At Curran Point, at Larne, on the Antrim coast, Olderfleet Castle guards the entrance of Larne Lough. This tower, judged strategic by Elizabeth I, was seized for the Crown as a lock of the Tudor conquest of Ulster, before being rebuilt under the Plantation.
A lock judged strategic
Olderfleet was originally a medieval tower (of the Bissetts). Its position, at the entrance of Larne Lough, made it a control point of the Antrim coast — facing Scotland and its clans. Elizabeth I judged it so strategic that she had it seized for the Crown in 1569, as a lock indispensable to any conquest of Ulster: to control Larne was to watch the comings and goings of the Scottish MacDonnells between the two shores. Sir Moyses Hill was appointed governor there. Olderfleet thus illustrates the Tudor strategy of gripping the passage points of Ulster, well before the Plantation.
From the Crown to Chichester
After being claimed by the MacDonnells in 1597 and dismantled in 1598, the tower was rebuilt — the present building dates from around 1612, in the full Plantation phase. In 1621, it was granted to Sir Arthur Chichester, the Lord Deputy of Ireland and great organiser of the colonisation, who thus added Larne to his vast domain. Olderfleet therefore passed from the status of a royal Tudor lock to that of a possession of a great planter, reflecting the evolution of English policy in Ulster: from military conquest to organised colonisation. To see: the four-storey tower on Curran Point, the position at the entrance of Larne Lough, the harbour context of Larne.
Did you know?
The name 'Olderfleet' is nothing English: it is a corruption of 'Ulfrecksfiord', the Viking name of Larne Lough. For before the Scottish MacDonnells, before the Tudor English, it was the Vikings who, centuries earlier, had recognised the strategic value of this anchorage and given it a Norse name. The Elizabethan tower that guards Larne thus carries, in its distorted name, the memory of the longships — proof that this point of the coast was coveted in all ages.
Notes
Olderfleet Castle lies at Curran Point, Larne, County Antrim; a tower accessible. Hours to check.
Quiz
- Why did Elizabeth I have Olderfleet seized in 1569?
- As a strategic lock of the conquest of Ulster
- For a summer palace
- For an abbey
- To whom was the tower granted in 1621?
- Sir Arthur Chichester
- Sorley Boy MacDonnell
- The pope
- Where does the name 'Olderfleet' come from?
- A Viking name ('Ulfrecksfiord')
- A Latin word
- A Gaelic chief