Top 10 Wastes, Forts & Castles of the Northwest

Where victors & losers vied to tell Ireland’s TALE 

The Scriptorium at Bru Moytura with its cosy accommodation is the perfect base to explore the mysteries of the Chronicles of Ireland, most of the surviving ones having been written up in the middle of a rough diamond shaped zone cornered by Bundoran, Belle Isle, Boyle & Ballina 

1. West of Boyle Golf Club

Noah’s granddaughter and Ireland’s FIRST WOMAN, is supposedly buried in a beautiful sombrero shaped cairn earthwork 100 yards west of Boyle Golf Club’s #1 tee-off. CESAIR’S arrival in Ireland with 49 other women forms the opening item of four of our surviving Annals of Ireland. Thereafter the Irish Annals are short of women. 

2. Holy Trinity

Within easy reach of Bru Moytura, Holy Trinity Island/Lough Key: final resting place of the Vulgate tradition of the World Chronicle reaching back to St. Jerome (390AD to 1590AD) with The Annals of Lough Key. Go by boat from Lough Key Forest Park marina or Doone Shore. 

3. The Annals of Boyle

The Annals of Boyle, written by both Gaelic & Anglo Norman Cistercian monks at Boyle Abbey, are a vital link between older Annals, now lost and formed much of the basis for The Annals of Ulster. They span from the Creation to 1253AD. The monastery is open most days. They are now held in the British Library. 

4. Moygara Castle

Moygara Castle, overlooking Lough Gara, which exits through the Boyle river. Here The Annals of the Four Masters was delivered to its patron and retained there. One other copy, in those tumultuous times was sent to the Irish College Louvain, Belgium for safe keeping. This was the end point of a World Chronicle reaching back to Eusebius with a Septuagint yearly chronology and became Ireland’s most famous Annals, part of a line of logging that had kicked off in 303AD.

5. Kilronan Castle, 

Kilronan Castle, Site where The Annals of Kilronan were written up by the hereditary scribes the O’Duibhgeannans for clan McDermott and others, greatly used by the Four Masters and a large part of the background to The Annals of Lough Key. 

6. Cluain Plocain 

Cluain Plocain near Elphin ( linked to the O’Conor Dons of Clonalis House & King Rory O’Conor last High King of Ireland ) 9ish miles south of Boyle where the Irish & Latin Annals of Connaught’s pages were assembled by the hereditary Maolchonaire family. The original no longer exists but likely is the “the olde booke” referred to as inspiration for its translation into English in the 1630s, as yet in the British Library. By boat on a western inlet of the Shannon there is a landing spot near The Silver Eel, an easy walk to where Cluain Plocain from there. 

7. Lecan & Ballymote

The Book of Ballymote Ireland’s quirkiest compendium of King-lists, native stories and classical lore was created at the tail end of the 1300s at the request of the MacDonagh clann of Corrain.

Lecan (close to Enniscrone ) Across the Ox Mountains, not to be outdone by Ballymote, The O’Dowds had The Annals of Lecan (it googles as a townland of Lackan) and The Geneologies of Dubhaltach (pronounced close to ‘double-talk’ ) Mac Fhirbisigh. Though its annals section that has survived is scant. Without the scholarship of Lecan the adventures of The Children of Lir would not be known to us. 


The Geneologies & Book of Ballymote combined inform of 12,000 individuals and 1,960 lineages, not just of the locality but of much of Ireland & some of Scotland.  

8. Fenagh 

Fenagh, County Leitrim; The Book of Fenagh not quite in the linear tradition of the other Annals but has importance and a museum there explains the origins of its monastery with some information on its annals-esque aspect. Can be reached via boat too, heading east/north via the Shannon Erne waterway. 

9. Belle Isle 

Belle Isle where the mighty Annals of Ulster were assembled, the most extensive annals before 1600. On the west side of Upper Lough Erne. Up the lake a little is Lisgoole where the Four Masters worked on their Book of Invasions which later informed The Annals of the Four Masters first items. 


Belle Isle: on the castle grounds there is a monument honouring The Annals of Ulster. They were assembled in the late 15th / first half of the 15th century by 2 x Ruaidhrís: Ó Caiside & Ó Luinín 

10. Bun Drowse: Four Masters

The River Drowse where the Four Masters did most of the writing of their epic Annals, their grandest tome, that concluded with the death of Hugh O’Neill in Rome in 1616AD, thus wound up an as good as seamless tradition reaching back to 303AD and Emperor Constantine christianising his empire. Like our Scriptorium their shelter was wooden where they did their work, some place along this river between Four Master’s bridge and where its waters open into Lough Melvin. 

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