Environmental Sciences Research Institute

Excavations at Dunluce Castle

The Dunluce project was initiated to investigate the history of the castle, its associated 17th-century town and surrounding landscape and formed part of a major research initiative examining the archaeology of the Plantation of Ulster in the early part of the 17th century. The project was conceived and funded by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) and was conducted by archaeologists from the University of Ulster and the Queen’s University, Belfast. Following an extended period of survey and historical research, a two month period of excavations commenced in May, 2009. The earliest material located was the footings of a 13th- or 14th-century building, associated with Anglo-Norman activity at the site. Within the castle itself the foundations of a large stone built structure were uncovered underlying the first earl of Antrim’s Jacobean house. This may be a hall associated with the McQuillans who occupied Dunluce until the middle part of the 16th century when the McDonnells expelled them.

The project focused on the area where preliminary survey had indicated the site of the former town stood immediately to the east of the castle. Here Randal McDonnell had established an unofficial plantation town by 1611. The foundations of a Scottish merchant’s house, built in the first two decades of the 17th century were uncovered fronting onto the very well preserved cobbled surface of a wide street. The walls of the house still survived to waist height with plastered walls, an internal privy and a fireplace. Numerous finds of bone and pottery provided valuable insights into the lives of these plantation period peoples while a 16th-century Polish coin, kept as a token by the merchants, provided an interesting reminder of earlier Scottish migrations to Poland. What survive at Dunluce are the intact foundations of a complete town built at an important and highly significant period in Ulster’s history. This was a town established and laid out by the first earl to rival the towns set up by the London companies throughout Ulster. It represents a highly significant attempt to mimic the work of the formal plantation and represents an attempt by the McDonnells to capitalize on the political and economic imperatives of the early 17th century, an important period in Ulster’s history.