Carrickmacross

The second town of the county, grown around a castle of the Earl of Essex. It is known for its lace, begun in the 1820s and taught through the Famine years as relief work, and it is the town nearest Inniskeen, where Patrick Kavanagh was born.

Carrickmacross grew around a castle built by the Earl of Essex in 1630; the castle was destroyed in the Williamite wars, and the St Louis convent stands on the site. The Catholic church of 1866 has ten windows by Harry Clarke from 1925. Carrickmacross lace was devised by Mrs Grey Porter in 1820 and became known after the Famine, when a lace school was set up to help starving tenants; the St Louis Sisters revived it in the 1890s and a co-operative has kept it going since 1984. The harper Patrick Byrne, the first Irish traditional musician ever photographed, is buried nearby. On 20 December 1940 German bombs fell at Shantonagh, near the town.

Drawn from the History section of the Wikipedia article on Carrickmacross ↗, rewritten here and adding nothing it does not say; licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

• Inishkeen · round tower · 9 km
• Mannan Castle · castle · 4 km
• Cabra Castle · castle · 8 km

Straight-line distances from the town centre, from each site's documented coordinates.

• Faughart · Where Edward Bruce, King of Ireland for two years, was killed in 1318 — on the hill of St Brigid's birthplace.
• Ardee — the ford of Ferdia · Áth Fhirdia: where Cú Chulainn fought his foster-brother Ferdia for three days, killed him with the gae bolga, and wept over his body. The town is named for the dead man.
• Knockbridge — Cú Chulainn's death · The standing stone Cú Chulainn tied himself to so he would die on his feet, facing his enemies. Only when a raven landed on his shoulder did they dare approach.

All of these are pinned on the Hidden Ireland map.