Moyry Castle, Military fortress in County Armagh, Northern Ireland.
Moyry Castle is a stone fortress in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, featuring a rectangular tower that rises three stories with rounded corners. The thick walls contain gun loops and musketry loopholes for defense, with each floor having a fireplace built into the north wall.
Lord Mountjoy built this fortress in 1601 to control the strategic Moyry Pass during his military campaign in Ulster. This passage, also known as the Gap of the North, was a key location for military control in the region.
The name Moyry comes from the Irish term Maġ Rí, meaning plain of the king. This title still shapes how people understand the location's role in the regional landscape today.
The castle sits on Kilnasaggart Road in Jonesborough and can be viewed from the Belfast-Dublin railway line. The structure is best observed from various spots along the road for clear views.
The musketry loopholes are not evenly distributed across all walls, but instead concentrated in specific areas of the structure. This uneven placement shows the specific defensive strategies that were planned when building the fortress.
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