Carrickfergus Castle

Besieged in turn by the Scottish, rebel Irish, English, and French, the castle played an important military role until 1928 and remains one of the best preserved medieval structures in Northern Ireland.

Initially de Courcy built the inner ward, a small bailey at the end of the promontory with a high polygonal curtain wall and east gate.

From its strategic position on a rocky promontory, originally almost surrounded by sea, the castle commanded Carrickfergus Bay (later known as Belfast Lough), and the land approaches into the walled town that developed beneath its shadow.

[2] The castle also appears in the official English records in 1430 when King John laid siege to it and took control of what was then Ulster's premier strategic garrison.

The ribbed vault over the entrance passage, the murder hole and the massive portcullis at either end of the gatehouse are later insertions started by Hugh de Lacey who died in 1248 and did not live to see its completion in around 1250.

During the early stages of the Nine Years War (1595–1603), when English influence in the north became tenuous, crown forces were supplied and maintained through the town's port.

In 1778, a small but significant event in the American War of Independence began at Carrickfergus, when John Paul Jones, in the face of reluctance by his crew to approach too close to the Castle, lured a Royal Navy vessel from its moorings into the North Channel, and won an hour-long battle.