“A. D. 1199. John de Courcy, at the head of the English of the North, and the son of Hugh de Lacy, at the head of the English of Meath, marched to Kilmacduach to aid Cathal the Red-handed O’Conor. Cathal Carrach, at the head of the Connacians, gave them battle. The English of Ulidia and Meath were defeated with such slaughter, that of their five battalions only two survived, and these were pursued from the field of battle to RINN-DUIN on Lough Ree, in which place John was hemmed in. Many of his English were killed and others drowned, for they had no mode of effecting their escape but by crossing the lake in boats.”
It was not, however, long after this event till the English, taking advantage of the civil wars which raged in Connaught between the sons of Roderick and the sons of Cathal the Red-handed, got the peninsula of Rinn-duin into their own hands, and, fortifying it in their own more skilful manner, erected the noble castle, the ruins of which still remain, and form the subject of our prefixed illustration. The erection of this castle is thus recorded in the Annals of the Four Masters:--
“A.D. 1227. Hugh, the son of Roderick O’Conor, and William de Burgo, marched with a great army to the north of Connaught, burned _Inis Meadhoin_, plundered the country as they passed along, and took hostages. Geoffry Mares (or de Marisco), and Turlogh, the son of Roderick O’Conor, marched with an army into _Magh Aoi_ (county of Roscommon), erected a castle at RINN-DUIN, and took the hostages of Siol-Muireadhaigh.”
It was at this period also that the lower portion of the peninsula was artificially insulated as an additional protection to the castle, by a broad ditch, still to be seen, though no longer filled with water, and which is connected with a beautiful little harbour for boats, called Safe Harbour, immediately beneath the castle.
But though, as we have shown, the peninsula of Rinn-duin was thus fortified by the English, it was not till the power of the O’Conors was still more broken by their own divisions, that the former were able to keep permanent possession of it. From a subsequent record in the Annals of the Four Masters, we find it shortly after in the possession of Turlogh O’Conor, the son of Roderick, who had been set up by the English in opposition to his cousin and rival Felim, the son of Cathal the Red-handed, and by whom he was ultimately slain. This record gives a curious picture of the mode of warfare of the time, and is worth presenting to our readers in full:--