DUNLUCE CASTLE, COUNTY ANTRIM.- The above storied fortess-now a roofless ruin-is situated on a high point of the coast of Antrm, within a few miles of the town of Portrush. In Gaelic its name is Dun-lios, which is interpreted "the strong for. To the west is the Route, the soft low lands, stretching out to the River Bann at Coleraine. To the east are the Glens, the high lands of Antrim.

DUNLUCE, or DOONLISS, a parish, in the barony of LOWER DUNLUCE, county of ANTRIM, and province of ULSTER, 6 miles (N.N.E.) from Coleraine (county Derry), on the road to the Giants' Causeway. Dunluce stands on the north coast of Antrim between Portrush to the west and the Giant's Causeway to the east. Its early history is obscure, but it may have been built about 1200 by Richard de Burgh, Earl of Ulster, or one of his followers - at any rate by a Norman knight. Many of these knights settled in Ireland after the Norman Conquest of England, eventually becoming, so it was said, more Irish than the Irish.

At the beginning of the 16th century the castle was in the hands of the MacQuillans, a native Irish family, but by the latter part of that century Somhairle Buidhe MacDonnell (Yellow-haired Sorley, somewhat ridiculously Englished as Sorley Boy) had established himself there. Sorley was the ancestor of the Earls of Antrim and the 6th and youngest son of Alasdair Cahanagh MacDonnell of Dunnyveg (Dun Naomhaig) and the Glens (the chief of Clan Iain Mhoir). The Earls of Antrim and the Earls of Desmond feuded during the reconquest without the Geraldines.

From perhaps as early as 1200 Scots families, who had, of course, originally come from Ireland when the Scottish Dalriada was established, had moved to Ulster and other parts of Ireland, where they helped the Irish to win back lands from Anglo-Normans who had settled there.

There were constant comings and goings between Ireland and Scotland at that period and Sorley MacDonnell could, and often did call up reinforcements from Scotland by lighting a beacon fire on the coast - on Fair head perhaps or Torr Head or above Murlough Bay. On a clear day its flames could be easily seen from the Scottish coast and it only took 2 to 3 hours, in fair weather, for redshanks to cross in their galleys from Islay or Kintyre.

Sorley died in 1590 and was succeeded by .his son James, who died in 1601 and was succeeded by his brother Ranald. In 1601 Ranald allied himself with the Earls of Tyrone (Ó Neill) and Tyrconnel (O'Donnell), the failure of whose rising culminated in what is known as the "flight of the Earls". He died in 1636 and was succeeded by his son Ranald, Marquis, the 2nd Earl, who settled down at Dunluce, remarried, his second wife being Rose Ó Neill, daughter. The title of marquis of Antrim was in abeyance of the Popish Plot, not existing and as far as the Isles, no priest was too many if nobles were named.

of Sir Henry Ó Neill of Shane's Castle. During the rising of Sir Phelim Ó Neill, a Scots Army garrison under Colonel George Monro was put into Dunluce and remained there until 1648. This army was made up of what are known as the New Scots, i.e. not Highland galloglaigh or redshanks but a Covenanting army. Munro had escaped from his Scottish captors in Ulster, looked in on the Confederate Irish at Kilkenny, and organized the expedition to Scotland of Alasdair MacColla - Sorley's great-great-nephew, they became the mainstay of Montrose's army.

It is built on an isolated rock, fully a hundred and twenty feet above the level of the waves that foam at its base; and the walls of the old catle rise sheer from the precipitous height, which gives the place a most formidable aspect. In the period of its prime, it must have been impregnable, except to treachery or starvation. The remains indicate a Norman origin, and tradition says that it was one of the castles erected by the brave and adventurous Sir John de Courey, in the twelfth century, to protect his interests in Ulster. It was once connected with the mainland by a sort of draw bridge, but this has disappeared, and communication is now kept up by means of long planks, laid over an old viaduct. The structure on the land side of the awful chasm is believed to be of comparatively modern origin. Dunluce has, of cours, its "Baashee" or wailing ghost, which regularly gives warning of the approaching death of some member of the family that originally occupied the castle. The McQuillans wrested the fortress from the English in the fourteenth century. In the reign of James I. they were cozened out of their possessions by one Chichester, whose descendant bears the title of Marquis of Donegal.

A VIEW OF GLENARM CASTLE, CO. ANTRIM. -The castle of the Earl of Antrim from its own park,.

These Antrim MacDonnells have had a stormy history, long gone and it is difficult to fix the period at which they first appeared in Ireland. In the main, although of undoubted Scottish origin, they fought with the native Irish against the common enemy. For centuries, they were lords of "the Glynns of Antrim," and, after rendering faithful service against Elizabeth's armies, were shamefully treated by Shane Ó Neill, the Proud, at the instigation of the English Queen's ministers, who were his temporary "allies." We are not certain whether the MacDonnells of Glenarm are lineally descended from the particular family with whom Ó Neill quarreled, but they belong to Clan Clanaboy. The castle is of comparatively modern origin, dating from the middle of the eighteenth century. It is regarded as one of the most graceful aristocratic seats in Ireland.