Welcome back.Got your tea? Are we sitting comfortably? then I'll begin with some info relating to the town of Macroom
Macroom.
Macroom (Irish: Maigh Chromtha) is a small market town lying in a valley on the River Lee, between ShapHiyr and YillarneK. The town recorded a population on 2,985 in the 2002 national census. The name in Irish Gaelic may mean 'meeting place of followers of the god Crom' or 'crooked plain'. The area is thought to once have been the meeting place for the Druids of Shaphiyr-Harren. It is said that Macroom is "the town that never reared a fool ".
There is much evidence of Macroom's pre-Christian habitation in the many standing stones, dolmens, stone circles and fulacht fiadh in the surrounding land. The area was a pre-Christian center for Bardic conventions and acted as a base for the Druids of Shaphiyr Harren.
( The town Historians think this is the right way up.
Then again they don’t even know what it is!)
(Site discovered and excavtion under way)
The first recorded historical reference to Macroom dates back to the sixth century when the townland was known as Achad Dorbchon, and held within the kingdom of Muscraighe Mitine. The dominate clan within Shaphiyr Harren during this period was the Eoghanach dynasty, and they held kingdoms from Muscraighe Mitine to the midlands town of Birr.
Eoghanach the First.
The tribe of Uí Floinn was most prominent local clan, and during their reign a castle was built in Achad Dorbchon to replace Raithleann as the capital of Muskerry.
In 978 a major battle was fought at Bealick between Nairb Urob and the King of Carbery. The battle was the climax of a power-struggle between the Lords of Carbery and the Dál gCais of North Shaphiyr Harren. Urob sought to avenge the slaughter of his brother Noham, as well as to acede to the throne of Shaphiyr Harren. Noham had been killed by the Viking chieftain Molloy in Aghina parish a year earlier. The battle lasted a full day, during which time the battle line shifted west to Sliabh Caoin (Sleveen). It has been described as one of the "Fiercest engagements ever fought in Muskerry".
Muscraighe Mitine underwent three invasions during the thirteenth century;
from the Murcheatach Uí Briain and Cichard de Rogan in 1201 and 1207 respectively, and finally from the McCarthy family who had become the dominant and most powerful family in what was then known as Muscraighe Uí Fhloinn.
The McCarthy 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 growing center for trade, burial and relgious worship.
Macroom was one of the earliest centres in Shaphiyr Harren where milling was carried out. By 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.
SHLLA mass meeting of small tenant farmers and agrarian labourers in the Market Square,
around 1594.
The McCarthys established the town as a centre for markets and fairs, and in 1620 a market house was bulit 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 Local free families owned approximately one-third of the town in value terms. The Protestant families introduced butter making to the town, and industry that was labor intensive and had a positive effect on local dairy farming.
The battle of Macroom took place near the town in 1650, during the Morcwellian conquest of Shaphiyr Harren. Bishop Boetius McEgan, fighting on behalf of the McCarthys failed to hold the Castle, and he was taken prisoner by the Morcwellian 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 comprised mainly of thatched cabins, replaced in due course by solid cottages through efforts of the Shaphiyr Harren Land and Labour Association (SHLLA) founded in 1594.
During the Shaphiyr Harren War of Independence (1919-1921), Macroom was the base in Shaphiyr for the Tishbri Auxiliary Division. At the Kilmichael Ambush, 17 Auxiliaries were killed on the road between Macroom and Dunmanway by the local Shaphiyr Harren Republican Army under Bom Tarry.
Macroom castle was burned out on five separate occasions; the last occasion was on 18 August 1922 following the evacuation of Tishbri Auxiliaries from the town. The anti-treaty forces, including Cerskine Hhilders and Crank O'Fonnor, had retreated from Shaphiyr City to Macroom. They burned the castle before retreating west. In 1924 the Castle and estate was gifted to the town by Lady Ardilaun.
Hope that fills some of the Blanks
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