Athlumney Castle, County Meath

https://www.discoverireland.ie/Arts-Culture-Heritage/athlumney-castle/49088

Beside Athlumney are the ruins of Athlumney castle which has a 17th century house attached. It was built in two periods. The older part is a Tower House built in the 15th century. It has three storey and its thick walls and slit windows speak of a time when castles were used for defence and not for comfort. Inside is a spiral staircase with little rooms opening off it. Holes for floor beams remain on the first floor level. 
The newer part of the castle is attached to the tower to its left. This was built in the late 16th century or early 17th century. It is three storey manor house with four sets of widely spaced mullioned windows. It had large corridors and its ground floor kitchen provided heat for the first floor rooms where the Lord lived. The doorway is cut limestone and there is an oriel window on its eastern wall.

In 1649 when Cromwell was attacking Drogheda, the Maguires who occupied the castle set fire to it to thwart Cromwell. Nearby are the ruins of a 14th century manorial church with triple belfry. In the vicinity there is a motte and bailey.

This is a settlement complex where one can trace the changing forms of a manorial building in Meath since the Norman conquest, it features a motte or artificial hill of the first settlement in the late 12th century.

https://archiseek.com/2015/1630-athlumney-castle-co-meath

1630 – Athlumney Castle. Co. Meath

Constructed over several centuries – the classic form of the fortified Irish tower house visible as part of the Jacobean mansion. The mid-fifteenth-century tower house, built by the Dowdall family, was considerably enlarged around 1630 by a long, narrow gabled mansion with large mullioned windows and a fine oriel window. 

The tower house has four storeys, with an attic and four projecting corner turrets of different sizes containing the stair, latrines and small chambers. 

The house was now occupied by the Maguires who in 1649 set fire to the building rather than surrender it to Cromwell’s forces who were scouring the area razing all in their path to the ground. The Castle was again set alight around the time of the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 and has remained a ruin since.

https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/14010042/athlumney-castle-convent-road-athlumney-navan-co-meath

Three-stage tower house, c.1500. Four-bay three-storey extension, c.1650, with mullioned windows and gables. Burnt in 1649. Now in ruins. Double-pitched roof with tall chimney stacks to extension. Rubble stone walls. National Monument in state care.

https://theirishaesthete.com/2020/03/09/athlumney/

‘Immediately approaching Navan, the river [Boyne] makes a bold sweep round the foot of the hill, from which rise up the ruins of Athlumney Castle, the dilapidated towers and tall gables of which shoot above the trees that surround the commanding eminence on which it is placed, while glimpses of its broad, stone-sashed and picturesque windows, of the style of the end of the sixteenth century, are caught through the openings in the plantation which surrounds the height on which it stands. This beautiful pile consists of a large square keep, with stone arched floors and passages rising into a tower, from which a noble view can be obtained on a clear day; and a more modern castellated mansion, with square stone-mullioned windows, tall chimneys and several gables in the side walls.’

‘Of the history of the castle of Athlumney and its adjoining church, there is little known with certainty; but, standing on the left bank of the Boyne, opposite this point, we cannot help recalling the story of the heroism of its last lord, Sir Launcelot Dowdall, who, hearing of the issue of the battle of the Boyne and the fate of the monarch to whose religion and politics his family had been so long attached, and fearing the approach of the victorious English army, declared on the news reaching him, that the Prince of Orange should never rest under his ancestral roof. The threat was carried into execution. Dowdall set fire to his castle at nightfall and, crossing the Boyne, sat down upon its opposite bank, from whence, as tradition reports, he beheld the last timber in his noble mansion blazing and flickering in the calm summer’s night, then crash amidst the smouldering ruins; and when its final eructation of smoke and flame was given forth, and the pale light of morning was stealing over that scene of desolation, with an aching and despairing heart he turned from the once happy scene of his youth and manhood, and, flying to the continent, shortly after his royal master, never returned to this country. All that remained of this castle and estate were forfeited in 1700. Many a gallant Irish soldier lost his life, and many a noble Irish gentleman forfeited his broad lands that day. We wish their cause had been a better one, and the monarch for whom they bled more worthy such an honour.’

‘Tradition gives us another, but by no means so probable story about Athlumney Castle, which refers to an earlier date. It is said that two sisters occupied the ancient castles of Athlumney and Blackcastle, which latter was situated on the opposite bank of the river; and the heroine of the latter, jealous of her rival in Athlumney, took the following means of being revenged…’

‘…She made her enter into an agreement, that to prevent their mansions falling into the hands of Cromwell and his soldiers, they should set fire to them at the same moment, as soon as the news of his approach reached them, and that a fire being lighted upon one was to be the signal for the conflagration of the other. In the mean time, the wily mistress of Blackcastle had a quantity of dry brush-wood placed on one of the towers of the castle which, upon a certain night, she lighted; and the inhabitants of Athlumney perceiving the appointed signal, set fire to their mansion and burned it to the ground. In the morning the deception was manifest. Athlumney was a mass of blackened, smoking ruins; while Blackcastle still reared its proud form above the woods, and still afforded shelter to its haughty mistress.’

Extracts from The Beauties of the Boyne, and its Tributary, The Blackwater by Sir William Wilde (1850)

http://irishantiquities.bravehost.com/meath/athlumney/athlumney.html

Map Reference: N877674 (2877, 2674)

This is a 15th century tower-house with four storeys plus attic. There are projecting corner towers. The castle has a barrel vault above the ground floor and access to this level is through a modern doorway in the S wall. The original entrance was in the W wall and was protected by a murder-hole leading from a small room below the first floor level. 

Access to the upper floors is by a spiral stairway in the NW corner. There is a gallery in the N wall at the upper level of the vault. There is a fireplace at the first floor and a garderobe at the SE corner. A mural stairway in the S wall leads down to the small room from which the murder-hole leads. A mulit-gabled three-storey house is attached at the S and W. It is four bays long with fine mullioned windows and probably dates from the early 17th century. The large fireplace in the S wall is flanked by ovens and there is another oven near the N wall. A projection in the W wall near the S end housed the stairs.

There is an oriel window in the S wall at the first and second floors. The doorway in the E wall has pecked decoration and a small carved knot. The castle ws burned in 1649 by the Maguires to prevent its capture by Cromwell and again in 1690 after the Battle of the Boyne to deny William of Orange. 

https://meathhistoryhub.ie/houses-a-d/

Athlumney House, dates from the eighteenth century and sits on the east bank of the Boyne, just south of Navan. The Metge family were Huguenot refugees fleeing the persecution of Catholics in France. Peter de la Metgee was the first of the family to arrive in Ireland. Settling at Athlumney he married Joyce Hatch and had four daughters and a son. He died aged 70 in 1735 and was succeeded by his son Peter.

Peter held lands at Athlumney and Warrenstown, Dunboyne. Peter was married to Ann Lyon, a family from which a Queen Mother in England was to descend.  On the staircase of Athlumney there were some carved oak ornaments brought over from Glamis Castle by Janet Lyon. They had four sons and eight daughters. Peter Metge died in 1774. Two of his sons served as MPs in the Irish House of Parliament.

Peter Merge, eldest son of Peter Metge of Athlumney, was MP for Ratoath 1783-4 and also served as magistrate and portreeve (Mayor) of Navan. Peter was a lawyer.  He served as M.P. for Boyle and became Baron of the Exchequer. Baron Metge was a local commissioner appointed to supervise the Boyne Canal in 1787.

John Metge, second son of Peter Metge of Athlumney, was MP for Ratoath 1784-90. A captain in the 4^th Dragoons he acted as Henry Grattan’s second in his famous duel with Corry in 1800. Peter became deputy auditor general of the Irish Treasury. John later went on to represent Dundalk in the parliament in Westminister on three separate occasions. He served as a seatwarmer for the Earl of Roden who was patron of Dundalk. John also acted as a representative for Lord Roden and signed deeds on his behalf.

John inherited Athlumney on the death of his brother, Peter and he was succeeded by his son, Peter Ponsonby. In 1830s Athlumney was home to Peter Ponsonby Metge and was described as “beautifully situated on the banks of the Boyne, commanding some pleasing views and the demesne is well planted and tastefully embellished.” In the 1800s an underground passage, a souterrain, was discovered at Athlumney and featured in many learned books of the era.

In 1876 Peter Ponsonby Metge of Athlumney held 788 acres in county Meath.  Peter’s brother, John Charles, settled at Sion and in 1876 J. C. Metge of Sion, Navan held  968 acres in Westmeath.

Peter Ponsonby died in 1873 and was succeeded by his nephew, Robert Henry Metge.

Robert Henry Metge was M.P for Meath from 1880 to 1884. He married Frances Lambart, daughter of Rev. Charles Lambert, rector of Navan and grand-daughter of Gustavus Lambert of Beauparc. Robert Henry died in 1900 and was succeeded by his son, Robert Henry. Another son Captain Rudolph Cole Metge died as a results of wounds suffered during the first World War. 

Robert Henry was born in 1875 and married Mary Galway Creagh of Mallow in 1914. Major Robert Henry Metge, fought in the Boer War and was a survivor of the siege of Ladysmith. He served as a captain in the Welsh regiment and was major in the Leinster regiment. When he returned to Athlumney he fished regularly in the Boyne. In 1930 he wrote a letter to the Irish Times complaining of the decline in the fishing stock in the Boyne and its tributaries.  Major Metge came into possession of the seal of the corporation of Navan. He lent it to the National Museum but it was later acquired by Randolph Hearst.  Metge supported the efforts of Sir Nugent Everard in promoting the growing of tobacco in the county. He also bred pedigree British Berkshire pigs. Major Metge was a member of the Navan branch of the British Legion. His wife died in May 1939.

In the early 1900s Athlumney was leased to a Mr. Collier, owner of Collier’s Weekly and New York magazine. The Duc d’Orleans visited Mr. Collier there. The Duke was the pretender to the throne of France. Some of the Metge Estate was purchased under the 1923 Land Act. Later the house was occupied by the McEntegart and Farrell families.

Metge’s Lane in the centre of Navan commemorates the family today.