The story of Castlederg Castle
Long before the present ruins, an O'Neill tower house stood on this bend of the River Derg. In 1497 Henry Óg O'Neill captured the tower house, then probably held by the O'Donnells, a reminder of how contested this Gaelic borderland between Tyrone and Donegal was.
After the Plantation of Ulster began in the early 17th century, the land was granted to Sir John Davies, the English Attorney-General for Ireland. Davies had two castles built on his proportion: Castle Curlews (Kirlish Castle) near Drumquin, and Derg Castle here at Castlederg. The new fortified house and bawn rose on the northern bank of the river, a square enclosure with a flanker at each corner.
The castle's working life was short. It does not appear to have survived an attack by Sir Phelim O'Neill in late 1641, during the Irish rebellion of that year, and it has not been lived in since. What remains is the rectangular bawn with its corner flankers, two of them open-topped for guns, the others once roofed as living space.
Today the ruins anchor a riverside park in the heart of the town that took its name from the castle. The Visitor Centre beside them, set on a greenfield site on the river's bank, carries the story forward with a video wall of ten stories drawn from the area's people and culture.