Keep on The Crana  

This little structure is locally known as ‘O’Doherty’s Keep’. It resembles a 15th-century fortified tower house but recent excavations revealed that it may possibly be a corner tower of an undocumented 13th-century Norman castle. It came into the possession of the O’Dohertys in the 1400s who used it as a part of their network of castles around Inishowen. In 1588, it ‘housed’ sailors from the Spanish Armada caught by Sean Óg O’Doherty after being shipwrecked in Kinnegoe Bay. In 1608, Cahir O Doherty led a famous rebellion against the English and the keep was destroyed by fire in reprisal and granted it to Sir Arthur Chichester. It was then leased to Henry Vaughan whose grandson George laid out the new town of Buncrana in 1718 about 1km from the original site at this keep. The keep also had a famous ‘visitor’ in 1798 when Wolfe Tone was captured aboard a French frigate in Lough Swilly and was imprisoned here before being taken to Dublin.