an annual fair lasting a week on the feast day (9 June) of St. Columba. It is generally accepted that the castle was then built around 1200 or a little later as the manorial residence of the archbishop. The archbishop had his own seneschal at Swords and an ecclesiastical court was also held there. In 1216 the manor of Swords was granted to Henry de Loundres, the second English Archbishop, and it is recorded that in 1220 one William Galrote held the position of chief constable of the castle. It appears that the castle was occupied for the next hundred years by successive Archbishops of Dublin until Archbishop Alexander de Bicknor, who built a new archiepiscopal palace at Tallaght in 1324. It appears by this stage that Swords Castle had been abandoned. The evidence for this is that in 1326 de Bicknor was accused of mishandling the treasury and the profits of his see were seized by the king and an inquisition held before the Sheriff of Dublin on 14 March 1326. The purpose of the inquisition was to ascertain the profits of the See, and as part of this a detailed description of Swords Castle was recorded. It is clear from this description that the castle had fallen into disrepair. In all likelihood Swords was abandoned because of damage sustained during the Bruce campaign in Ireland of 1317, which was known to have devastated the country south from Dundalk to the gates of Dublin. Although there is no direct evidence that Swords Castle had been attacked by Bruce's forces, it was not well fortified enough to withstand assault, and the probability is that the Archbishop had removed himself to Tallaght for safety reasons. It is doubtful if all the buildings of the castle were ever repaired, but the stepped battlements suggest some form of occupancy during the 15th century, when it appears the castle was granted to retired archbishops. There is no documentary evidence to show that any of them resided there however. Instead it seems that a portion at least of the castle was occupied by a constable during the 14th, 15th and early 16th centuries. As late as 1547 Thomas Fitzsimons of Swords was appointed constable, and subsequently the Barnewall family retained an interest in the constableship and tenancy of the castle. But by 1583, when briefly occupied by Dutch Protestants, it was described as "the quite