This castle stands on rising ground above the town of Killyleagh, five miles north-east of Downpatrick, in the County of Down. It was the principal fortress of seven which formerly guarded the shores of Strangford Lough.

About a mile distant is Loch Cleath, or “The Lake of the Hurdles,” so it is probable that Killyleagh signifies “the Church of the Hurdles.”

The gate tower of the castle is entered under a Gothic arch of Glasgow stone from the main street of the town. It is 59 feet in height, and crowned with turrets. Curtain walls on each side connect it with flanking towers, which are again joined by other castellated walls to the castle itself, thus enclosing a rectangular courtyard, which is laid out in grass and flower-beds.

The mansion has an imposing frontage, flanked at both sides by circular towers. One of these dates from the castle’s erection, and the other, which is a copy, from the year 1666. The centre block of masonry was entirely restored in the middle of the nineteenth century. Some of the walls, which were removed at that time, were 15 feet thick, being composed of rubble and excellent mortar.

The old carved stone over the door was copied in Caen stone. The Royal Arms are surmounted by a figure of Charles I., while below are the family arms. The original stone, which was much weather worn, has been placed over a small door at the side.

Most of the stone used at the restoration was quarried on the estate, but the facing stones were brought from Scotland.

One of the special attractions of this charming residence is the beautiful terraced gardens lying to the south. They consist of three tiers of cultivation beginning with the “Box Garden” of trim flower-beds, from which you descend by a flight of rustic steps to “the Rockery Garden” abounding in Alpine plants. Here some beautiful and extremely ancient yew-trees are to be seen, their branches being 120 feet in circumference, while below a small lake in the centre of rose-beds leaves nothing to be desired in its delightful effect.

The castle was erected by Sir John de Courcy shortly after his conquest of Ulster, and in 1356 Edward III. appointed John de Mandeville warden.

After this it fell into the hands of the O’Neills, who retained it up to 1561, when Queen Elizabeth granted the territory to Hugo White. He rebuilt the castle and removed the ward from Dufferin Castle near, to garrison it. After this it was known as “White’s Castle” for many years.

In 1567 the fortress was gallantly defended against a fierce attack made by the great Shane O’Neill, and he was successfully repulsed. The strength of the White family gradually decreased, and in 1590 they could only muster a hundred and twenty foot soldiers and twenty horsemen to defend their lands, while eight years later twenty footmen was the total of their fighting strength.

The M’Artans and O’Neills joined together and dispossessed them, the former family taking possession of Killyleagh. Their estates were, however, forfeited at the close of the sixteenth century for the part they took in the rebellion of the Northern Earls, and some time after this the lands were granted to the Hamiltons.

General Monk partly demolished the castle in 1649, and the Hamiltons began to rebuild it in 1666.

James I. had created the head of the family Earl of Clanbrassil and Viscount Clandeboye, but the last to hold the title died in 1676. It is said he was poisoned by his wife, Lady Alice of Clanbrassil, a daughter of the Earl of Drogheda, who was a beautiful and vicious woman, and after plunging the estate into debt desired to contract a wealthy marriage.

At this time the Earl’s mother, Lady Anne, resided at Killyleagh Castle in accordance with the wishes of her husband’s will.

As Earl Henry left no children the estate was divided amongst his cousins, Killyleagh falling to the lot of James Hamilton. When James died in 1683 his lands were divided between his brother Gawin, ancestor of the present Colonel Rowan-Hamilton, D.L., of Killyleagh Castle, and his daughter Anne, whose granddaughter, Dorcas, married Sir John Blackwood, and was created Baroness Dufferin and Clandeboye.

The division of the estate was accurately made and decided by lot, which had the effect of putting one branch of the family in possession of the half of the courtyard of the castle which lay nearest the town, while the other part was attached to the castle.

This division caused a family feud of some two hundred years in duration. A house was built on the disputed land between the town and castle, and it was only upon the coming of age of the late Marquis of Dufferin, who said it should never be said of him that he kept any man out of his own hall-door, that the contention ended.

The young nobleman presented the land to his kinsman of the castle, to be held by the tenure of the annual tribute of a red rose to the lady of Clandeboye, or should there be no such person, a pair of gilt spurs to the Lord Dufferin of the time. He added to his gift a castellated gate-house, which was erected from designs by Mr. Ferrers.

The last stone was laid by Lord Dufferin upon the morning of his marriage with Miss Rowan Hamilton on the 23rd of October, 1862.

It bears an inscription to that effect, as well as the name of its sculptor, Mr. Samuel Hastings, of Downpatrick.

In 1688-89 Sir Robert Maxwell resided in the castle, having married the widow of the Earl of Clanbrissal. Captain Savage asked to be allowed to garrison the gate-tower so as to be some check upon the disturbances the Protestant party were making in the North. Sir Robert took two days to consider the matter, but in the meantime the soldiers were attacked by Hunter, and the captain and lieutenant taken prisoners.

Soon after the castle was reduced by the Royalists, and in the investigation which followed much credit was taken from the fact that no plundering was allowed. It was stated that such forbearance was wonderful in the face of great provocation, inasmuch as the very day the castle was taken part of Colonel Mark Talbot’s wig was shot off by a bullet from the fortress.

The celebrated United Irishman, Archibald Hamilton Rowan, owned and lived in the castle. He was secretary of the Dublin Society of United Irishmen in 1791, and in 1794 he was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for seditious libel.

The embroidered lavender dress coat, which he wore at his presentation to Marie Antoinette in 1781 or 1782, when in attendance on the Duchess of Manchester, is still preserved as an heirloom in the castle. A pair of pistols presented to Captain Hamilton, R.N., C.B., after the battle of Navarino, by the French Admiral De Rigny, for his gallant services to the French squadron, are also to be seen at Killyleagh.

In 1842 Captain Archibald Rowan Hamilton married Miss Caldwell, of Cheltenham, and seven years later they began to restore the castle.

In 1862 the marriage of the late Lord Dufferin and Clandeboye, with Hariot Georgina, eldest daughter of the late Captain Archibald Rowan Hamilton, 5th Dragoon Guards, was celebrated in the evening of October 23rd, in the drawing-room of the castle.

When the present owner of the castle, Colonel Gawen Rowan Hamilton, came of age in 1864, Lord Dufferin handed him the keys of the gate-tower, to which reference has already been made, saying, “The time is now come for me to hand over to you this gate-house, a gift which I had originally destined for your father, but which, with equal pleasure, I now make to you. I trust that you and your descendants may long continue to enjoy it.”