By the mid-seventeenth century, this settlement had grown to more than forty houses, a mix of stone and timber constructions that formed the heart of the community. Records from the Donegal plantation describe a thriving village near Rathmullan Castle, noting “15 stone houses and 30 timber houses and cabins, thatched, inhabited with Britons.” These structures, built during the Ulster Plantation period between 1609 and 1641, represented the deliberate colonisation efforts that reshaped much of Ulster’s landscape.

What makes Rathmullan particularly intriguing is how much of its original plantation layout survives today. The current street plan and buildings in the town centre and eastern quarter likely sit on the very foundations of that seventeenth-century settlement. This continuity means that walking through modern Rathmullan is, in many ways, following the same paths that plantation settlers trod over 400 years ago.

The settlement cluster of Rathmullan and nearby Ballyboe reveals how these plantation towns weren’t just random collections of houses but carefully planned communities. The combination of stone houses for more affluent settlers and timber cabins for workers created a social hierarchy visible in the very architecture of the town; a pattern repeated across Ulster during this transformative period in Irish history.