School: Dean Kelly Memorial (roll number 16639)
- Location:
- Athlone, Co. Westmeath
- Teacher: D. Cahalene
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0748, Page 173
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Dean Kelly Memorial
- XML Page 173
- XML “Local Ruins”
Note: We will soon deprecate our XML Application Programming Interface and a new, comprehensive JSON API will be made available. Keep an eye on our website for further details.
On this page
- There are many interesting old ruins all through the country. The one I like best in Athlone is the Castle. It is situated on the bank of the Shannon on the Connacht side of the town. It was built in the sixteenth century by the English, but it was built up again in the year (1761) by Sir John De Gray, an Englishman.At the siege of Athlone the Irish were in possession of it, but when the English succeeded in getting across the bridge it was taken by them. Once when there was a big store of powder in it the powder caught fire and nearly all of the castle was blown up. But it was rebuilt and it stands there still.It was originally built there as a defence against any invading army because it over looks the road leading from Dublin and commands a good view of the Shannon. That means if an army was approaching they would be seen and the soldiers could shoot them through the port-holes. Then there is a place where the soldiers used to have the cannon placed. These guns could be pointed in any direction if a cannon ball was to be fired.(continues on next page)
