In a beautiful setting with excellent views of the Mourne Mountains and Carlingford Lough, Greencastle is mainly 13th-century in date. It was built at royal expense and guarded the southern approach to the Anglo-Norman Earldom of Ulster.
After capturing the town of Carrickfergus in 1315/16, a Scottish army under Edward Bruce headed to the important town of Dundalk, one of the seats of Anglo-Norman power in Ireland. It was also a source of much-needed supplies. The Scottish force marched south, wreaking havoc on the Anglo-Norman Earldom of Ulster. It is likely that the settlements at Dundonald, Downpatrick and Dundrum were razed at this time, with Greencastle captured by the Scottish army of Edward Bruce and a garrison was placed in it under the command of Robert de Coulrath.
It was afterwards retaken by the Anglo-Normans.
Even after the ignominious end to the campaign in 1318, Edward’s brother Robert Bruce continued to maintain an interest in Ireland, even visiting the island on at least two occasions near the end of his life. It is known that in 1327 he visited Glendun on the east coast of County Antrim, and landed at Larne the following year. In 1328 he proposed holding a meeting at Greencastle in County Down to agree a peace treaty between the English and the Scots.
The castle continued to be used until the 1600s. It is now in state care. The most substantial part of the castle to survive is the rectangular keep. Only portions of the surrounding curtain wall remain. The ditch around the curtain wall was cut from rock.
References:Saint-Georges de Boscherville Abbey is a former Benedictine abbey. It was founded in about 1113 by Guillaume de Tancarville on the site of an earlier establishment of secular canons and settled by monks from the Abbey of Saint-Evroul. The abbey church made of Caumont stone was erected from 1113 to 1140. The Norman builders aimed to have very well-lit naves and they did this by means of tall, large windows, initially made possible by a wooden ceiling, which prevented uplift, although this was replaced by a Gothic vault in the 13th century. The chapter room was built after the abbey church and dates from the last quarter of the 12th century.
The arrival of the Maurist monks in 1659, after the disasters of the Wars of Religion, helped to get the abbey back on a firmer spiritual, architectural and economic footing. They erected a large monastic building one wing of which fitted tightly around the chapter house (which was otherwise left as it was).