Macroom - History

History

The legacy of Macroom's pre-Christian habitation survives in the many standing stones, dolmens, stone circles and fulacht fiadh in the surrounding land. The area was a pre-Christian centre for Bardic conventions and acted as a base for the Druids of Munster. The first recorded historical reference to the town dates to the sixth century when the townland was known as Achad Dorbchon, and held within the kingdom of Muscraighe Mitine. The dominant clan within the province of Munster at this time was the Eóganachta dynasty; they held kingdoms from Muscraighe Mitine to the midlands town of Birr. The tribe of Uí Floinn was most prominent local clan, and at some time in their reign a castle was built in Achad Dorbchon to replace Raithleann as the capital of Muskerry.

Muscraighe Mitine underwent three invasions during the thirteenth century; from the Murcheatach Uí Briain and Richard de Cogan in 1201 and 1207 respectively, and finally from the MacCarthy family who had become the dominant and most powerful family in what was then known as Muscraighe Uí Fhloinn. The MacCarthy family occupied the castle from this time up until the middle of the seventeenth century. By the fourteenth century Achad Dorbchon was accepted to be the capital of the Barony of Muskerry, and was seen as a growing centre for trade, burial and religious worship.

Macroom was one of the earliest centres in Ireland where milling was carried out. From the end of the sixteenth century the town began to grow from a village settlement 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. By the mid-seventeenth century English families owned approximately one-third of the town in value terms. The Protestant families introduced butter making to the town; an industry that was labour intensive and had a positive effect on local dairy farming.

The battle of Macroom took place near the town in 1650, during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. Bishop Boetius McEgan, fighting on behalf of the MacCarthys failed to hold the Castle, and he was taken prisoner by the Cromwellian forces and hanged at Carrigadrohid.

A 1750 tenement list shows the town at that time to comprised 134 buildings and 300 families, with a population ratio of 6 to 1 between Catholic and Protestants. By now the town had developed from a locality of mud cabins in the early 1660s to a linear shaped urban settlement consisting mainly of thatched cabins, replaced in due course by solid cottages through efforts of the Irish Land and Labour Association (ILLA) founded in 1894.

Macroom was the birthplace of Admiral Sir William Penn, a distinguished British Admiral and father of William Penn, after whom the state of Pennsylvania is named. Penn spent a deal of time in his father's birthplace, particularly during his childhood. The remains of their castle can still be seen today.

During the Irish War of Independence (1919–1921), Macroom was the base in Cork for the British Auxiliary Division. At the Kilmichael Ambush in 1920, 17 Auxiliaries were killed on the road between Macroom and Dunmanway by the local Irish Republican Army under Tom Barry. In May 1922, between the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the Irish Civil War, 4 British soldiers were kidnapped and executed. 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. The anti-treaty forces, including Erskine Childers and Frank O'Connor, had retreated from Cork City to Macroom. They burned the castle before retreating west. Michael Collins was killed in 1922 in an ambush near Béal na Bláth.

In 1924 the Castle and estate was gifted to the town by Lady Ardilaun, a descendant of the McCarthy chiefs, who was the widow of Lord Ardilaun.