Bright Castle

Bright Castle stands on a ridge edge near Downpatrick in County Down. The ruined tower house overlooks rolling countryside from its position on Coniamstown Road. Scheduled as a Historic Monument, it is the only surviving structure in the townland of Bright. The east wall remains fully intact while the north and south walls extend a short distance westward. The rest of the castle has long since disappeared, leaving only fragments of its former shape. The castle was built in the late 15th or early 16th century on land once owned by Janico Dartas. A soldier from Navarre, Dartas came to Ireland with King Richard II and was granted estates for his service. By 1515 the castle passed to Gerald FitzGerald, the 9th Earl of Kildare. Local tradition says a branch of the Anglo-Norman de Russel family once lived here. In 1538 Leonard Grey, Viscount Grane, captured and destroyed many castles in the Lecale region, and Bright Castle may have been one of them. Visitors find a single standing wall with a surviving parapet walk along its top. The east wall is 6.4 metres long and 1.15 metres thick, with three small hourglass windows at ground level. Above, larger windows light the first storey, and a stone-framed window remains on the second storey. Part of the original barrel vault can still be seen in the side walls. The remains suggest square corner turrets once stood here, similar to those at Margaret’s Castle in Ardglass.