Macroom Hurlers

Macroom (; ga, Maigh Chromtha) is a market town in County Cork, Ireland, located in the valley of the River Sullane, halfway between Cork city and Killarney. Its population has grown and receded over the centuries as it went through periods of war, famine and workhouses, forced emigration and intermittent prosperity. The 2011 census gave an urban population of 3,879 people, while the 2016 census recorded 3,765 people.

Macroom began as a meeting place for the druids of Munster. It is first mentioned is in 6th-century records, and the immediate area hosted a major battle involving the Irish king Brian Boru. During the middle ages, the town was invaded by a succession of warring clans, including the Murcheatach Uí Briain and Richard de Cogan families. In the early modern period the MacCarthy's took control and later the area found prosperity via milling. The MacCarthys built a series of tower houses, some of which survive. The family lost influence during the Williamite wars of the 1690s, after which authority over the town castle waxed and waned between the MacCarthys and a number of Anglo-Irish families. In the 17th century, Macroom became a central point of conflict in the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland.

The population fell in the 1840s during the Great Famine. Evidence can be found in the former workhouse, now the district hospital at the north side of New Street, and the mass graveyard to the west, near Clondrohid. During the late 18th and early 19th century, a number of Anglo-Irish families, and a branch of the Massey family, settled in the area. Many of their estate houses were burned in the period around the Irish War of Independence as the town was caught up in the turmoil of IRA activity.

Today the town is an economic hub for the mid west Cork region, and the location of a Danone milk processing factory, which dries and cans infant formula from milk supplied by local dairy farmers. Until the 1950s, New Street was the town's economic hub, and contained many small retail outlets.

Name

Macroom's Irish language name, , likely translates as 'crooked plain' in reference to the bend in the River Sullane on which its historic core is situated. It has also been suggested that it may translate as "meeting place of followers of the god Crom" or "crooked oak", the latter a reference to a large oak tree that apparently grew in the town-square during the reign of King John.Lewis, Samuel.
Macroom, County Cork in Lewis Topographical Dictionary of Ireland 1837
". Retrieved 2 January 2011
Google Books

History

Neolithic

Evidence of pre-history human activity in the Macroom area survives in the many Iron Age burial monuments; the area is unusually rich with standing stones, dolmens and stone circles.Macroom: Town Profile
". agriculture.gov.ie. Retrieved on 19 March 2007. Later, in the early Dark Ages, Macroom seems to have been a centre for Bardic conventions and a base for the Druids of Munster. The first historical reference to Macroom dates from the 6th century, when the townland was known as Achad Dorbchon and held within the kingdom of Muscraighe Mitine.

The Eóganachta were then the dominant clan of Munster and held kingdoms from Muscraighe Mitine to the midlands town of Birr. At some point, they were replaced by the Uí Floinn, who commissioned a castle in Macroom so as to establish Raithleann as capital of Muskerry.

Middle ages

Muscraighe Mitine underwent three invasions during the 13th century. The Murcheatach Uí Briain and Richard de Cogan arrived in 1201 and 1207 respectively; the MacCarthys became the dominant and most powerful family and held Macroom Castle until the mid-17th century.
From the 14th century, Macroom became the capital of the Barony of Muskerry and the centre for trade, burial and religious worship. It was one of the earliest Irish milling centres, and from the end of the 16th century the town grew from a village 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.

Modern period

By the mid-17th century, Anglo-Irish families owned approximately one-third of the town in value terms. The Protestant families introduced butter making, a labour-intensive industry. A 1750 tenement list details 134 buildings and 300 families, with a population ratio of 6 to 1 between Catholic and Protestants. The town had developed from a locality of mud cabins in the early 1660s to a linear shaped urban settlement of mainly thatched cabins, which were later replaced by solid cottages following a campaign by the Irish Land and Labour Association (ILLA). Macroom Castle was for a period owned by Admiral Sir William Penn, a Royal Navy officer and father of William Penn, after whom the U.S. state of Pennsylvania is named.

Battle of Macroom

The 1650 Battle of Macroom was waged as part of the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, when English Parliamentarian forces led by Roger Boyle defeated an Irish Confederate force under David Roche. Bishop Boetius MacEgan, acting on behalf of the MacCarthys, failed to hold the castle. He was taken prisoner by Parliamentarian forces and executed by hanging at Carrigadrohid.

Irish War of Independence

Macroom was the main base in Cork for the Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) during the Irish War of Independence. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) was highly active in the county, especially in the areas around Macroom, Bandon and Dunmanway. RIC policemen in the town described the area as "practically in a state of war". After a series of burnings of local RIC barracks and courthouses a curfew was imposed on the town, with a ban on public meetings and market fairs.Hart, 27 A local IRA volunteers wrote of a "hinterland unpoliced and unwatched". Local RIC policemen felt they had lost control and the Auxiliaries were called to reinforce them. The townspeople of Macroom treated the Auxiliaries with hostility, and there were instances of their patrols being stoned. The British were embroiled in a guerrilla battle in the Muskerry hills, coming under fire from the Ballyvourney IRA cell, and lost three men – two of them officers – in one attack.Hart, 28

On 28 November 1920 at Kilmichael, on the road between Macroom and Dunmanway, a convoy consisting of 18 Auxiliaries in two lorries were ambushed by IRA volunteers from the 3rd Cork Brigade under the command of Tom Barry. 16 Auxiliaries were killed and 1 wounded, while the IRA suffered no casualties. After the ambush, the Auxiliaries increased their mistreatment of the County Cork populace, and martial law was declared in the counties of Cork, Kerry, Limerick and Tipperary, which led Macroom to fall under martial law for a period of time. Macroom Castle was burned out on five separate occasions; the last occasion was on 18 August 1922, following the evacuation of the Auxiliaries from the town. Volunteers from the anti-treaty IRA, including Erskine Childers and Frank O'Connor, retreated from Cork City to Macroom, burning the castle before leaving during the Irish Civil War.

Mount Massey which is now ruined, was the 18th and 19th century home of the members of the Massey family, and is located north by Kilnagurteen and gave the townland of Masseytown its name. The family were major landowners with land covering 13,363 acres, extending from Clondrohid to Drishane. During the 19th century, the family tried to temper growing Irish nationalist sentiment by sponsoring the local town fair. Later their home and estate was besieged and burnt in December 1920 by IRA volunteers during the Irish War of Independence.

IRA volunteer and politician Michael Collins was killed in 1922 in an ambush near Béal na Bláth

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