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County Cork · Munster

Macroom

Maigh Chromtha

likely crooked plain, from the bend in the Sullane; the article also notes suggestions of meeting place of the followers of Crom or crooked oak, and Joyce gives Magh-cromtha, the sloping plain

👥 4,096 (census 2022) 🏔 County Cork Source: Wikipedia ↗
The story

A market town on the Sullane halfway between Cork and Killarney, long the seat of the MacCarthys of Muskerry. Admiral Sir William Penn, father of the founder of Pennsylvania, once owned Macroom Castle, which was burned out five times, the last in 1922. Just south lies the Gearagh, described as the only extensive alluvial woodland left in Western Europe, and from 1976 to 1982 the town ran the Mountain Dew rock festival.

County Cork through the ages →
The history of Macroom

The area is rich in standing stones, dolmens and stone circles, and it seems to have been a centre for bardic gatherings. It first appears in the 6th century as Achad Dorbchon. After invasions in 1201 and 1207, the MacCarthys became the dominant family and held the castle until the mid-17th century; from the 14th century Macroom was capital of the barony of Muskerry and an early milling centre, and a market house went up in 1620. In 1650 Roger Boyle defeated an Irish force at the Battle of Macroom, and Bishop Boetius MacEgan was hanged at Carrigadrohid.

By the mid-17th century Anglo-Irish families owned about a third of the town and brought in butter making. The population fell in the Great Famine. In the War of Independence the town was the main Cork base of the Auxiliaries, and on 28 November 1920 at Kilmichael, on the Dunmanway road, Tom Barry's IRA column killed 16 of 18 Auxiliaries. Mount Massey was burned in December 1920, and in 1924 Lady Ardilaun sold the castle demesne to local businessmen, who held it in trust for the town.

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

Castles and monuments within 15 km

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

Worth seeing nearby
  • Béal na Bláth · The bend in the road where Michael Collins was shot on 22 August 1922, in his own county, by his own former comrades.

All of these are pinned on the Hidden Ireland map.

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