Tully Castle (Fermanagh)

From the Illustrated Dublin Journal, No. 7, October 19, 1861

THE castle of Tully is situated on the southwestern shore of the lower lake of Lough Erne, county Fermanagh. Amongst the English and Scotch settlers "planted" in this county, the most largely endowed with the confiscated estates of the Irish was Sir John Humes, or Hume, the founder of the castle the ruins of which, as they appeared some years since, form the subject of our illustration. The property of Sir John, consisting of nearly five thousand acres, remained in the possession of his male descendants till the demise of Sir Gustavus Hume, in 1731, who dying without surviving male issue, it passed into the possession of the Loftus family.

The castle was for some time the chief residence of the Hume family, but on the breaking out of the Civil War of 1641, it became the refuge of many of the English and Scotch settlers of the county, who were besieged in it by the Irish forces, under the command of Rory, brother of Lord Maguire. The garrison having surrendered on a promise of quarter for their lives, and safe conduct to either Monea (illustrated in our third number) or Enniskillen, is said to have been inhumanly massacred, and the castle pillaged and burned. It does not appear to have been re-edified after this. In its general character, as shown in its ruins, it seems to have been a keep, or castle, turreted at the angles, and surrounded by a bawn or outer wall. Pynnar, writing of it in 1618, describes it as a “bawne of lime and stone, an hundred feet square, fourteen feet high, having four flankers for the defence. There is also a fair strong castle, fifty feet long, and twenty-one feet broad. He hath made a village near unto the bawne, in which is dwelling twenty-four families."