THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL. NUMBER 10. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1840. VOLUME I. [Illustration: THE CASTLE OF RINN-DUIN, OR RANDOWN, COUNTY OF ROSCOMMON.] The mighty Shannon--the monarch of island rivers--in all its mazy wanderings almost from one extremity of Ireland to the other, presents upon its green and diversified banks but few features of greater natural beauty or historic interest than the point called Rinn-duin--a peninsula which stretches into that great expansion of its waters called Lough Ree, between the counties of Roscommon, Westmeath, and Longford. This peninsula, which is situated upon the Roscommon shore of the lake, about eight miles to the north of Athlone, is nearly a mile in length, and, at its widest part, a quarter of a mile in breadth; but it narrows gradually towards its extremity, and the lake nearly insulates a moiety of it at its centre. Its direction being southerly, the eastern side faces the expanse of the lake, and commands an extensive prospect of its islands and the opposite shores, while its western side, facing the land, forms a beautiful bay, fringed with green sloping declivities. A spot so circumstanced must have struck the early inhabitants of the country as a sort of natural fortress, which could be easily strengthened by art; and that it was so strengthened and used as a fortress in the remotest historic times, may be inferred from its most ancient Celtic name--Rinn-duin, the point of the Dun or Fort, by which it is still known in the Irish language, though commonly anglicised Randown, and more generally called St John’s. It is mentioned by this name in the following record in the Annals of the Four Masters at the year 1156:-- “There occurred a great fall of snow and a frost in the winter of this year, so that the lakes and rivers of Ireland were frozen over. The frost was so great that Roderick O’Conor was enabled to have his ships and boats carried on the ice from _Blein Gaille_ on the Shannon (at Lough Ree) to RINN-DUIN.” Of the earlier history of this fort, however, which was doubtless but an earthen one, no accounts are preserved, though it may be safely conjectured that it was seized on and used as a stronghold by the Danish King Turgesius in the ninth century, as it appears certain from our annals that he had a strong fastness and harbour for his ships upon Lough Ree. But, be this as it may, we learn from another record in the Annals above quoted, that Rinn-duin was used as a fastness by the first Anglo-Norman invaders of Ireland as early as the close of the twelfth century, when they were forced to seek safety in it after a defeat which they had sustained in a battle with Cathal Carrach O’Conor, the son of Roderick and King of Connaught. The passage is as follows:--