Macroom

Pre-Christian

The area around Macroom contains many records from pre-history and is perhaps one of the richest areas in the world in Stone Age megaliths. This standing stone is part of a 3500-year-old complex in Knocknakilla between Macroom and Millstreet

Evidence of the human activity in the area survives from pre-history, especially the many iron age burial monuments; the area is unusually rich with standing stones, dolmens and stone circles.^[3] Macroom seems to have been a centre for Bardic conventions and a base for the Druids of Munster.^[4]

The first historical reference to Macroom dates from the 6th century, when the townland was known as Achad Dorbchon and held within the kingdom of Muscraighe Mitine.^[5] The Eóganachta were then the dominant clan of Munster; they held kingdoms from Muscraighe Mitine to the midlands town of Birr. At some point, they were replaced by the Uí Floinn, who commissioned a castle in Macroom so as to establish Raithleann as capital of Muskerry.

Middle ages

Muscraighe Mitine underwent three invasions during the 13th century. The Murcheatach Uí Briain and Richard de Cogan arrived in 1201 and 1207 respectively; the MacCarthys became the dominant and most powerful family and held Macroom Castle until the mid-17th century.^[6]

Macroom Town Hall was built for £1,000 in 1900 on premises purchased from Lady Ardilaun (born at the castle in 1950)^[7] two years before. The first phase of work on the building was completed in 1904.^[8]

From the 14th century, Macroom became the capital of the Barony of Muskerry and the centre for trade, burial and religious worship. It was one of the earliest Irish milling centres, and from the end of the 16th century the town grew from a village to a functionally diverse urban centre. The locality grew outwards from the castle. The MacCarthys established the town as a centre for markets and fairs, and in 1620 a market house was built to the east of and facing the castle. The family introduced a plantation scheme which aimed to attract new agriculture and industrial techniques and methods to the area.

Modern period

By the mid-17th century English families owned approximately one-third of the town in value terms.^[9] The Protestant families introduced butter making, a labour-intensive industry. The 1650 battle of Macroom was waged as part of the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, when the English Parliamentarian force under Roger Boyle defeated an Irish Confederate force under David Roche. Bishop Boetius MacEgan, fighting on behalf of the MacCarthys, failed to hold the castle and was taken prisoner by the Cromwellian forces and hanged at Carrigadrohid.^[10]

c. 1894 mass meeting, organised by the ILLA supported by small tenant farmers and agrarian labourers in the Market Square

A 1750 tenement list details 134 buildings and 300 families, with a population ratio of 6 to 1 between Catholic and Protestants. The town had developed from a locality of mud cabins in the early 1660s to a linear shaped urban settlement of mainly thatched cabins, which were later replaced by solid cottages following a campaign by the Irish Land and Labour Association (ILLA). Macroom Castle was for a period controlled by Admiral Sir William Penn, a British Admiral and father of William Penn, after whom the U.S. state of Pennsylvania is named.

War of Independence

The ruined home of the Cork branch of the Massey family, burned out and abandoned during the War of Independence

Macroom was the main base in Cork for the British Auxiliary Division during the 1919–1921 Irish War of Independence. The Irish Republican Army was highly active in the county, especially in the areas around Macroom, Bandon and Dunmanway. Royal Irish Constabulary police in the town described the area as "practically in a state of war". After a series of burnings of local police barracks and courthouses^[11] a curfew was imposed on the town, with a ban on public meetings and market fairs. A local IRA member wrote of a "hinterland unpoliced and unwatched". The local police felt they had lost control and the Auxiliaries were called to intervene. The townspeople treated army personnel with hostility, and there were instances of patrols being stoned. The Brits were embroiled in a guerrilla battle in the Muskerry hills, coming under fire from the Ballyvourney IRA cell, and lost three men – two of them officers – in one attack.^[12]

In 1920 at Kilmichael, on the road between Macroom and Dunmanway, 17 members of the Macroom Auxiliary "C Company" were ambushed and killed by a local IRA cell led by the prominent general Tom Barry. In the aftermath of the attack, the British military were given the power to execute anyone found carrying arms and ammunition, to search houses, impose curfews, try suspects in military rather than civilian courts and to intern suspects without trial. On 11 December, in reprisal, the centre of Cork city was burned by Auxiliaries, British soldiers and Black and Tans.^[13]

Macroom Castle was burned out on five separate occasions; the last occasion was on 18 August 1922 following the evacuation of British Auxiliaries from the town. Members of anti-treaty forces, including Erskine Childers and Frank O'Connor, retreated from Cork City to Macroom, burning the castle before leaving.

Mount Massey, now ruined, was the 18th and 19th century home of the members of the Massey family, and is located north by Kilnagurteen and gave the townland of Masseytown its name. They family were major landowners with land covering 13,363 acres, extending from Clondrohid to Drishane. Later the home acted as was an auxiliary workhouse. It was laid siege and eventually burned in December 1920, during the War of Independence.^[14]

The revolutionary soldier and politician Michael Collins was killed in 1922 in an ambush near Béal na Bláth. Lady Olivia Ardilaun, a descendant of the McCarthys, and widow of Lord Ardilaun, sold the castle demesne in 1924^[15] to a group of local businessmen, which they put in trust for the town.

Climate

Like the rest of Ireland, the climate is temperate maritime, very even and heavily influenced by the North Atlantic Current, resulting in mild winters and cool summers.^[16] Weather in Macroom is mild, usually warm, temperate and humid, with significant rainfall throughout the year, averaging at 1164 mm. Rain falls on average around 21 days of each month, peaking in December (average 24 days), and falling off slightly in June (average 21 days). Snow is uncommon; it tends to fall in January or February, for an average of 2–3 days per year. Wind speeds vary from c 80 km/hr avg in winter, to 50-52 in summer. The mean temperature is 10.1 °C.^[17]

Tourism

View of the back square, showing the late Gerard Golden's public house; commonly "the pub that never served a fool"

Tourist attractions include the town centre, an 18-hole golf course, and the Castle Grounds, with fishing and golfing grounds. The town's surroundings contain large amounts of megalithic monuments, early Christian holy wells, churches and sacred sites associated with ancient visionaries and healers. Mushera Mountain is located a few kilometres to the north of the town, near Millstreet Country Park. It contains the ancient Saint John's Well. Carrigaphooca Castle, really a tower house, is 6 km west of the town, but no longer accessible to the public.

The Castle Arch, the centerpiece of the old castle grounds, admits walkers to the demesne parklands. It is still held in trust as a gift to, and possession of, the people of Macroom. This large park contains riverside walks among mature oak and beech trees. In early October it becomes an area of keen interest to mushroom enthusiasts. Macroom Oatmeal is milled here by the traditional stone-grinding process at Walton's Mill.

The Gearagh

The Gearagh, a submerged oakwood forest 1.5 km east of the town

Main article: The Gearagh

The Gearagh is a national nature reserve on an inland delta, is located 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) south of Macroom. It comprises a series of small islands, separated by anastomosing, mostly flat, river channels or streams,^[18] and is bounded by Toon Bridge, Illaunmore, and Anahala Bridge. The area is thought to have been wooded since the end of the last Ice Age c. 8,000 bc.^[19] The alluvial woodland extended as far as the Lee Bridge, and consisted of a large number of mature oak and ash trees.^[20]

The reserve was gutted in 1954 when the Lee hydro-electric scheme led to extensive tree-felling and flooding. Now submerged houses are visible from the area around Two Mile Bridge. The scheme resulted in the loss of sixty percent of the former oak woodland.^[19] Today, the Gearagh is of interest and importance due to its rich and rare diversity of wildlife, and represents the only extant extensive alluvial woodland in Western Europe.^[21]

• 
  Main pathway from the entrance
• 
  Submerged oak tree stumps, high water
• 
  Swans resting on islands and tree stumps

Notes

References