Belfast Castle
Belfast Castle is a mansion located in Cave Hill Country Park in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in a prominent position above sea level. Its location provides unobstructed views over the City of Belfast and Belfast Lough. There have been several structures called "Belfast Castle" over the centuries, located on different sites. The current "castle" is a Victorian structure that was built between 1867 and 1870 on the slopes of Cave Hill, and it is Grade A listed. The main entrance into the Belfast Castle Demesne is now where Innisfayle Park meets Downview Park West, just off the Antrim Road. The original main entrance into the current demesne was formerly on the Antrim Road itself, where Strathmore Park now meets the Antrim Road.
History
Medieval and Early Modern Castle
There have been several structures called "Belfast Castle" over the centuries; not all of these structures have been on the same site. In fact, all the earlier structures called Belfast Castle were on a completely different site, and in a completely different area of Belfast, from the current Belfast Castle. Originally, a castle had been erected at Béal Feirste by the 1220s, probably to guard the important ford across the River Lagan. This medieval castle may have been built by the Normans, who invaded East Ulster in the late twelfth century. These Norman invaders carved out a territory for themselves which was centred on Carrickfergus, this territory later becoming known as the Earldom of Ulster.By 1333, a small settlement is thought to have developed around the castle at Belfast. This original "Belfast Castle", located on what later became the County Antrim side of the River Lagan, was probably in the area now bounded by Donegall Place, Castle Place, Cornmarket, and Castle Lane in the centre of what is now Belfast City Centre. Although originally built in either the late twelfth-century or the early thirteenth-century, this castle was "rebuilt" on several occasions between the 1220s and the 1550s, possibly being "rebuilt" on the same site or on an adjacent site. This original, medieval castle was almost certainly on, or very near, the same site as the much later "Plantation-era" castle developed for Lord Chichester.
This original High Medieval, Late Medieval and Early Modern castle site was on the southern bank of the River Farset, being located on a sliver of land that was bounded by the Farset to the north and the River Owenvara to the south. Both the River Farset and the River Owenvara emptied into the River Lagan just to the east of this castle site.
File:O'Neill of Clanaboy.png|thumb|centre|upright|Arms of the Uí Néill of Clandeboye.
The medieval Belfast Castle was eventually seized by a branch of the powerful Uí Néill dynasty of the Cénel nEógain, probably at the end of the fourteenth-century or the beginning of the fifteenth century. The Uí Néill almost certainly had Belfast Castle rebuilt at some stage, probably as a Gaelic towerhouse, either building on the same site as the Norman castle or else building their towerhouse very near to that site. This branch of the Uí Néill carved out a túath or Gaelic territory for themselves in South Antrim and North Down, this túath soon becoming known as Clann Aedha Buídhe. The Uí Néill of Clandeboye maintained Belfast Castle as one of their main residences, with the castle and its surrounding túath largely remaining in their hands throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with a few brief exceptions.
The castle was briefly taken in 1476 by Éinri mac Eoghain Ó Néill, Rí na Tír Eoghain, usually known during his lifetime as "the Great O'Neill", when he "attacked the castle of Belfast which he took and demolished". The rebuilt castle was again briefly seized from the Uí Néill of Clandeboye in 1489, this time by Aodh Ruadh Ó Domhnaill I, Rí na Tír Chonaill, an immensely powerful Gaelic ruler from the west of Ulster. Ó Domhnaill, whose chief residence was Donegal Castle in Donegal Town, had invaded Clandeboye with his army and "took and demolished the Castle of Belfast, and then returned safe to his house loaded with immense spoils".
In the early sixteenth-century, Belfast Castle was seized on three occasions by two senior-ranking members of the House of Kildare, part of the wider Geraldine dynasty. The castle was briefly occupied twice by the forces of The 8th Earl of Kildare, the Lord Deputy of Ireland and the leading Geraldine at the time. Lord Kildare seized the castle and sacked Belfast in 1503 and again in 1512. His son and heir, The 9th Earl of Kildare, also seized the castle, this time in 1523. Gearóid Óg, Lord Kildare, had succeeded his father as Lord Deputy of Ireland in September 1513, also succeeding his father as the Geraldine leader at the same time. After briefly taking Belfast Castle from Aodh Ó Néill, Lord of Clandeboye, in 1523, this Lord Kildare reported to King Henry VIII: "I brake a castell of his, called Belfast, and burned 24 myle of his country ".
Belfast Castle was briefly occupied by English forces in 1552, when the castle was possibly rebuilt on the orders of Sir James Croft, who was serving as the Lord Deputy of Ireland at the time. Another occasion when Belfast Castle was briefly seized from the Uí Néill of Clandeboye was in the 1570s, when English forces, initially under the command of The 1st Earl of Essex, occupied the castle for a few years during the short-lived Enterprise of Ulster.
During the Nine Years' War in the 1590s, English forces again occupied Belfast Castle, taking it over from the Uí Néill of Clandeboye. In June 1597, the forces of Shane McBrian O'Neill, the Lord of Lower Clandeboye and son of Sir Brian mac Feidhlimidh Ó Néill, attacked the castle and overpowered its English garrison, summarily executing all the prisoners that they captured. English forces, under the command of Sir John Chichester, soon marched north to retake Belfast Castle from the Uí Néill of Clandeboye, which they did in July 1597. Chichester reported back to his superiors that his forces had retaken the castle "without anie loss to us, and put those wee found in yt to the sworde ". Chichester then placed Belfast Castle and its surrounding settlement under the command of Sir Ralph Lane, the Elizabethan adventurer. Lane, the then Muster Master-General, had previously served, over a decade earlier, as Governor of the ill-fated Roanoke Colony in what is now North Carolina.
Sir John Chichester, who had been appointed as Governor of Carrickfergus Castle, soon fell out with the previously neutral MacDonnells of the Glens. In a battle fought in November 1597 against the MacDonnells at Altfrackyn, a townland just north of Ballycarry, an English force was overpowered and suffered 180 men killed. Chichester was killed by the MacDonnells during or immediately after this battle, possibly by being beheaded. Sir John Chichester was the fifth son of Sir John Chichester of North Devon, and he was the younger brother of The 1st Baron Chichester.
Clandeboye Massacre
In October 1574, during the Enterprise of Ulster, The 1st Earl of Essex and his retinue were invited to a feast at Belfast Castle by Sir Brian mac Feidhlimidh Ó Néill, Lord of Lower Clandeboye. The feast was to celebrate a newly signed peace agreement between the English Crown and Sir Brian. After three days and nights of feasting and celebrations inside Belfast Castle, the soldiers accompanying Lord Essex suddenly set upon and killed most of the family and retainers of Sir Brian inside the castle. It seems this massacre was ordered by Essex himself. This event is usually known as the Clandeboye Massacre. The castle was then seized by Essex and his forces. Sir Brian mac Feidhlimidh Ó Néill was not killed during this massacre. Instead, Sir Brian, along with his wife and his brother, were arrested by Lord Essex and, later in 1574, all three were executed in Dublin.Plantation Castle
By 1603, Belfast Castle, which was probably a Gaelic towerhouse by this time, was in ruins, largely as a result of the Nine Years' War. In July 1603, Sir Arthur Chichester, then Governor of Carrickfergus Castle, offered to rebuild Belfast Castle if he was "granted" Belfast and its surrounding lands by the Crown. Chichester, who had been one of the most notorious English commanders in Ireland during the Nine Years' War, received a King's letter in August 1603, which officially put him in charge of Belfast Castle and its surrounding lands. In a patent dated 5 November 1603, the Crown granted to Sir Arthur Chichester "The Castle of Bealfaste or Belfast, with the Appurtenants and Hereditaments, Spiritual and Temporal, situate in the Lower Clandeboye, late in the possession or custody of Sir Ralph Lane Knt., deceased". A new grant of the castle and its surrounding lands was made by the Crown the following year, in May 1604, again to Chichester, who would serve as Lord Deputy of Ireland between 1605 and 1616.File:ArthurChichester BaronChichesterOfBelfast Belfast Harbour Commissioners.jpg|thumb|centre|upright|The 1st Baron Chichester, Lord Deputy of Ireland 1605-1616.
Sir Arthur Chichester was also "granted" a vast estate in Inishowen in County Donegal, over in the north-west of Ulster, in 1608 or 1609. This huge estate covered almost all of Inishowen, and had been seized by the Crown from the Ó Dochartaigh clan in the aftermath of the rebellion of Sir Cathaoir Ruadh Ó Dochartaigh, Lord of Inishowen, in 1608. Chichester, as Lord Deputy of Ireland, ensured that the huge Ó Dochartaigh lands in Inishowen were granted to himself. However, very little of this Inishowen estate was ever run directly by the head of the Chichester family; from the early seventeenth century onwards, almost all of this vast estate was sublet by the Chichesters to several lesser landlords, often described as "middlemen", on very long-term leases. Most of this huge Inishowen estate was eventually sold off by the Chichester family via the Encumbered Estates Court in the 1850s and later in the nineteenth century.
When the head of the Chichester family was advanced in the Peerage of Ireland to being an earl in 1647, they took the title Earl of Donegall due to the family's ownership of this vast estate in Inishowen. The head of the family was further advanced in the Peerage of Ireland to being Marquess of Donegall in July 1791.
File:Marquess of Donegall COA.svg|180px|thumb|centre|upright|The current Arms of the senior line of the Chichester dynasty, who have been Marquesses of Donegall since 1791. The coronet of a marquess can be seen above the escutcheon.
Sir Arthur Chichester, one of the main architects of the Plantation of Ulster, had Belfast Castle largely rebuilt in the early 1610s, mainly in brick. It is almost certain that Chichester had his "Plantation" castle built on the site of the Gaelic Uí Néill towerhouse. Chichester may even have incorporated parts of the Uí Néill structure into his new castle. However, when in Ulster, Lord Chichester, as he later became, usually resided at Joymount House in nearby Carrickfergus rather than at the "Plantation-era" Belfast Castle. Lord Chichester had only one child with his wife, a son, who died in infancy. Thus, upon his own death in February 1625, Arthur, Lord Chichester, was succeeded in his estates and properties by his younger brother Edward, who was created The 1st Viscount Chichester later in that same year. The Chichester family were to own the town of Belfast from around 1603 up until the early 1850s, when their Belfast estate was largely broken up and sold off.
File:Ground Plan of Belfast.png|thumb|Ground plan of Belfast as drawn by Thomas Phillips, 1685. The Plantation-era Belfast Castle is depicted at the upper end of the centre of the drawing. Phillips drew Belfast upside-down, with North being at the bottom of the drawing.
On the 24 April 1708, the "Plantation-era" Belfast Castle, which had been built for Lord Chichester, accidentally burnt down, killing three sisters and one servant of The 4th Earl of Donegall. This castle was never rebuilt. Following this fire, the senior line of the Donegall family left Belfast. The head of the Donegall family would not live in Belfast again for almost a century, until The 2nd Marquess of Donegall settled in Belfast in 1802, establishing his main residence there.