Westropp — Fortified Headlands if Castles, S. Coast of Munster. 121 



mortgaged the castle to Florence, son of Sir Donough MacCarthy, Lord Gerald 

 having himself married into that family. This alarmed the Government ;' 

 they took Florence prisoner the very day when he, having " compassed the 

 title of Old Head," " minded to ryde thither to take possession." 

 Sir Geoffrey Fenton alludes to MacCarthy's attempt to acquire it, and seems 

 to have inspected it when he rode round the coast in 1595. It was handed 

 back to Lord John to " ease her Majesty of the charge of the ward now kept 

 there" ; but was used as a watch tower in 1602, when Sir Eichard Percy sent 

 a sergeant and six men to it to watch for the Spaniards. Their reports picture 

 vividly their anxious watch — they thought they heard ordnance out to sea 

 or saw a " tall ship " in the gloom, or were told of small scouting- vessels 

 rounding the head, but " the Spanish fleet they could not see," for none was 

 sent after the fall of Kinsale. 2 Their approach to the place had been seen 

 from it, September 23, 1601, and in 1667 watch was kept for the Dutch, and 

 the English fleet caused much alarm. After the death of Elizabeth, Lord John 

 and his son and successor Gerald enjoyed the royal favour ; John surrendered 

 Old Head, and got a re-grant by Letters Patent from James I, 1620 ; and 

 he asserted his right to the title of Kinsale. 3 In 1647 Patrick, Lord Courcey, 

 Baron of Kinsale, wrote to the Lord President of Munster petitioning for 

 " the Castle of the Ould Head, detained from him under pretence of a 

 warrant from his Lop [Lordship] for the service of the State." 4 The last of 

 the family to reside at Old Head were Gerald, the twenty-fourth Baron, and 

 his wife. She died at the Head in October, 1750. 5 He lived there for nine 

 years more, and after his death the castle fell into ruin. 



The Buildings. 6 — The castle stands at the foot of a low hill crowned by 

 the old signal-tower, a relic of the old fear of French invasion under 

 Napoleon. 7 It has a fine outlook to the Seven Heads, and Galley Head over 

 them, and in the other direction westward on to the Doons, Barry Head, and 



1 Cal. State Papers Ir. ; also Journal 11. Soc. Antt. Ii\, vol. viii, consec, p. 388, and 

 Fiant 5029. 



2 Cal. State Papers Ir., 1601-3, p. 478. 



3 "Council Book of Kinsale " (Richard Caulfield), p. xv, Egerton MS. 19,865. The 

 petition was by Lord John and his son, Gerald, 1627, Ap. 2. 



* Southwell MSS. (" Council Book Kinsale "), p. 331. 



5 G. E. C, Complete Peerage, iv, p. 396. In the same year (1750) Smith, vol. i, p. 211, 

 however, says, " two miles from the Old Head is the seat of Lord Kingsale." 



6 The only paper on the Old Head in recent years, Cork Hist, and Arch. Soc. Journal, 

 vol. xviii. (1912), p. 77, only gives a few lines on the ruins. John Windele's sketches 

 are in mss. 12 J. 9, R. I. Acad., George Du Noyer's in R. S.A.I. Collection, vol. viii, 

 pp. 735-740. Windele has a tradition that the castle was first built by an O'Kearney, 

 others say that "it was ruined by the French." Neither seems true. 



7 Smith's " Cork," vol. ii, p. 320. 



R.I. A. PROC, VO"L. XXXII., SECT. C. I s 



