[1] The castle was built in 1625 by James Shaw of Scotland,[2] who had come to the area and rented the land from Randal MacDonnell, the Catholic Earl of Antrim for £24 a year.

[4] Over the main entrance door to the castle, leading to the tower, is the Middle Scots inscription "Godis Providens is my Inheritans".

[5] During the Great Rebellion of 1641, the Irish garrison stationed at Glenarm tried to take the castle, then more fortified than today, several times but without success.

[6] In the late 1730s, the Shaw children were tutored by the later pioneering educator and master of a Belfast "play school", David Manson.

[9] The rectangular Scottish baronial-style castle has four storeys, walls of about 1.5 metres thick, four corner turrets and a flanking tower at the northeast side with an entrance and stone spiral stairs.