimes the bawn itself was defended with corner towers and a gatehouse.
In 1429 King Henry IV decreed that anyone who constructed a tower house within the Pale (a contested area surrounding Dublin), that was at least 20 feet long, 16 feet wide and 40 feet height, would be paid £10 as a subsidy (O’Brien, 1977, 19). Many authors used this to explain the huge number of Irish tower houses. £10 would not have induced many minor nobles to start building such a specific structure and it is probable that they met a need for defended residences and that they were built in an Irish vernacular design similar to towers found in northern Italy and Provence.
While earlier castles in Ireland dating from the late 12th to the 14th centuries were built mainly by the Anglo-Normans and tower houses were built by both the Anglo-Normans and Gaelic families.
Music:
‘The Green Barons’ by Alon Ohana (licensed from Artlist)
Location:
maps.app.goo.g...
References:
www.castles.nl...
en.wikipedia.o...
www.duchas.ie/...
www.clarelibra...

[@Simon.in.Ireland]

Thanks for watching arial views of Donovan Castle. If you enjoyed it, please give it a like, add a comment or, even better, subscribe to my channel 🙂.

[@Simon.in.Ireland]

PS: this is the penultimate video the 'tower' series.. coming next are videos of my recent trips to some of the more remote lighthouses in Northern Ireland, Ireland and Wales.