Preservation Work
April 18, 2026 2026-04-22 3:42Preservation Work
Preservation Work
The castles of O'Dubhda country are not ruins so much as roofless rooms — walls still holding a family memory that no state body has the resources to keep standing alone.
The work of protecting them has, for decades, fallen to local volunteers: community development groups, heritage trusts, and landowners quietly clearing ivy, commissioning surveys, and raising the funds that keep the stone from coming down. This page gathers what that work looks like today, and where the clan can help.
Enniscrone Castle Field
A heritage exploration led by Enniscrone and District Community Development CLG, 2023–
In 2023, Enniscrone and District Community Development CLG embarked on a remarkable heritage exploration of the Castle Field — the fortified house whose earliest attested reference appears in the 1417 inaugural poem for Tadhg Riabhach ó Dubhda, preserved in the Book of Lecan.
Funded by the Heritage Council's Community Heritage Grant Scheme, the project has brought together scholarly and technical expertise usually reserved for state archaeology:
- Dr Paul Naessens of Western Aerial Surveys captured the site in LiDAR, orthophotography, and digital surface modelling — revealing a previously unrecorded earthen bank and ditch encircling the castle, and a wider archaeological landscape of ringforts and probable megalithic tombs along the esker ridge.
- Frank Jay Hall of the University of Galway has re-analysed the surviving masonry, dating the diamond chimney stacks to the late sixteenth century and classifying the building as a stronghouse of exceptional quality — a site that blends elite residence, administrative centre, and defensive fortress in one structure.
- The work is ongoing. Interpretation panels, public talks, and a continually updated project page sit at the heart of the programme.
For the O'Dubhda — whose chieftains were inaugurated within sight of this very castle — the Enniscrone CLG's stewardship is a gift. The page below carries their full account, photographs, and the detailed architectural analysis.
Easkey Castle Needs the Same Attention
A vulnerable O'Dubhda castle, and a community that could save it
The castle at Easkey — one of the most atmospheric O'Dubhda sites on the Sligo coast — is in a far more fragile state than Enniscrone's. Storms off the Atlantic, ivy, and decades without a conservation plan have taken a steady toll. Without intervention, walls that have stood since the fifteenth century will not stand much longer.
We believe similar community work is needed, and likely already underway or being proposed — whether through Easkey's own local development CLG, Sligo County Council's heritage office, or the Heritage Council's grant schemes that made Enniscrone's project possible. But we do not yet have a clear picture of who is doing what.
If you know of a group working on Easkey Castle — or have experience of heritage-grant applications, structural surveys, or community fundraising — the clan wants to hear from you. This is the kind of project the O'Dubhda should be supporting, and we want to do it properly.
A Note from the Clan
This page is maintained by clan volunteers. If any detail here is wrong, outdated, or if you know of preservation work at an O'Dubhda site we've missed, please write in — we will correct and expand as quickly as we can.
Contributions of local knowledge, photographs, contacts with heritage bodies, and offers to help fundraise are all welcome. Get in touch.
