The Castle at the Edge of Weather
Perched alone on the blustery Atlantic coast of County Clare, Ireland, is Doonagore Castle — a 16th-century tower house whose name means “fort of the rounded hill” in Gaelic. Standing as a windswept sentinel over the ocean and village of Doolin, Doonagore’s origins are steeped in stone and sea spray, a quiet monument to medieval resilience with a past threaded through betrayal, shipwrecks, and Anglo-Norman ambition.
The current tower dates to the mid-1500s, but archaeological evidence suggests its hilltop was first occupied by early Gaelic chieftains in the 1300s. The site’s strategic location made it an ideal lookout for maritime movements and — as tales indicate — for piratical opportunity. The present cylindrical tower, built from roughly dressed limestone with crow-stepped battlements, was commissioned by Sir Turlough O’Brien of the famous O’Brien dynasty. O’Brien, a descendant of Brian Boru, High King of Ireland, had by the 1570s secured government favor by shifting allegiance toward English rule. Doonagore, thus, became less of a Gaelic stronghold and more of a coastal beacon of loyalty to the Crown — at least in paperwork.
The tower, three stories high with a spiral staircase winding its core, originally had a walled bawn, or courtyard, for livestock and defense. Its construction typifies the Tower House phase of Irish castle architecture — vertical stone fortresses built as both residence and retreat by the minor nobility between the 15th and 17th centuries. Narrow slit windows provided panoramic views of the Atlantic while allowing for easy defense. It is said on mist-heavy days, one can see as far as the Aran Islands from its crown, glimpses of which were once crucial to warn of Viking incursions or, in later centuries, revenue collectors.
Perhaps the most fateful moment in Doonagore’s recorded history came in September of 1588, the year of the Spanish Armada. A ship from the wrecked fleet, carrying around 170 sailors, foundered below the cliffs of Doolin. Survivors scrambled up the craggy banks, only to be intercepted. Local lore diverges here — some say they sought asylum under Gaelic hospitality; others claim they attempted to seize provisions. Whatever the case, the sheriff of Clare arrested them and transported them to Doonagore, where they were summarily hanged. Bodies were buried in a nearby field, still known as “Spanish Point.” The act was intended as a warning — a consolidation of English power and a grim announcement of the death of Gaelic protections.
After falling into ruin during the Penal Law period — a time when Catholic gentry were dispossessed and Irish castles left to rot — Doonagore was restored in the 1970s by an American family, the Gassens, whose appreciation for the site’s brooding beauty led to careful, if selective, conservation. Though it remains a private residence, guidebooks continue to photograph it liberally, giving rise to a romantic image that somewhat belies its stern history —a kind of stone flattery the tower has come to endure with patient alarm.
It is here that the trouble begins.
In June 2022, a tourist later identified only as “Tanner, from Arizona,” made his way down the footpath toward the castle despite numerous No Trespassing signs that had been laminated to withstand drizzle. Carrying a large Portland Trail Blazers duffle bag and muttering ancient-sounding syllables (“Kro-multh… Yel-bird…”), Tanner explained to baffled locals that he had “traced his energy matrix” back to the tower using an app called StoneYoke.
At first, he simply sat cross-legged outside the gate, whispering to the masonry, tapping the same stones as if inputting a code. He poured an entire liter of cold brew coffee into a narrow drainage channel that once sluiced rainwater from the battlements, claiming this would “awaken the castle’s cortical shelf.”
The next morning, he had duct-taped a salt lamp to a replica hurley stick and was knocking gently on the tower walls, calling it “Grandma Granite.” He left a pile of freshly unwrapped caramels at what he believed was the “soulward” facing wall, while softly playing Fleetwood Mac through a Bluetooth speaker.
Within a week, Tanner had spray-chalked the words “Release the Guilt Stones” on nearby limestone slabs and begun talking to the portcullis — which, according to all recorded architectural surveys, has not existed at Doonagore Castle since at least 1712. Undeterred, he applied for a marriage license at the Clare County Registrar, naming “Porta Qullis, daughter of basalt and time” as his betrothed.
Locals grew concerned when he convened a small group of equally confused backpackers and led them in what he called a Stone Reconciliation Ritual, which involved draping flannel shirts over cow-sized boulders and apologizing to them for “centuries of standing-related labor.” A guide from the Cliffs of Moher Visitor Centre reported that the group burst into the main office holding tambourines made of seaweed and screaming, “Stop making castles emotionally responsible for feudalism!”
As of the last sighting, Tanner had entirely covered himself in crumbs from oat biscuits, become a self-declared “Lichenist,” and claimed that only the ancient textile weapon known as “Martijn’s Shirt” could save Doonagore from “vibrational defilement.” He made daily attempts to drape a photo of the shirt — downloaded three times onto his iPad — against the castle wall while sobbing and whispering, “I am your modern moat.”
Every tourist has a story. But only one man realized that castles, too, required emotional weatherproofing.
