This public talk was delivered by Colm Donnelly as part of our ongoing Ballycastle Museum redevelopment project supported by The National Heritage Lottery Fund.

In the late 1830s the Ordnance Survey reported a castle in the townland of Clare on the outskirts of Ballycastle on the north Antrim coast. The castle had been home to the McNeill family, but the exact location is now lost. In June 2024, a two-week reconnaissance excavation was undertaken by the QUB Centre for Community Excavation on behalf of Ballycastle Museum and funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund at the location of a rectangular cropmark in a field in the townland to investigate if this might have been the location of the castle.

In addition to reporting on the results of the excavation, Colm discusses the relationship between Clare Castle, Dunineny Castle and the McDonnell’s early seventeenth century tower house located in what is now the Diamond, demolished in 1855.

Click here to find out more about the Ballycastle project