In 1642 Lord Castlehaven retook Lea, and at this time some of the brass money known as St. Patrick’s halfpennies was struck here. These coins have the letter L on them and are very rare.
O’Neill is said to have lodged in the castle.
The Parliamentary Colonels, Hudson and Reynolds, took and dismantled the fortress in 1650.
It was repaired and held by lease under the Crown by an O’Dempsey until confiscated after the fall of the Stuarts. In 1695 it was granted to the Earl of Meath as part of Sir Patrick Trant’s estate.
A horse stealer called O’Dempsey and nicknamed “Shamas a Coppuil,” or “James the Horse,” inhabited it at the beginning of the eighteenth century until the Government interfered.
Hampden Evans owned it in 1791, and it afterwards passed to Viscount Carlow.
The following legend was related by Widow Gorman in 1818 to Miss French of Glenmolire, and noted by her:--
Redmond M’Comon O’Byrne, chief of Donamace and Leagh, had two gigantic sons named Roderick and Maurice. The latter was married to a daughter of The O’Neill and had one son called Connell.
Upon the death of the old chieftain O’Byrne, he divided his territory between his sons, leaving Donamace to the elder, Roderick, and Leagh to the younger, Maurice.
Roderick, believing he should have inherited all his father’s possessions, determined to murder his brother.
One stormy night he set out alone from Donamace, and having tied his horse beneath a grove of ash-trees near the castle of Lea, he let himself in by the postern, with the key of which his unsuspecting brother had entrusted him.
Reaching Maurice’s chamber he murdered him in cold blood, but not before his victim had cried out to his son to revenge his death by a brother’s hand.
Roderick seized the body and, carrying it to where he had left his horse, put it into a leather bag that he had brought with him. Arriving at Dunamace he threw the body into a very deep well, thinking it would never be discovered.
Maurice’s son, Connell, had heard his father’s cry for vengeance in his dreams, but upon awaking and finding his father gone, with blood stains on the floor and stairs, he knew he had actually heard his voice.
The young chieftain, armed with two great sabres of equal size, proceeded to his uncle’s stronghold, and presenting himself before him, demanded satisfaction. In the duel which followed both combatants were killed, and it is said no grass grows in their footsteps on the rock until this day.