Conna () is a village in
County Cork,
Ireland. It is situated on the
River Bride, near the town of
Fermoy, on the
R628 regional road. The village contains several pubs, a shop, a post office, a
Roman Catholic church (built ) and a nearby
Church of Ireland chapel. The village is dominated by
Conna Castle, a five-story
tower house situated on a limestone outcrop near the river.
History
Evidence of ancient settlement in the area includes a number of
ringfort
Ringforts, ring forts or ring fortresses are circular fortified settlements that were mostly built during the Bronze Age up to about the year 1000. They are found in Northern Europe, especially in Ireland. There are also many in South Wales ...
,
standing stone
A menhir (from Brittonic languages: ''maen'' or ''men'', "stone" and ''hir'' or ''hîr'', "long"), standing stone, orthostat, or lith is a large human-made upright rock (geology), stone, typically dating from the European middle Bronze Age. T ...
and
fulacht fiadh sites in the
townlands of Conna, Clashaganniv, Curraheen and Kilclare.
During the mid-16th century, the Fitzgeralds, Earls of Desmond, built
Conna Castle on a high limestone rock overlooking the River Bride.
The castle and its estate was seized by the English and passed into the hands of
Walter Raleigh, the English settler. The rightful heir to the castle,
James FitzThomas (the Sugán Earl) staged an unsuccessful attempt to capture the castle. The castle then went through a series of different owners before ending up in the hands of the
Earl of Cork. It is believed that
Oliver Cromwell passed by the castle and fired cannons at it before moving on.
In 1653, the castle suffered a fire in which three of the steward's daughters were killed.
The castle continued to move from owner to owner until Hilary L'Estrange purchased the castle in 1851. He passed it on to his son, Rev A. G. K. L'Estrange, on whose death in 1915, the castle was willed into the care of the state.
Notable people
*
Liam Kearney
Liam Kearney ( ga, Liam Ó Cearnaigh; born 10 January 1983, Republic of Ireland), nicknamed "The Conna Maradona", is an Irish professional footballer associated primarily with Cork City in the League of Ireland. As of 2021, Kearney was "Head of ...
(b.1983), professional footballer and coach
*
Angela Lansbury (1925–2022), actor and producer, moved to the area with her husband
Peter Shaw and lived in a 19th century farmhouse named Knockmourne Glebe.
*
Bartholomew MacCarthy (1843–1904), Irish historian
See also
*
List of towns and villages in Ireland
References
{{reflist
Towns and villages in County Cork