by Paul Bradley

We’ve all spotted those towers overlooking so many of the county’s most remote edges, and moseyed over to have a better look.

Some of them are just crumbly old shacks now, with nothing much to recommend about them except their locations.

Others are sturdier, stonier, and still in good nick (some of them, in fact, are now used as private homes). Why the difference, if they’re all part of the same system?

We often tend to call them all Martello towers, but that’s not strictly correct. The stronger mini-forts (like the one at Rathmullan) are Martello towers, but others between them are mainly signal towers (in fact there are other more modern ruins in many of the same places – these are different in origin, and we’ll get to them in a future column).

The Martellos were fortified, housing soldiers and armouries, but the other towers (like the dilapidated one at Horn Head) were not defensive in nature, and were built to transmit messages from one Martello to another.

The two types were sometimes known as the “eyes” and “fists” of coastal defense: the signal towers to spot threats, the Martello towers to take action.

The late 1700s and early 1800s were a period of immense geopolitical tension. The French Revolution had upended Europe, and Napoleon’s ambitions were boundless. Ireland, in particular, was a vulnerable flank for the British.

The 1798 Rebellion, which had seen a small French force land in Killala, County Mayo, proved that the threat was not just theoretical. In response, the British government launched a massive, rapid construction project to build a line of defensive towers around the entire Irish coastline. The goal was to create an instant warning system, far more effective than dispatching horsemen across the interior.

Specifically, it was a Rear Admiral Whitshed who, influenced by the success of one Corsican defensive tower erected during the French Revolutionary Wars, proposed and largely oversaw the construction of similar structures all along Ireland’s coast.

The Donegal towers were built between 1804 and 1812, under the direction of the Royal Engineers. In fact, most of the 81 towers across the country were operational by 1806, an indication of the urgency of the situation.

They were strategically located on high ground with commanding views of the sea and the surrounding landscape, and able to communicate with neighbouring towers by semaphore: if, for example, an armada was spotted coming up by Slieve League, that message could be semaphored rapidly to the towers all across the county. Naturally the Martello towers (though not always the semaphore-only towers) were also equipped with cannons.

Life in these remote outposts was surely a mix of immense responsibility and isolation. Each tower was manned by a small garrison, typically a naval lieutenant, a midshipman, two signalmen, and a military guard.

LONELY

It was a lonely existence, defined by the constant watch. Day-to-day duties revolved around the weather and the sea. The men would take shifts on the roof, peering out into the grey Atlantic, scanning the horizon for any sign of a foreign sail.

The living conditions were, well, spartan. While the towers were “defensible quarters” and equipped with fireplaces and allegedly weatherproofed, they were still notorious for damp and cold, especially during the long Donegal winters.

The interior was divided into two or three stories, with the ground floor often used for storage and the upper floors for accommodation. Food supplies had to be brought in over difficult terrain, although surveys of the surrounding lands suggest some garrisons cultivated small plots of land nearby to supplement their rations.

Their primary task was communication. The system relied on a tall signal mast placed on the seaward side of the tower. During the day, they used a series of flags, pendants, and large black balls.

By night (or in poor visibility) they would use lanterns or a system of coded fires. The specific arrangements of these objects formed a visual code that could transmit messages like “three ships in sight” or “enemy fleet approaching” with remarkable speed, relaying the alert from one tower to the next, like a modern-day optical telegraph.

The sergeant in charge was tasked not only with maintaining the equipment but also with ensuring the men were alert despite their near-constant boredom.

The Martello Towers

These were more formidable artillery forts, recognised by their rounder shape and masonry walls up to 18 feet thick designed to withstand heavy cannon fire. They had flat roofs on which to mount heavy cannon with traversing carriages, allowing for a full 360-degree field of fire.

They housed a larger garrison, typically one officer and 15 to 25 men, and contained internal storage for ammunition and provisions. Their architectural inspiration came directly from the successful defense of the Mortella Point tower in Corsica against British naval attacks in 1794 (in fact, the name “Martello” is just a corruption of Mortella)

The construction process was particularly difficult in Donegal, with its remote and exposed coastal locations, and budgets were often exceeded. The project was commissioned by the British War Office, with local Irish labourers undertaking the construction under the direct supervision of Royal Engineers.

The Martello towers were much more expensive to construct than the signal towers (approximately £2,000 per tower compared to £600 – £900 for the signal towers).

Most towers had short lives: the French invasion never happened, and when Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo in 1815, they became too expensive to maintain.

Over the next two centuries, some were repurposed, used by the Coast Guard, or serving a function as part of the country’s coastal watch during World War II.

More recently, some have undergone restoration and even been converted into modern residences (like Macamish Fort on Lough Swilly).

But most simply became ruins, the endpoint of a rugged walk or just the subject of daytrippers’ “what’s that over there?” squinting.