The progress of improvement and the
increasing security of the times had,
however, tempted its successive proprietors, if
not to adorn, at least to enlarge their
premises, and at about the middle of the
last century, when the castle was last
inhabited, the original square tower formed
but a small part of the edifice.

The castle, and a wide tract of the sur-
rounding country, had from time immemorial
belonged to a family which, for
distinctness, we shall call by the name of
Ardagh; and owing to the associations
which, in Ireland, almost always attach to
scenes which have long witnessed alike the
exercise of stern feudal authority, and of
that savage hospitality which distinguished
the good old times, this building has
become the subject and the scene of many wild
and extraordinary traditions. One of them
I have been enabled, by a personal acquaintance
with an eye-witness of the events, to
trace to its origin; and yet it is hard to say
whether the events which I am about to
record appear more strange or improbable
as seen through the distorting medium of
tradition, or in the appalling dimness
of uncertainty which surrounds the
reality.