Known locally as Killynure or Wilson’s Fort, this earthwork appears on early Ordnance Survey maps as a single-ringed fort, though today a modern house bearing the name Killynure Castle occupies much of the site. The slight rise in the land here has been home to various structures over the centuries, each building upon the foundations, both literal and metaphorical, of what came before.

The site’s most intriguing period dates to the early 17th century when a planter named Wilson erected a house here before 1622, reportedly building it atop an ancient mound called Dundree. When the antiquarian Fagan visited in 1846, he described finding the remnants of a castle sitting on what appeared to be an artificial oval-shaped fort, raised from earth and stone and standing considerably higher than the surrounding ground, though already showing signs of deterioration. Today, distinguishing between what might be natural topography and what remains of this historic earthwork proves challenging, as centuries of use and reuse have softened and obscured the original contours.

Local tradition adds another layer of mystery to the site with tales of a souterrain, one of those enigmatic underground passages that dot the Irish countryside. While the Archaeological Survey of County Donegal has documented these various historical threads, the true nature of the original fort remains elusive. Whether it began as an early medieval ringfort later repurposed by plantation settlers, or whether Wilson simply chose an advantageous natural rise for his house, the mound at Killynure continues to guard its secrets beneath the foundations of the modern dwelling that now crowns it.