As excavation at Caherduggan Castle wound down, attention turned to post-excavation research and the people who occupied the site. Historical investigation focused on the 1640s, when Ireland was engulfed in the Eleven Years War and Caherduggan became caught up in the conflict.

The 1641 Depositions preserve witness accounts describing events during the wars. Two witnesses, Patrick Morrell and Elizabeth White, lived at Caherduggan when Irish forces attacked on 15 April 1644. Morrell stated that Redmond Roche and a small party seized the castle by surprise and that an occupant, Dermot O'Brother, was shot dead. Roche then held the castle and some of its occupants hostage.

The remains of Caherduggan Castle, where Patrick Morrell, Elizabeth White and Dermot O'Brother lived in April 1644

Elizabeth White also described the attack, identifying a man called Phelim as the person who shot O'Brother on the bridge beside the castle. She named a number of local men involved and recorded how her husband, John Brice, was later forced to hand over £30.

These testimonies bring one violent day at Caherduggan to life and show the intensely local and personal nature of the conflict. Further documentary work was intended to be combined with the excavated evidence to build a fuller history of the site.

References & Further Reading

1641 Depositions