The ruins of this stronghold are picturesquely situated upon a rocky promontory about three miles east of Portrush, in the County Antrim, which is divided from the mainland by a chasm 20 feet wide and 100 feet deep.

The name Dunluce, or lis, signifies “strong fort,” and in all probability the castle is built on the site of an ancient lis.

The walls of the fortress are constructed of local basalt, and as the columnar structure has been taken advantage of in the dressings of windows and doors, it makes it a difficult matter to compare the date of its erection with other castles by the style of architecture.

It seems likely that the fortress was built in the sixteenth century by the M’Quillans (formerly M’Willies), who derived their title from De Burgo, one of De Courcy’s followers. Experts think that no part of the building is of fifteenth-century workmanship.

The castle was originally confined to the isolated rock, which was connected with the mainland by a drawbridge. Now this part is reached by a footway about 18 inches wide and 20 feet long, supported by an arch.

The strongest walls are on the south and east sides. The drawbridge formerly led into a small enclosed courtyard, at the lower end of which stands the barbican, containing the main entrance, and with an embrasure at one side commanding the bridge. This has corbelled bartizans at the angles of the south gable, which are a Scotch type of architecture.

A strong wall, following the cliff, connects the barbican with a circular tower at the south-east angle called M’Quillan’s Tower. The walls of this building are 8 feet thick, and a small staircase in them leads to the top of both tower and wall.

Formerly another curtain extended from M’Quillan’s Tower along the edge of the rock northward to Queen Maud’s Tower, which is also circular but of smaller dimensions.

On the west and north the castle walls are not so thick as elsewhere, and here the principal domestic offices are situated.

On the north side, over the mouth of the cave which penetrates below, are the remains of the kitchen, where a terrible accident happened during a storm. The date is placed at 1639. The young Duchess of Buckingham, who had married the 2nd Earl of Antrim, was giving a great entertainment, when suddenly the kitchen gave way, and eight servants, including the cook, sank into the waters of the cave below, and were drowned. It is said a tinker, who was sitting in a window mending pots and pans, was the only survivor of those present, and “the tinker’s window” is still pointed out.

The state rooms of the castle are situated behind the towers at the eastern side. The great hall measures 70 feet by 23 feet, and has a large fireplace and three bay windows, which were probably later improvements made by Sorley Boy M’Donnell for his son Sir James, when he took up his abode at Dunluce.

The castle yard is situated between the hall and the parapet wall, and measures 120 feet by 25 feet.

A small vaulted room at the east side of the castle called the Banshee Tower, is pointed out as a haunted chamber.

The oak roof of the chapel, which had been restored in the Duchess of Buckingham’s time (1637-40), was afterwards used to cover a barn in the district.

The buildings on the mainland are of much later date than those on the rock. It is probable that they are later than 1640, though whether they were built, as tradition states, because the domestics refused to inhabit the older castle after the subsidence of the kitchen, or whether the increase of the family’s importance required more accommodation, it is hard to say.

In 1513 a dispute arose between the descendants of Garrett MacQuillin and those of Walter MacQuillin for Dunluce, then in the former’s hands. O’Donnell seems to have placed the Walter MacQuillins in possession.

Sir Thomas Cusake mentions the castle in his account of the expedition against the MacDonnels in 1551, and four years later a fierce dispute arose between the MacQuillins and MacDonnels for the chieftainship of the Route district.

These MacDonnels were of Scotch descent, and in 1565 the famous Shane O’Neill set out to expel the Scots from Antrim.

A great fight ensued, in which James and Sorley Boy (yellow or swarthy Charles) MacDonnel were taken prisoners.

Dunluce held out for three days longer, but Shane kept Sorley Boy without food until the garrison should surrender, which they accordingly did for his sake as well as their own.

O’Neill then put his men in the castle, and is reported to have “kylled and banyshed all the Skottes out of the north.”

James MacDonnel died in Tyrone Castle in 1567—probably from poison. Two years later his death was avenged by one of the clan, who assassinated Shane, and after this Sorley Boy was set at liberty.

At this time an English garrison was in possession of Dunluce, and Sorley Boy crossed to Scotland, and returned with eight hundred picked Redshanks to demand his castles and lands returned by a grant from the Crown.

This request not being at once acceded to, he commenced hostilities, and in a year had re-possessed himself of all his strongholds and lands, except Dunluce. He then renounced all allegiance to the Oueen, raised some more Scotch troops, and took the surrounding country without opposition.

In 1573 he made a partial submission to the Crown, and asked to have the part of the Glynns, which he claimed through the Bysetts, confirmed to him by letters patent, but when the title deeds arrived he cut them up and threw them in the fire, saying—

“By my sword I got these lands, and by the sword I will hold them.”

The next year Mr. Francis Killaway was granted Dunluce under Essex’s scheme of plantation, but in those days possession was more than “nine points of the law,” and when the Lord Deputy, Sir John Perrott, set out with a great army against the Scots of Ulster, in 1584, Sorley Boy’s warder occupied Dunluce.

In the official despatches it is styled the “impregnable” fortress.

The MacDonnels were unprepared for the attack. Cannon was landed at the Skerries and drawn up by men, but when the castle was summoned to surrender, the Scotch captain replied he would hold the fortress to the last man for the King of Scotland.

The siege lasted nine months; the ward of forty men, mostly Scotch, surrendering in September, 1585.

St. Columkill’s Cross was found amongst the treasure by Perrott, who forwarded it, with a jeering letter, to Burghly. It has since been lost sight of.

The Lord Deputy appointed a pensioner called Peter Carey as constable, and a ward of English soldiers.

Perrott reports that Carey dismissed them, and re-filled their places with Northerns, some of whom were in league with MacDonnel, and that one night fifty men were drawn up the rock by ropes made of wythies. He also says they offered Carey his life, but he refused, and retired to a tower with a few men, where he was eventually slain.

This seems a rather unlikely story, and another account states a good many of the garrison were slain, and that Carey being hanged over one of the walls of the stronghold, the English soldiers fled. Carey’s widow was granted a pension.

Having recovered his castle, Sorley Boy made overtures of peace to the Government, which were eagerly accepted, and he travelled to Dublin and prostrated himself before Elizabeth’s portrait. The Indenture, dated 1586, amongst other things, states he was appointed Constable or Keyholder of Dunluce Castle.

His son, Sir James MacDonnel, occupied the stronghold in 1597, and the Governor of Carrickfergus lodged numerous complaints against him, amongst which were his refusal to give up the ordnance he had taken from Don Alonzo’s ship of the Spanish Armada, and his having fortified himself in Dunluce.

The following year Tyrone’s two sons and their tutor were lodged in the castle, and Sir Geffrey Fenton had suspicions that they were placed there as hostages to the Scotch King.

Shortly afterwards open hostilities began between MacDonnel and the Government until Sir James died suddenly at Dunluce in 1601.

The castle was granted to his son, Randel, by letters patent in 1614, to be surrendered if required for a garrison, and he was created Earl of Antrim in 1620.

His son, who succeeded in 1636, married the widowed Duchess of Buckingham. The castle was summoned by the Irish in 1641, and they also burned the town.

The Earl did not join the Rebellion, though many of his relations were in arms. In 1642 Munro came to Dunluce on pretence that some of the Earl’s tenantry were implicated. After having been well entertained, he treacherously seized Lord Antrim and sent him prisoner to Carrickfergus, at the same time plundering Dunluce.

The Earl escaped to England, and his lands, which had been confiscated during Cromwell’s time, were restored to him in 1663; but in the meantime Dunluce had fallen to decay, and does not seem to have been inhabited since.

The Antrim family at present reside at Glenarm Castle.