It’s a year since I have been outside Ireland, but I hope to travel again soon

Old shopfronts on Princelet Street, off Brick Lane in the East End of London, seen on 4 March 2020 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Patrick Comerford

It is a full year today since I last travelled outside Ireland. It’s hard to believe that I was in London a year ago today (4 March 2020), and that since then I have been in lockdown, mainly in west Limerick.

I took part in a Zoom meeting yesterday with trustees and staff members of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), and in one aside we recalled how on this day last year I was receiving a briefing on a planned visit to Myanmar to join the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Anglican church there.

We soon realised the dangers of travelling there and not being able to return in the event of a pandemic lockdown in Myanmar. Little did we realise then how a pandemic lockdown would eventually become part and parcel of daily life here too. Nor did we foresee that another lockdown would be imposed in Myanmar through the recent military coup.

Before and after that trustees’ meeting in London on this day last year, I spent a little time first in the morning and later in the afternoon wandering through parts of Spitalfields and the East End close to Liverpool Street station, visiting the sites of Holy Trinity Priory, and the Great Synagogue on Duke’s Place, Sandy’s Row Synagogue, the site of the first Bethlehem Hospital, and walking through streets such as Brick Lane, Fournier Street and Princelet Street.

A farewell to England at Stansted Airport on this evening last year (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Once I was back in Ireland, the effects of the rapid spread of the Covid-19 pandemic became bitterly obvious. The parades on Saint Patrick’s Day and an invitation to preach on 17 March in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral were cancelled, along with an invitation to preach in Saint Flannan’s Cathedral at the installation of the Very Revd Rod Smyth as Dean of Killaloe.

Soon all Sunday services were cancelled too, and for the first time in my ordained ministry I was unable to mark Holy Week and Good Friday or celebrate Easter in a church with a congregation.

Within a very short period of time, all foreign travel was cancelled. Not only did I not get to Myanmar on behalf of USPG, but travel plans were cancelled for Crete (April), Warsaw (May), Bari (June), Lichfield and the USPG conference in Swanwick (July), Thessaloniki and Halkidiki (August and September), and Paris (November).

There was some compensation when the restrictions were eased for a while, and two of us spent two weeks on a ‘road trip,’ travelling through counties Kerry, Cork, Waterford, Tipperary, Kilkenny and Wexford.

But, apart from this ‘road trip’ and occasional visits to Dublin for the annual Irish CND commemoration of Hiroshima Day and consultations with my GP about my Sarcoidosis and B12 deficiency, I have spent most of the past 12 months in Co Limerick, and I have not been outside Ireland since this day last year.

They say travel broadens the mind. As my travel plans were wiped from my diary, I hope my mind did not become more closed or that my vision narrowed. But my eyes certainly felt the strain with more-and-more Zoom meetings as the weeks and months passed. On some days, I have been at three Zoom meetings in a day, one after another.

The roll-out of the vaccine seems to be much slower in Ireland than in other countries, particularly in the United Kingdom. I know that appearances can be deceptive, and perhaps this perception is heightened by an unrequited wanderlust.

But, earlier today, a posting from one of my favourite places to stay, the Hedgehog in Lichfield, announced, ‘We are so excited to finally be able to reveal the news! Provided all goes well we will be opening on 12th April for outdoor hospitality! … We cannot wait to welcome you back!’

I cannot wait either. But the anti-vaccine, far-right protesters in Dublin last weekend, and student behaviour in Limerick this week continue to set back the chances of a hasty lifting of the lockdown in Ireland and an easing of travel restrictions.

But, after a long, long, year, I’m hoping once again that soon I shall be able to travel again.

The Hedgehog Vintage Inn in Lichfield … hoping to reopen on 12 April (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

From Valencia to Valentia, in a year of lockdowns, road trips and lost plans

The Irish Times calendar confused the important holidays at the end of 2020 … was this a sign of the times? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

A friend posted on his Facebook page on Christmas Eve: ‘It’s been a long and difficult year – made more difficult by people who feel the need to preface everything by saying that it’s been a long and difficult year.’

As I look back on the past year, I do not need to tell anyone how long or how difficult it has been. Nor do I need to recall the major events in the political, sporting, social calendars of the past year. But I should have realised that this was going to be a year like no other when calendar for 2020 produced by The Irish Times predicted that Christmas Eve this year would fall on 25 December, Christmas Day on 26 December and Saint Stephen’s Day on 27 December.

So, I started to carefully fill in a large year-planner on a wall in the meeting room in the Rectory. How wrong I was to start planning a few months in advance, never mind planning for a full year ahead.

I got to London twice, and to Valencia early in the year. I was in London in January for the launch in the House of Lords of resources to mark Holocaust Memorial Day and to mark the 75th anniversary of the end of the Holocaust and World War II in 1945.

I was in Valencia in Spain in January too, to celebrate my birthday, and I was back in London in early March for a meeting of the trustees of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel).

The City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia, designed by Santiago Calatrava and Félix Candela, is one of the ‘12 Treasures of Spain’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Those visits to London, allowed two of us to spend some time off visiting Bevis Marks Synagogue, the oldest Sephardi synagogue on these islands, and to explore parts of the East End in London.

But on that second visit to London, it was obvious that all future travel plans for the year were about to be cancelled. A planned visit to Myanmar on behalf of USPG was called off, and the pandemic restrictions quickly entered every aspect of life.

The Saint Patrick’s Day parades in Askeaton and Rathkeale were cancelled for the first time in living memory, and an invitation to preach in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, on Saint Patrick’s Day, was called off. Nor did I join other family members on a visit to Istanbul later in March.

Soon too, I realised I was not going to be back in Crete for Orthodox Easter, and all other travel plans were scuttled. Among the many planned trips that were cancelled included a city break in Warsaw (a Christmas present from one son), a few days in Puglia and Bari in June, summer holidays in Khalkidhiki and Thessaloniki in August and September, and the potential for a few days in Venice or Paris in November. All meetings of USPG became Zoom meetings, so never for to London again. The USPG annual conference at Swanwick in Derbyshire was cancelled too.

This is the first year in many that I have not been in Greece, Lichfield or Cambridge.

But we were not to be outdone. When the lockdown was relaxed at different times of the year, two of us took advantage of the situation, and headed off on a number of ‘road trips’ throughout the southern half of Ireland, visiting and revisiting places that reassured us that Ireland is, indeed, a beautiful island.

There were two visits to Cobh, including visits to Spike Island and Saint Colman’s Cathedral; two visits to Cork, including walk tours of Jewish Cork and visits to Saint Fin Barre’s Cathedral, which was celebrating its 150th anniversary this year; and a visit to the Ring of Kerry.

There were return visits to many places that were dear to me in my childhood and formative years, including Cappoquin and my grandmother’s former farm, with warm welcomes at Cappoquin House, Mount Melleray and Dromana in Villierstown; Ballinskellings and its long sandy beach on the tip of the Ring of Kerry; Valentia Island, where we stayed in the Royal Valentia Hotel; Cahir, Carrick-on-Suir and Clonmel in Co Tipperary, including the Butler house in Carrick, and the Swiss Cottage, castle and Nash-designed parish church in Cahir; Bunclody, including a first-time visit to the only synagogue in Co Wexford; and, of course, Wexford town itself.

Other delightful stops on these ‘road trips’ included Mallow, Lismore, Kilkenny, Loop Head, Doneraile, Kanturk, Buttevant, Kenmare, Sneem, Croom, Kilmallock, Charleville, Aghadoe … and so many more places.

A return visit this year to the Cappoquin of my childhood (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

I continue to provide weekly preaching and liturgical resources for clergy and readers in the Church of Ireland Diocese of Limerick and Killaloe at www.cmelimerick.blogspot.com, and I continue blog daily at www.patrickcomerford.com. I write a monthly column in the Church Review, I have contributed to a number of journals, including Search, the Irish Theological Quarterly and ABC News (Askeaton), I have written occasionally in The Irish Times, and I have written chapters for two books on the history of Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth, and Drogheda Grammar School.

I was invited to lecture on Pugin’s architecture for the Adare History Society, on the Sephardic Jewish ancestry of John Desmond Bernal for the Friends of the Hunt Museum in Limerick, and on the clergy of Askeaton for Askeaton Civic Trust.

I marked the 20th anniversary of my ordination by Archbishop Walton Empey in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, in 2000. In ministry, many expected highlights were cancelled this year – including an invitation to preach at the installation of the new Dean of Killaloe, the Very Revd Rod Smith – and many more were delayed or postponed, including baptisms and weddings. But funerals can never be postponed or cancelled.

When the lockdown forced the cancellation of public celebrations of the Parish Eucharist, even on Easter Day and on Christmas Day, I continued to celebrate the Parish Eucharist on Sundays and major feast days, albeit behind the closed doors of one of the churches or the rectory.

I celebrated the Eucharist and preached once in Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, and visited the cathedral on a number of occasions. But I did not have the involvement in cathedral life I would have loved, enjoyed and expected as Precentor. And the pandemic also played havoc with plans for training days for clergy and readers in these dioceses.

On the other hand, I learned to use Zoom and became more proficient with YouTube, and both became important venues for meetings of General Synod, Diocesan Synod, clergy, USPG trustees, school boards and seminars, including a series of webinar lectures on Sephardic history organised by the Sephardi Academia programme at Bevis Marks Synagogue.

I remain a member of the General Synod of the Church of Ireland, the Commission for Christian Unity and Dialogue and the Interfaith Working Group. I am now in my last year of six as a Trustee of the Anglican mission agency USPG. I preached a recored sermon for USPG for the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in 1945 that was used in cathedrals and churches around the world on 9 August. I am chair of the board of management of Rathkeale No 2 National School, a member of the boards of three local secondary schools, in Askeaton, Rathkeale and Dromcolliher, and a member of a number of educational and charitable trusts in Limerick.

I remain President of the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), and I spoke on 6 August at the commemorations in Merrion Square, Dublin, marking the 75th anniversary of the atmoic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945.

Although my Pulmonary Sarcoidosis has flared up a few times this year, and I continue to be conscious of some symptoms of my Vitamin B12, my good health has been enhanced this year by love, friendships, and walks on beaches, by riverbanks and in the countryside. I may have sarcoidosis, but sarcoidosis does not have me.

As the year ends, perhaps I am allowed to muse had I made that family trip to Turkey earlier this year, could I have headed this end-of-year review with a reference to ‘from Cappadocia to Cappoquin’ … had I made it back to Greece, perhaps I could have spoken of a year ‘from Rathkeale to Rethymnon’ or ‘from Askeaton and Adare to Athens and the Acropolis’? Indeed, how I wish I could I could write now about from ‘Lichfield to Limerick’, or from ‘Cambridge to Limerick’.

But the lasting legacy of this year may not be the lockdown what the shutdown of 2020 means for most of us. Perhaps the lasting legacies may be provided by Brexit and the closing years of the Trump presidency.

Before this year turned everything on its head, PPE referred to philosophy, politics and economics, which seemed to be the degree of choice of most Oxbridge team members on University Challenger, and PUP referred to the Progressive Unionist Party, once led by Hugh Smyth, David Ervine, Billy Hutchinson and Dawn Purvis.

Who ever thought a president chosen by the Republicans – the ‘party of law and order’ – would show such contempt for law, and sow chaos in the world order?

Who ever thought that next Christmas Britons may be deprived of not only Brussels sprouts at the Christmas dinner table, but also Champagne, Prosecco, Parma Ham …

Who ever thought in advance of 2020 that 20/20 vision would see them through this past year?

Who ever thought that this year would be a year when most of us would see more alcohol being poured through our fingers than through our lips?

Never in our wildest dreams did we imagine we could go up to a bank cashier with a mask on and ask for money.

I never thought the comment, ‘I wouldn’t touch him/her with a 6-ft pole’ would be heard as a caring, friendly statement.

Meanwhile, does anyone know if we can take showers now … or should we just keep washing our hands?

I have not covered a wall in the Rectory with a wall planner for 2021. As for those who get back to Mediterranean holidays next year, we may find the reality of tariffs, trade barriers and food standards may mean we are not going to be plagued by cheap food outlets offering ‘authentic English breakfasts.’

These are witty sentiments that have been shared across social media platforms and pages over the past week. But perhaps the closing words of the year should come from the US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died earlier this year (18 Septmeber 2020). She was a trailblazer on behalf of gender equality, and she fought fiercely and unflinchingly to advance and defend the rights of women and minorities.

She embodied the principle of equal justice for all under the law, as well as the Jewish value of ‘tzedek, tzedek, tirdof’ – ‘justice, justice shall you pursue’  (Deuteronomy 10: 20). That saying was framed on the wall of her Supreme Court chamber, and summed up perfectly her calling as jurist and a Jew.

After a year in which racism, anti-Semitism and violence increased across the world, stoked by a US President who is refusing to accept the democratic will of his people and to leave office, it is important to keep these words in mind as we head into another year, still trembling with uncertainty about what the future holds: ‘Justice, justice shall you pursue.’

Happy New Year, wherever you are!

I am never again going to cover a wall with a wall planner for the year ahead (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

A deserted castle by the River Suir and tales of a war-like clan

Ballynore Castle, also known as Dove Hill or Duffhill Castle, between Carrick-on-Suir and Clonmel, Co Tipperary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Patrick Comerford

Going back over my photographs from my ‘road trip’ through the southern counties of Ireland as summer was fading and autumn was still in its early days, I came across some photographs I had taken of Ballynoran Castle in Co Tipperary.

Most people passing by probably pay little attention to this sad, decaying tower house by roadside, and we might have missed it too had we not stopped for lunch at the Meadows and Byrne Village on the way from Carrick-on-Suir to Clonmel.

The Meadows and Byrne Village is a fashionable place to stop, with Blarney Woollen Mills, the Linen Loft and cafés and food shops. But Ballynoran Castle is centuries older, on the opposite side of the road, close to the banks of the River Suir and the border between Co Tipperary and Co Waterford.

Ballynoran Castle is also known as Dove Hill or Duffhill Castle, and it is one of a series of tower houses built in the 15th and 16th centuries and lining the northern banks of the River Suir in Co Tipperary.

This four-storey tower is fighting a losing battle with the encroaching ivy, and it difficult both to see any defining features and to unearth anything about its earlier history. The second storey has a latrine in the north-west corner and a fireplace on the north side, while the third storey has a south-east angle loop.

The tower house is said to have been built by the Mandeville family on land once controlled by the O’More family. It was garrisoned by Sir Thomas Butler of Cahir Castle in 1542, but a century later was noted in the Civil Survey as being ‘a small castle wanting repaire.’

Ballynore Castle was ‘a small castle wanting repaire’ by 1542 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

The de Mandeville family came to Ireland with the arrival of the Anglo-Normans. Robert de Mandeville and others murdered William de Burgh, the ‘Brown’ Earl of Ulster, in 1333. The murder reflected the disintegration of Norman rule and triggered a resurgence of Gaelic strength and power in Ulster.

Edmund Curtis repeated the claim that the de Mandeville family had prudently adopted an Irish surname, MacQuillan, in the face of the Gaelic rebellion. The story claimed that the McQuillan family is descended from Hugelin de Mandeville, with the name McQuillan derived from the Irish Mac Uighilín, meaning son of Hugelin.

Edward MacLysaght perpetuated this myth in the 1950s and 1960s in his series of Irish Families books. However, this notion has since been challenged by historians, drawing on sources that show clearly that the McQuillans and de Mandevilles were two different families.

Dunluce Caste, Co Antrim … once the seat of the Clan McQuillan (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Clan McQuillan originally claimed descent from Fiacha MacUillin, youngest son of Niall of the Nine Hostages. The family was associated mainly with the north Antrim coast, where they once lived at Dunluce Caste and engaged in many battles with the Scottish McDonnell clan.

Another account says the McQuillans came from Scotland in the 1200s as hired mercenaries, and were the Lords of Route from the late 13th century. According to the Annals of Ulster, a bloody feud between the MacQuillan and the O’Cahan clans started in 1442.

By the 1460s, with the earldom of Ulster near its end, it is said the surviving de Mandevilles of north Antrim deserted their manors in Twescard and sold their interests to the MacQuillans who were already established there.

The MacQuillans renamed Twescard the Route, after their ‘rout,’ a common term then for a private army. Their principal residence in the Route was at Dunluce Castle, near the mouth of the River Bush.

They built their castle on the cliffs around 1500, and the earliest written record of the castle dates from 1513. The earliest features of the castle are two large drum towers about 9 metres (30 ft) in diameter on the east side, both remains of the castle built by the McQuillans after becoming Lords of the Route.

The feud between the MacQuillan and the O’Cahan clans came to end in 1559, when the MacDonnells of the Glens, once allies of the MacQuillans, turned on them. Sorley Boy MacDonnell, with the aid of levies from Scotland, launched a mass assault on the Route against the MacQuillans. The final battle of this assault was at Aura, and saw the end of the MacQuillans and the conquest of the Route by the MacDonnells.

The bloodletting, warrior lifestyles of the MacQuillans of the Route was abandoned by later generation of the family when their direct descendants became Quakers.

In Wexford in the early 20th century, Edward McQuillan claimed to be The McQuillan or head of the Clan McQuillan. He bought Slaney View in Westgate, once the Wexford townhouse of the Perceval family of Slaney Manor, and renamed the house Dunluce.

Edward McQuillan was one of the prominent Quakers in Wexford in his day and died in 1941. The former Quaker Meeting House in High Street, Wexford, dating from 1657, had closed in 1927 following the departure from Wexford of the three remaining Thompson families.

Dunluce at Westgate, Wexford … renamed by Edward McQuillan, a prominent Quaker (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Doneraile Church, part of the steeplechase legend, has a tower but no steeple

Saint Mary’s Church, Doneraile, Co Cork … first built in 1633 and rebuilt many times since (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Patrick Comerford

During my ‘road trip’ visit to Buttevant, Co Cork, in September, I saw a mural on the gable end of Moloney’s pub that boasts how the world’s first-ever Steeplechase was run from Buttevant and Doneraile in 1752.

The legend says that after a hunt, a local man, Edmund Blake, challenged his neighbour Cornelius O’Callaghan, to race across country from Buttevant church steeple to Doneraile church steeple, a distance of four miles away (6.4 km). And so, the Steeplechase passed into racing vocabulary and history.

I was surprised then, when I visited Doneraile later that day, to see that Saint Mary’s Church, the Church of Ireland parish church in Doneraile, Co Cork, while it is of considerable charm and character, has no steeple.

Saint Mary’s Church was built and rebuilt in phases between 1633 and 1815-1816, and it is highly visible from numerous vantage points in Doneraile town and in the surrounding countryside.

The church is one of the first sights on arriving in Doneraile from the north, and it provides an interesting contrast to the Church of the Nativity, the Roman Catholic parish church at the south end of the town, and it offers am interesting introduction to the architectural heritage of Doneraile.

The first Saint Mary’s Church was built in 1633 by William St Leger, Lord President of Munster. It was repaired or rebuilt in 1726 by his grandson, Arthur St Leger, Viscount Doneraile. It was repaired again or rebuilt in 1815-1816, with a loan of £2,000 from the Board of First Fruits and probably through the patronage of Lord Doneraile.

The cohesive architectural details of the exterior, with a repeated ogee motif, are reflected inside the church, mimicking in the repeated ogee detailing of the timber panelling to the walls and doorway and in the altar area.

Saint Mary’s Church, Dineraile … the ogee motif is repeated outside and inside (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Inside, the church has many points of historical and architectural interest, including the pulpit, pews and a wall monument to the St Leger family of Doneraile Court.

The church has a four-bay nave, square-plan three-stage tower at the west end, a limestone plaque dated 1726.

The stained-glass East Window, with tracery, dates from 1878. It displays high artistic merit and compliments the other windows in the nave. It is flanked by blind pointed arch niches with limestone sills, each window flanked by tapering limestone engaged columns with moulded bases, and capitals with sharp pointed pinnacles.
The church floor has geometric encaustic and marble tiles. There is a flattened king-post trussed roof, and painted rendered walls with ogee-headed timber panelling, an ornate marble monument to the St Leger family on the north wall and a decorative timber pulpit in the south-east. There is a carved timber altar, chairs and pews, a polished brass altar rail, and a polished red granite font, also at the west end.

The vestry has a Tudor arch doorway, and there are timber panelled doors at the west end, with ogee-headed panelling and fluted carved timber surrounds.

The church bell, preserved in the west lobby, is cracked but original and dates from the earlier phases of the church. It has a Latin inscription and date (1636) that state it was made for William St Leger, Viscount Doneraile, and his wife Gertrude, and repaired by their grandson Arthur when it was broken in 1700.

The peel of six bells is one of the few surviving in an Irish country parish church.

Other interesting details include the cast-iron boot scrapes, set into limestone blocks. The surrounding churchyard has some elaborate chest tombs and ornate gravestones.

The writer Elizabeth Bowen recalled almost 80 years ago, in 1942, how ‘in the great days of the Doneraile neighbourhood, the line of gentlemen’s carriages outside the church on Sundays, used (they say) to be a mile long …’

Saint Mary’s is part of the Mallow Union of Parishes in the Diocese of Cork, Cloyne and Ross. The Ven Meurig Williams, who currently Archdeacon of France and Monaco in Europe, has been appointed the new Rector of Mallow Union of Parishes.

Saint Mary’s Church, Doneraile … the surrounding churchyard has elaborate chest tombs and ornate gravestones (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Five sculptures that celebrate how hurling is both a sport and an art

Sculptures and statues in Wexford, Kilkenny and Limerick celebrate the truth that hurling is both a sport and an art (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Patrick Comerford

My favourite sports are rugby and cricket – and if armchair spectators are counted in too, then soccer too. I am looking forward to a new tournament getting off to start with Ireland v Wales on Friday evening, and have been delighted with Aston Villa’s performance so far this season.

But since my childhood I have also had an enthusiasm for hurling, nurtured by kind uncles who brought me to see Waterford and Wexford playing.

I could never understand Gaelic football, but it was impossible to grow up in the south-east without being infected with the all-pervading enthusiasm for hurling.

This weekend promises to be gripping one for anyone interested in hurling, and I shall be keeping a keen eye on the performances of Wexford, Waterford, Limerick and Kilkenny.

During my ‘road trips’ in summer and autumn, I saw again a number of sculptures and statues that celebrate the truth that hurling is not only a sport but an art too.

The statue of Nicky Rackard on Selskar Square in Wexford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

The statue of Nicky Rackard, Wexford’s best-known hurler, is unusual because he is on one foot only. The statue on Selskar Square shows Wexford’s most famous sporting son in a typical all-action pose, sliotar in one hand, hurley in the other.

Nicky Rackard was the hurling hero of the 1950s and one of the greatest hurlers of all time. He is the leading championship goal scorer of all time with 59, and won two all-Ireland hurling titles with Wexford.

He played both hurling and football for Wexford from 1942 to 1957. With his brothers, he helped Wexford to two All-Irelands in the 1950s. He and his team are credited with revolutionising the game of hurling as the lifted Wexford to the top of the game. He died in 1976.

Wexford Borough Council commissioned the Ludlow-based portrait sculptor Mark Richards to cast a larger than life-size statue of Rackard in his hurling prime.

Mark Richards specialises in fine figurative work. He was taught by AJ Ayres who, in turn, had worked with Eric Gill. Johannes von Stumm, Past President of the Royal Society of Sculptors, describes him as ‘one of the finest figure and portrait sculptors in Great Britain.’ The €120,000 commission was funded through the Per Cent for Art scheme.

The sculptor travelled to Wexford to meet Rackard’s children and to learn about hurling. He also met Kevin Gore, ‘who showed me how to hold a hurl and hurler maker Philip Doyle, who made me a hurl like the one that Nicky would have used in the 1950s, so as to be accurate as possible.’

The statue was unveiled in Selskar Square, just off North Main Street and close to Selskar Abbey, in March 2012 as part of the Set the Heather Blazing Festival. It has been a very popular feature in the town centre since then.

Sadly, the statue has since suffered from bouts of damage since, and it has been fenced off a number of times when his hurley was damaged and repair works were carried out.

The ‘Pride of Kilkenny’ by Barry Wrafter in Kilkenny (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

The ‘Pride of Kilkenny’ is a sculpture by Barry Wrafter on Canal Square in Kilkenny honouring Kilkenny’s hurlers. It was more than three years in the making and was unveiled on 26 May 2016.

This work beside John’s Bridge is a four-metre high, two-tonne sculpture. It shows three hurlers, in black and amber, with hurleys and helmets, reaching for a sliotar.

The sculptor Barry Wrafter from Ennis, Co Clare, has been immersed in the stone trade since his youth. The Wrafter family has been in the trade dating since the 18th century. They were renowned sculptors and have the distinction of being mentioned in Seamus Murphy’s book Stone Mad.

Wrafter has stressed that his sculpture, the ‘Pride of Kilkenny,’ does not depict a particular player, although the player fielding the sliothar bears a striking resemblance to Tommy Walsh.

The Kilkenny hurlers have won the All-Ireland Senior Championship 36 times. This ‘testament to both hurling’ was unveiled by the Kilkenny Senior Hurling manager Brian Cody.

Mick Mackey in a characteristic solo-run pose in Castleconnell (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

A life-sized bronze statue of the Limerick hurler Mick Mackey (1912-1982) was unveiled by the President of the GAA, Liam O’Neill, in Castleconnell, Co Limerick, in May 2013.

The Clare-based sculptor Séamus Connolly, best known for his life-size statues of Richard Harris and John B Keane, was commissioned for the statue depicting Mackey in a characteristic solo-run pose.

Mackey is considered one of the all-time hurling greats. He was born in Castleconnell in 1912 and became known for his strength and skill on the pitch with Ahane GAA club. During his playing career over 20 years, he won three All-Ireland titles, five Munster championships, five National League titles and eight Railway Cup medals. He is also credited as the inventor of the solo-run in hurling.

He received the Texaco Hall of Fame Award in 1961 for his outstanding contribution to hurling. He was honoured again in 1980 with the inaugural All-Time All-Star Award. He died in 1982. Two years later he was named at centre-forward on the Centenary Team and in 2000 was chosen at number 11 on the team of the Millennium that also featured Christy Ring.

The Mick Mackey Stand at the Gaelic Grounds in Limerick was completed in 1988. Limerick County Council also named a roundabout on the main Limerick to Dublin road after the legendary hurler.

Jackie Power (1916-1994), the ‘Prince of Hurlers,’ in Annacotty, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Jackie Power (1916-1994), known in Co Limerick as the ‘Prince of Hurlers,’ is commemorated with a statue near the mill and square in Annacotty, Co Limerick – the former Irish rugby international Peter Clohessy is also from Annacotty.

Jackie Power was born in Annacotty in 1916. He was prominent in hurling from 1933 to 1949, winning medals at club, county and province level. He also played Gaelic football. He died in 1994.

The life-size bronze statue of Jackie Power was erected in Annacotty in 1996. The inscription on the plinth of reads:

Jackie Power
The Prince of Hurlers
With Ahane, Limerick and Munster

Jackie was a hurling artist whose amazing skill technique courage dedication and sportsmanship ensured his place amongst hurling immortals.

‘Ruck and Puck’ on O’Connell Street, Limerick, celebrates Limerick’s obsession with hurling and rugby (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

‘Ruck and Puck’ is bronze statue outside the AIB Bank at 106 O’Connell Street, Limerick, and represents Limerick’s two sporting obsessions – hurling and rugby.

The initiative for this sport monument was taken by bank manager Paddy O’Callaghan.

This bronze statue of a rugby player and a hurler is the work of the sculptor is Robin Buick from Ballymena, Co Antrim. It was unveiled by President Mary Robinson on 18 May 1992.

A T-shirt boasting of Kilkenny’s hurling skills (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

There is a well-known T-shirt in Kilkenny that reminds people that Carlsberg does not do Hurling … but if they did, Kilkenny would probably still beat them.

I have been honoured to lift the Liam McCarthy Cup with Limerick hurlers after Limerick won the All-Ireland final in 2008.

But at the weekend, I’ll be cheering for Wexford, and then for Waterford.

Wearing the Wexford colours (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Canon Charles Bunworth, Rector of Buttevant, harpist and patron of Irish harpists

A plaque in Buttevant, Co Cork, commemorates Canon Charles Bunworth and the Bunworth Harp (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Patrick Comerford

Going back over my recent ‘road trip’ photographs from Buttevant, Co Cork, I came across the former home and a memorial to Canon Charles Bunworth (1704-1772), a Rector of Buttevant who was celebrated for his skill as a harper, his knowledge of Irish music, and his patronage of harpers.

Charles Bunworth was born in 1704 in Freemount, Newmarket, Co Cork, the second son of Colonel Richard Bunworth of Newmarket and his wife Elizabeth (Philpot). His elder brother, Canon Peter Bunworth, also became a priest in the Diocese of Cloyne and was Prebendary of Lackeen.

Charles Bunworth was educated by a family tutor and at Trinity College Dublin (BA 1727, MA 1730), and was ordained deacon (1730) and priest (1731) by the Bishop of Cloyne.

He was appointed Rector of Knocktemple (1729-1740) and Prebendary of Cooline (1736-1740), and then became Rector of Buttevant (1740-1772), and Vicar of Bregoge (1740-1772), Tullylease (1748-1772), and Kilbrin (1764-1772), all in north Cork.

Throughout these years, Bunworth lived in the Coach House in Buttevant and was respected for his learning and loved for his kindness. He was described in his family as ‘a man of unaffected piety, and of sound learning, pure of heart and benevolent of nature.’

After a time at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Bunworth developed a passion for the harp and Irish music. He was noted as an accomplished harpist, but most of all as a great patron of harpers and poets.

A patron of poets and bards, Charles Bunworth was chosen five times as president of the assembly of bards, held every three years at Bruree, Co Limerick from 1730 to 1750.

He was a skilled musician, and was known for his hospitality and entertainment of poor, travelling harpers. They, in turn, sang his praises and wrote songs about the charms of his daughters, Elizabeth and Mary.

He also provided instruction and financial aid to John Philpot Curran and Barry Yelverton (Lord Avonmore) before they entered TCD and went on to become prominent lawyers.

Charles Bunworth married Elizabeth Delacourt on 6 January 1743. They were the parents of two daughters: Mary; and Elizabeth (1746-1816), who married Croker Dillon in 1764.

The story of Bunworth’s death is almost as legendary as his collection of harps, and worthy of retelling on Hallowe’en. When he lay dying, a servant reported to the family that he heard the wailing of a banshee. He described how the woman had wailed and moaned and clapped her hands in despair, repeating Bunworth’s name. Local people said this meant that death was near.

Bunworth’s family dismissed the talk as mere superstition as his health appeared to be improving. However, without warning, his condition declined and on the night before his death events took a further turn.

Bunworth had been moved downstairs to sleep. Moaning and clapping was heard outside his room. When family members went out to investigate, it was found that a rose bush close to the window had been partially dislodged. Those who remained inside the house once again heard the sound of moaning and clapping.

As the night wore on, Bunworth’s condition worsened. By the time dawn broke he had died. It was 14 September 1772. He was buried in Saint John’s churchyard, Buttevant.

The story of the banshee was told by his great-grandson, the Cork writer and antiquarian, Thomas Crofton Croker (1798-1854), in Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland (1825).

When he died, Bunworth owned no less than 15 harps, bequeathed to him by grateful harpists. These harps were left in the loft of his granary, but were later burned as firewood by a careless servant. However, his favourite harp, now known as the Bunworth Harp, has survived.

The Bunworth Harp was made by the harp maker John Kelly in 1734. The sides and soundboard were carved from a single block of willow and incised with scrolling foliage and flowers, with black, red, and white painted decorations. It bears the inscription: ‘made by John Kelly for the Reverend Charles Bunworth, Ball-Daniel 1734.’

It is a large high-headed harp with carved, incised, and painted decoration, which has a one-piece soundbox, a narrow brass strip along the centre of the box with perforated string holes, 36 strings, and 36 pins.

This harp was inherited by his descendant, Thomas Crofton Croker, and was sold in London in 1854 after his death. It is now part of the Leslie Linsey Mason collection at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

In recent years, Bunworth and his work were commemorated when the local community in Buttevant organised a festival of music and art to commemorate the music and art of the area.

A local craftsman, Mick Culloty, was commissioned in 1995 to design and make a harp to commemorate Bunworth. It was unveiled by the Right Revd Roy Warke, Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross.

Charles Bunworth’s former home in Buttevant, Co Cork (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

A missed opportunity to visit Selskar Abbey, ‘almost at the end of the world’

The ruins of Selskar Abbey, described in the 1355 as ‘by Wexford, which is almost at the end of the world in Ireland’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Patrick Comerford

When I was back in Wexford last month during my late summer road trip, I missed once again finding an opportunity to visit Selskar Abbey in the heart of Wexford town. The church dates from the early 12th century, and it is claimed as the site of the first Anglo-Irish treaty, signed in 1169.

Selskar Abbey is said to have been built on the site of Viking place of worship dedicated to Odin. However, there are several indications that the area was home to an earlier Christian site, predating the arrival of the Vikings in 800. This site would have overlooked the River Slaney at the time, as the land around Redmond Square and the train station was not reclaimed until later years.

At one time, historians claimed the name Selskar is a corruption of the name Saint Sepulchre, referring to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. An alternative theory suggests the name derives from an old Norse phrase meaning ‘seal rock’ (seal skar), referring to a rocky outcrop nearby in the River Slaney.

At the time, this site would have overlooked the River Slaney, as the land around Redmond Square and the train station was not reclaimed until later years. It is a curiosity that parts of the abbey complex stood inside and other parts outside Wexford’s mediaeval town wall.

When Dermot MacMurrough, King of Leinster, was forced into exile, he returned to Wexford with a large Anglo-Norman force that immediately laid siege to Wexford. The siege was lifted when the Bishop of Ferns persuades the people of Wexford to surrender.

It is claimed in Wexford Henry II spent Lent at Selskar Abbey in 1172, doing penance for the murder of Saint Thomas Becket in Canterbury in 1170. However, it is unclear whether there is any truth in the story.

The leading Anglo-Norman commander, Raymond FitzGerald or Raymond Le Gros, and Basila de Clare, a sister of ‘Strongbow,’ Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, are said to have been married at Selskar Abbey in 1174.

The surviving ruins seen today are of the abbey founded ca 1190 by Alexander de la Roche. This was a house of Augustinian canons, and its proper name was the Priory of Saint Peter and Sain Paul.

There is an amusing entry about the Abbey of Saint Selskar in the Calendar of Papal Letters in January 1355, when a mandate was given to the Bishop of Ferns ‘to inform himself of the destruction by fire of the Muniments of the Prior and Convent of SS Peter and Paul, Selker (sic) by Wexford, which is almost at the end of the world in Ireland.’

John Topcliffe, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, complained to Henry VIII in 1512 that the monks who ‘time out of mind’ had chosen their own Prior, had elected a ‘good blessed religious man’ as Prior but that the Abbot had turned him out.

At the dissolution of the monastic houses during the Tudor Reformation, Selskar Abbey was closed in 1542 and handed to John Parker, Master of the Rolls in Ireland. It later passed to the Stafford family, but it continued in use as a Church of Ireland parish church, although other churches in Wexford were closed, including Saint Peter’s. In 1615, there were 20 churches in Wexford Town.

The abbey was destroyed by Oliver Cromwell in 1649, when the stones from several churches in the town were used to repair Wexford Castle.

The Church of Ireland parish church in Selskar was rebuilt in 1818-1826 at a cost of £1,384 12s 3¾d, pf which £830 15s 4¾d was a gift from the Board of First Fruits. The tower, first built in the 1300s, was restored and used as a sacristy and belfry. However, parts of the abbey were dismantled.

The church was consecrated on 9 November 1826, and the Revd William Strong, Rector of Wexford in 1824-1832, was the first minister of the new Saint Selskar’s Church. Later, he became Prebendary of Saint Audeon’s in Dublin (1833-1847) and Archdeacon of Glendalough (1847-1861).

It was reported in 1837 that there were three services on Sundays and Christmas Day and on four days in the week in Saint Iberius Church, while in Saint Selskar Church there was one service each Sunday and on Christmas Day in Saint Selskar’s. The Holy Communion was celebrated twice a month in Saint Iberius Church and six time a year in Saint Selskar’s.

However, in the aftermath of World War II, the Church of Ireland population of Wexford was declining and it was increasingly difficult to keep two parish churhes open in the town.

A decision was taken to close Selskar Church and focus on Saint Iberius Church on North Main Street. The church was closed, the slated roof was removed, and the east window was put in storage in Saint Iberius Church, with the hope that one day it would be restored to its original home.

The late Sam Coe, who was once a churchwarden in Wexford, told me he had held every office in the Church of Ireland that was open to a lay member of the church. He was a well-known tour guide into his old age, and when I was living in Wexford in the early and mid 1970s, he brought me to visit the ruins of Selskar Church.

Selskar Abbey reopened to the public in July 2012 and is now part of the Westgate Heritage Tower. The refurbished tower is closed to the public, as the stairway is too tight and narrow. The middle floor of this tower is still intact, and the top floor has a narrow platform that extends around the outside walls.

Although the grounds are closed to the public, walking tours of the site can be arranged. However, once again, I missed an opportunity to visit Selskar Church when I was back in Wexford last month … and it’s not even ‘at the end of the world.’

Selskar Abbey reopened to the public in July 2012 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Town planning, bridges and pretty cottages on the streets of Kenmare

The pretty terrace of colourful Victorian cottages at Emmet Place in Kenmare, Co Kerry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020; click on images for full-screen viewing)

Patrick Comerford

My recent summer ‘Road Trip’ began in Kenmare in south Co Kerry, at the beginning of the Ring of Kerry, and it seemed inevitable that I would return to Kenmare, with a visit earlier this week to see some of the buildings I had missed at the end of summer.

Kenmare’s name in Irish, An Neidín, means ‘the little nest.’ But the town only developed after it was granted to Sir William Petty in 1656 as payment for completing the Down Survey, mapping Ireland. Petty laid out a new town in 1670, and although the town was attacked in 1685, Kenmare was re-established and became a thriving coaching town on the route between Killarney and Bantry.

The names of the main streets that form a triangle at the centre of the town reflect the formative role played in Kenmare by the Petty-Fitzmaurice family. Their family titles include Marquess of Lansdowne, Earl of Shelburne and Earl of Kerry, and they have given those names to many streets and places in Dublin, in Calne in Wiltshire, and in Kenmare.

The Lansdowne emblems on a cottage on Market Street in Kenmare, Co Kerry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

I was staying overnight at the ‘Tom Crean Base Camp’ at the top of Main Street in Kenmare. Main Street was originally known as William Street, named after William Petty-Fitzmaurice (1737-1805), 1st Marquis of Lansdowne. As Lord Shelburne, he was the British Prime Minister in 1782-1783. In 1775, he renamed Nedeen as Kenmare and laid out the town in the triangular-pattern it retains to this day, was laid out.

Henry Street in Kenmare was named after his second son, Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice (1780-1863), 3rd Marquis of Lansdowne and British Chancellor and Home Secretary. Shelbourne Street also takes its name from one of the family titles, although the title originated in Co Wexford.

When I visited Kenmare a few weeks earlier, at the end of summer, I had walked around the town, and visited its two parish churches and a former convent. But when I returned earlier this week, I found the Lansdowne legacy in many buildings, including the old courthouse, which now houses the local heritage, and the former Market House, now converted into offices and shopfronts.

The former Market House is said to have been designed by Sir Charles Barry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

The former Market House on the corner of the Square and Market Street, facing the Fair Green, is a three-storey Classical style building designed by renowned English architect Sir Charles Barry (1795-1860) for the 3rd Marquis of Lansdowne. Barry’s best-known work is the Houses of Parliament or Palace of Westminster.

The Market House has a three-bay double-height arcade on the ground floor with round-headed openings and moulded archivolts and square-headed windows on the first floor.

The nine-bay side of the Market House on Market Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

There is a single-bay, two-storey side elevation on the north-west, and a nine-bay, two-storey lower return at the south-west with round-headed openings at the ground floor.

The clock on the first floor of the façade bears the date 1840.

Behind the Market House, Market Street was once known as Pound Lane because the town’s animal pound was located there. During the 19th century, many of the town tradesmen in Kenmare, such as leatherworkers, blacksmiths and tinsmiths, moved into the area.

A colourful cottage at Emmet Place on Market Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

In the second half of the 19th century, the Lansdowne Estate built a number of rows of attractive cottages in this area. Some of these cottages are decorated with simplified variations on the heraldic logos of Lord Lansdowne, with coronets, the letter ‘L’ and the dates 1874.

Emmet Place on Market Street is a group of terraced, three-bay, single-storey houses with half-dormer attics. They were built ca 1880, with single-bay single-storey gabled projecting porches at the centre of each façade.

In my imagination, these houses could be straight out of Trumpington or Grantchester.

A large number of the houses on Emmet Place and Parnell Place retain many original features (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

A large number of these houses retain many of their original features, including projecting gabled porches with scalloped bargeboards and timber boarded doors.

There are pitched slate roofs, clay ridge tiles, gabled half-dormers and projecting gabled porches with scalloped bargeboards, eaves fascia boards, rendered brick chimneystacks, multiple-paned timber casements and to replacement windows.

Around the corner in Parnell Place, a similar group of terraced, three-bay, single-storey houses have half-dormer attics, built at the same time and in the same style of pretty Victorian cottages.

The change of street names to Emmet Place and Parnell Place, and neighbouring Davitt Place, in this part of the town in the early 20th century was symbolic of the rise of nationalist politics in the Kenmare area.

The Kenmare Stone Circle dates back to the Bronze Age (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Market Street leads up to the Kenmare Stone Circle. This is the largest stone circle in south-west Ireland, where about 100 examples can be found. Stone circles were built during the Bronze Age (2200 to 550 BC) for ritual and ceremonial purposes. Some studies indicate they were once oriented on certain solar and lunar events, such as the position of the sun on the horizon on a solstice.

The Kenmare Stone Circle may be oriented on the setting sun, and it may date back 3,000 years. This is the only such monument so close to a town centre in Ireland. Although it is known locally as the ‘Druid’s Circle,’ its original use or purpose remains unknown. Some speculate it may have served a ritual purpose, others that it was used as primitive calendar or a burial site.

The monument consists of 15 stones in a circular form, with a centre stone that appears to be a burial monument of the type known as a Boulder Burial. These are rarely found outside south-west Ireland.

The rock used to make the circle is greenstone and brownstone. But this is not found locally and had to be brought from several miles away.

Cromwell’s Bridge … the meaning of its name and its origins are lost in the mists of time (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Back down in Market Street, a lane behind Emmet’s Place leads through back gardens and allotments, across a foot bridge over the Finnihy River, and upstream to Cromwell Court and Cromwell’s Bridge.

The antiquity of this hand-crafted bridge is unknown. One account claims it was built by Franciscan friars in the seventh century – but the Franciscans were not founded by Saint Francis until the 13th century.

Local lore believes it was built by Augustinian friars in the 11th century, although the Augustinians first came to Ireland with the Normans, and their first house in Ireland was founded in Dublin ca 1280.

This narrow bridge possibly had walls of earth and stone, although little evidence now remains.

The Finnihy River is tidal, and this may have necessitated the exaggerated arch of the bridge, which stands almost 6 metres above the average water levels in the river.

One thing is certain: its name has no association with Oliver Cromwell: although Sir William Petty, who first conceived of laying out a new town in Kenmare, had surveyed and mapped Ireland during the Cromwellian era, Cromwell himself never came to Kenmare.

Instead, the name of Cromwell’s Bridge is believed to be a corruption of the Irish word cromeal, meaning a moustache, because its shape.

A pretty cottage on Emmet Place, behind the Market House in Kenmare, Co Kerry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Liscarroll Castle, now in ruins but once the third largest castle in Ireland

Liscarroll Castle towers above the village of Liscarroll in north Co Cork (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Patrick Comerford

I have started to learn to take Fridays off. In recent weeks, I have used these opportunities to visit Cahir, Co Tipperary, and Cobh and Spike Island in Co Cork.

So, as the weekend began, two of us decided to return to Liscarroll, Co Cork, which is about 40 minutes or 50 km south of Askeaton, and to Buttevant, to see their mediaeval castles and streetscape.

Liscarroll is near Buttevant, about 3 km south of River Awbeg, and the remains of Liscarroll Castle, a large 13th-century Hiberno-Norman fortress, tower above the village.

Liscarroll takes its name from the O’Carroll Clan, although the village and castle owe its strategic importance to the de Barry or Barry family, who held extensive lands throughout Co Cork after the arrival of the Anglo-Normans, including Castlelyons, Barryscourt and Buttevant.

The sieges of Liscarroll and an important battle there on 3 September 1642 brought to an end to the strategic importance of the castle after 300 years, although there are few accounts of its earlier history.

Liscarroll Castle was built by the Barry family in the 13th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Local accounts say Liscarroll Castle, like many other Anglo-Norman castles in Ireland, was built by to King John. But it seems more likely that the Barry family was involved in building it.

Philip de Barry, who came to Ireland with his uncle Robert FitzStephen, acquired extensive lands in Munster and built many castles. His son, William de Barry, had a grant confirming his father’s lands from King John in 1206.

His son, Robert, and his grandson, David Oge were the founders of monastic houses later in the 13th century at Ballybeg, Buttevant and Cork. David Oge de Barry or his descendants may have built Liscarroll Castle later that century.

The castle became the most important military building in Co Cork in the 13th century the third largest castle of its time in Ireland, after the castles in Trim and Ballintubber.

The castle stands on an outcrop of rock that projects into swampy immediately north of Liscarroll. The outer defensive walls enclose a quadrangular area measuring 62 metres from north to south.

The curtain walls – with an average external height of 8.5 metres – have strong batters below this level at the base, extending outwards from the rock foundation which is exposed in a number of places. In several places, the quarried rock makes the walls look higher and stronger.

Three of the four cylindrical towers that project at each of the towers of the castle remain in a fairly complete state, but of little more than a part of the foundation of the south-west tower is now in position. The castle well was within the south-west tower.

All the towers had basements of two upper storeys, with the main entrances on the first-floor levels, and with timber floors. Circular stairways rose from these entrances to the upper floors and there was a wall-walk or allure about the same level as the present wall tops. Each of the remaining towers has three narrow loops set in wide internal embrasures at the main floor level and the presence of corbels near the top of the south-west tower externally indicates that the walls were once crowned by parapets projections in places.

The south-west tower was roofed between four gables within the allure and all the towers rose a storey in height over the curtains.

There are two other towers both of rectangular form. The smaller projects outwards from the centre of the north curtain. Its thick walls surround a rectangular well-like space locally known as the ‘Hangman’s Hole.’

The largest and most important tower in Liscarroll Castle is the gate building in the centre of the south curtain (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

The largest and most important tower is the gate building in the centre of the south curtain. It measures 12 metres from north to south by 7 metres in width and projects about 2 metres south from the curtains east and west of it.

This may be the lower part of the gate-building, and, although it has been altered, it is typical in some respects of the similar rectangular structures dating from the first half of the 13th century, before wide twin-towered gatehouses came into fashion.

It appears to have had an external gate set in the deep outer recess and a portcullis was set in from the exterior face. A second, strong gate behind the portcullis opened inwards, and there may have been a drawbridge too. Two ‘murder holes’ pierce the main vault just in rear of the outer gate.

While the lower part or the gate-building is ancient, the blocking wall of the inner archway and the whole upper part of the structure appear to be not earlier than about 1500.

Sir Philip Perceval loaned large sums of money to Sir John Barry in the early 17th century and acquired Liscarroll in the foreclosures and confiscations in 1625.

In 1647, 20 years after Perceval had moved to recover the debt, John Barry admitted, ‘I owed Perceval more than my estate or neck is worth. I am certain it was not so when I indebted myself to him.’

Perceval lost Liscarrol Castle again in 1642. On 20 August 1642, during the Confederate War, General Gerald Barry advanced with 7,000 men from Limerick to Liscarroll Castle. But the 80-year-old general was so slow and indecisive that it took him 12 days to take the castle, even though the force that held it was comparatively small.

Murrough O’Brien, Earl of Inchiquin, advanced from Cork with a greatly inferior force, intent on taking the strategically important castle for the Parliamentarians. In the early stages of Inchiquin’s attack, Barry’s force mistakenly thought they had routed their opponents and began looting and pillaging. This gave Inchiquin a critical opportunity to gather his men for a desperate shattered but failed to defeat the Confederate force.

Other attacks over the next few days resulted in the Parliamentarians taking control of Liscarroll. In 1645, the Earl of Castlehaven retook Liscarroll Castle and other castles in the area for the Irish Confederates.

However, in 1650, Sir Hardress Waller, the regicide, of Castletown, Co Limerick, attacked Liscarroll Castle with artillery and blew a gap in the west wall. Despite these sieges and battles, the castle remained in hands of the Perceval family for almost 250 years, and passed to their descendants, the Earls of Egmont, who held it until the end of the 19th century.

The Perceval family held Liscarroll Castle for almost three centuries (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Sir John Perceval (1683-1748) was MP Co Cork (1705-1715) and first President of Georgia (1732). He became Baron Percival of Burton Park, (1715), Viscount Percival of Kanturk (1722) and Earl of Egmont (1733).

Many of the castle structures were still in existence in 1750.

Another member of this family, Spencer Perceval (1762-1812), was Attorney General, Chancellor of the Exchequer and First Lord of the Treasury before becoming Prime Minister in 1808. Four years later, he was assassinated in the lobby of the House of Commons, the only British Prime Minister to have been assassinated.

Meanwhile, the fortunes of the Perceval family and the Tierney family became entwined in the Regency period. Dr Matthew Tierney from Rathkeale, who had a practice in Brighton, was credited with saving life of the Prince Regent in 1820.

His brother, Edward Tierney, was introduced to the Countess of Egmont, Bridget Wynn, daughter of Glyn Wynn and wife of John Perceval, 4th Earl of Egmont. Lady Egmont and her son Henry later became the sponsor at the baptism of Edwrad Tierney’s son, who was named Perceval Tierney.

Lord Egmont appointed Edward Tierney as the agent for his Irish estates in 1823, including Liscarroll Castle and thousands of acres around Churchtown and Kanturk in north Cork. Tierney was an able manager and he transformed the estate with great improvements.

John, 4th Earl of Egmont died on 31 December 1835 and was succeeded by his only son, Henry, who was godfather of Sir Edward Tierney’s son. But Henry Perceval (1796-1841), 5th Earl of Egmont, was known for his drunkenness and loose living. When he died in 1841, He had no heir and he left all his estates to his agent, Sir Edward Tierney. The family titles passed to his distant cousin, George Perceval (1794-1874), 3rd Lord Arden, who became 6th Earl of Egmont without receiving one penny from his ancestral estates.

Around this time, the castle was the subject of a piece of doggerel written in 1854 by Callaghan Hartstonge Gayner that ends:

Beneath its folds assemble now, and fight with might and main,
That grand old fight to make our land ‘A nation once again,’
And falter not till alien rule in dark oblivion falls,
We’ll stand as freemen yet, beneath those old Liscarroll walls.

‘We’ll stand as freemen yet, beneath those old Liscarroll walls’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Sir Edward Tierney died on 4 June 1856 at the age of 76, and left his estates to his son-in-law, the Revd Sir Lionel Darrell. The sixth earl went to court against Darrell to recover the estates in a remarkable case before the Summer Assizes at Cork in 1863. After four days, the case was settled. Egmont recovered Liscarroll Castle and his and his ancestral estates, but Darrell was awarded £125,000 and costs.

Egmont died on 2 August 1874 and was succeeded by his nephew, Charles George Perceval (1845-1897), 7th Earl of Egmont, who sold the Perceval estates in Co Cork, totalling 62,500 acres, to the tenants under the Ashbourne Land Act in 1895.

An unsuccessful attempt was made to overthrow the west curtain wall in 1920, but it remained standing, although in an unstable state.

The Commissioners of Public Works became the guardians of Liscarroll Castle a National Monument in 1936, and the Office of Public Works has carried out extensive repairs since then.

During this restoration work in the 20th century, a bronze harp-peg was found in a hole in the upper part of the south-west tower. The peg is now in the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin.

Before leaving Liscarroll, we visited the small mediaeval churchyard. Only the gable wall of the mediaeval church survives, and while there are many graves from the 17th and 18th centuries, we could find none belonging to the Perceval and Tierney families.

We continued south to Buttevant, but the story of the Tierney family seemed worth returning to and retelling after the weekend.

The gable wall is all that survives of the mediaeval church in Liscarroll, Co Cork (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Names and people come to life in the shopfronts and on the streets of Cappoquin

The entrance to Cappoquin House looking out on the shopfronts of Main Street at the junction with Green Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Patrick Comerford

If the Market House and the Square have been at the heart of social and economic life in Cappoquin, Co Waterford, for almost 400 years, then the oldest streets in Cappoquin are probably Main Street, Church Street, Castle Street and Mill Street, which all developed as the early town expanded in the 1700s.

Main Street in particular has always been the heart of commercial Cappoquin, although trading patterns have changed considerably since I was a small child in the 1950s. In those days, the town had 22 registered grocers and seven drapers, most of them on Main Street and the streets that lead onto it.

Many shopfronts still seen on Main Street date from the early 19th century, and as I walked around Cappoquin during my late summer ‘Road Trip’ a few weeks ago, many of those shopfronts remained familiar.

The colourful shopfronts in Cappoquin are testimony to the careful town planning of the Keane family (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Although some of the names have changed in the intervening decades, and many of the shops have closed, many of the people associated with them come back to life in my mind’s eye.

The three-storey grandeur – albeit it fading grandeur at many premises – of many of the façades and shopfronts on Main Street shows how wealthy the town was in the 19th century, with ground space at a premium, and the Keane family of Cappoquin House exercising a positive, benign influence on how the town and its commercial life developed.

Lehane’s is the longest-standing garage and filling station in Cappoquin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

As the busiest and traditionally most populous street in the town, Main Street has been home to many great figures of the locality. It was here too that traditional businesses like Moores and Conway’s Hotels, along with Kingstons, Stanleys, Hicks and Mansfields flourished until the latter half of the 20th century.

Lehane’s remains the town’s longest-standing garage and filling station, and was photographed in a recent photo-feature in the Guardian (February 2018), when I was interviewed about my childhood memories.

The Lonergan brothers worked in their own shop window (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Few families have been as synonymous with Cappoquin as the Lonergans, who set up a tailoring business in Main Street in the 1920s. The shop has doubled as a focal point for hurlers, and the brothers Thomas Lonergan (1927-1999) and Noel Lonergan (1929-2011) are remembered for sitting in their shop window as they toiled away at their trade. They were also known as beekeepers.

The premises next door was once the Jubilee Nurse’s House, maintained by the Richard Henry Keane Memorial Fund.

The Carnegie Library was designed in the Arts and Crafts style by George Patrick Sheridan and built on a site donated by Sir John Keane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

The town’s Carnegie Free Library was designed by the architect George Patrick Sheridan (1865-1950) and was built on a site donated by Sir John Keane and with funding from the Carnegie Foundation.

It was designed in the Arts and Crafts style, with a single-bay, single-storey jettied box oriel window, a red-brick English bond wall on the ground floor, an inscribed cut-limestone band on the first floor, painted rendered walls on the first floor with painted timber frame-detailing, and a painted roughcast panel at the gable with bas-relief shamrock detailing.

The library opened in 1911, and has also served as the town’s courthouse on occasion, and is now both a meeting venue and a regular exhibition centre.

The former Walsh’s Hotel was originally the army barracks and then the RIC or police barracks in Cappoquin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

The entrance to Cappoquin House stands at the point where Main Street narrows and becomes Barrack Street.

The east part of Cappoquin is the newest part of the town. Yet, it is recorded in the early 18th century that the town’s military barracks was based here in Barrack Street, also known today as Allen Street.

The building later known as Walsh’s Hotel was originally the army barracks and then the Royal Irish Constabulary or police barracks in Cappoquin. The site housed a troop of horse or more and was the focal point of an attack by the Young Ireland movement on 16 September 1849. That attack in Cappoquin, which was the last action of the movement in Ireland.

Around the corner, Green Street was home not only to the village green but also to the fever hospital and the Keane iron foundry.

The shopfronts of Cappoquin bring back the memories of names and families (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

At the other end of the town, Mass Lane, sometimes called Tivoli Terrace, was the route taken by Catholic churchgoers to the first church in the parish, which was built in 1750. The lane was once part of the Cappoquin-Lismore road and was then called ‘Old Chapel Road.’

Nearby, Cappoquin Bacon Factory, which once employed over 200 people, was founded by the Keane family. From 1907 to 1980, the factory was synonymous with Cappoquin and was west Waterford’s most important industry.

The company’s black and yellow vans and lorries are no longer common sights on the roads all over Munster.

The black and yellow vans of Cappoquin Bacon Factory are no longer seen on the roads of Munster (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)