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.
G. Hill, “Macdonnells of Antrim.” Calendar of State Papers. Parliamentary Gazetteer. Proceedings of Archæological Association of Ireland, Papers by R. Young and J. O’Laverty. Joyce, “Irish Place Names.” “The Description and Present State of Ulster,” in _Ulster Journal of Archæology_.
This castle is situated eight miles north-by-west of Dublin, near the village of St. Margaret’s, off the Ashbourne road.
It consists of a splendidly preserved keep about 80 feet high, flanked by four square towers which rise above the roof at each corner. One of these contains a winding stair leading to the battlements, at the top of which a flight of ten steps gives egress to the summit of the watch tower.
The other three towers have little rooms opening off the different storeys.
The ground floor, which was most likely a kitchen, is a large vaulted apartment into which a door has been quarried in later years.
The first floor was once a fine wainscotted room, the walls of which were yet hung with family pictures when D’Alton visited it in 1838.
A flight of wooden stairs connects this apartment with the ground.
The two upper storeys had wooden floors, and the building is still covered by a good slated roof, which is evidently a modern addition. So too are the large square windows, some of which are glazed and others protected by wire netting. The doorways are Gothic.
In the south-west tower is the prison with no entrance except through a hole in the roof by which captives and their food were let down.