Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 8 May 2014

“Historical Walking Tour of Mahon”

     Next Sunday afternoon, 11 May at 2pm, I present a historical walking tour of Mahon (start Blackrock Garda Station, Ringmahon Road). The walking tour explores the rich heritage of the Mahon Peninsula.  John Windele’s Guide to the South of Ireland in 1844 notes that the grounds between the Castle and the Douglas River are called the ‘Ring’ because of the Irish word “Reen” which means a promontory. He attributes Ringmahon Castle to a branch of the old Irish sept of the O’Mahonys, who anciently held large possessions in the vicinity and left their name Mahony or Mahon to the present day area.

The first documented evidence for a settlement in the area of Ballintemple-Blackrock relates to the medieval order of Knights Templars, who established a large and ornate church in the district in 1392. This church was taken down in the 1540s during the reign of King Henry VIII. In addition, from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century, three mercantile families, who traded within the medieval walled town of Cork, the Galway, Coppinger and Roche families possessed large tracts of land in the vicinity. Those latter families were but three of several very important and influential families in Cork who were closely involved in trade with Britain, the European Continent and in the 1600s in the Americas. The Galway family in particular marked their presence in Blackrock by constructing Dundanion Castle, a tower house, which was built circa 1564 and lived in by various occupants until 1832. Blackrock Castle was built circa 1582 by the citizens of Cork with artillery to resist pirates and other invaders. Ringmahon Castle is depicted on a map of Mahon about 1660 as well as the Castles of Blackrock and Dundanion.

        In the early 1690s, the Galway, Coppinger and Roche families had their lands forfeited during the Williamite wars in Ireland. Their lands in the Ballintemple area were placed under the ownership of the English Parliament in association with the Corporation of Cork. In 1750, an account of the Blackrock district by Charles Smith, historian, detailed that there were several suburban retreats comprising large houses with elaborate gardens and plantations and occupied by the merchant class – gentry. Smith compared the banks of the River Lee as having very similar features but on a smaller scale to the banks of the Seine in Paris and the Thames in London. This is reflected in 1779 in Taylor and Skinner’s Road Maps of Ireland where several houses are marked as well as naming their owners – the Allens, the Sweets, the Busteeds, the Hairs and the Tavis family. Blackrock Road was shown as the principle thoroughfare.

In the early nineteenth century, large numbers of middle class citizens working and living in the overpopulated inner city decided to separate their place of work from their place of residence. For example in the Mahon Peninsula, the construction of Ringmahon House was part of this trend. It was symbolic of the aspirations of the original owner James Murphy and of the flexibility of the standard Georgian design. A great book by Donal and Diarmuid Ó Drisceoil on Murphy’s brewery alludes to the Murphy family being merchants in the City of Cork as well as being authors, brewers, distillers, inventors and parliamentarians. The profits generated by the various enterprises were invested in bricks, mortar and land. Apart from Ringmahon, the Murphys also built the grand residence of Ashton in Blackrock. Northside locations that were built by the Murphys consisted of Clifton at Montenotte, Belleville and Hyde Park on Glanmire Road; Vosterburg, Montenotte. Suburban locations comprised Lauriston, Glanmire, Myrtle Hill House, Tivoli Road; Annemount, Glounthaune. Harbour locations comprised Tivoli House, Bellevue in Passage West, Little Island House, Inchera House in Little Island and Norwood in Rushbrooke.

       James Murphy (1769-1855) built Ringmahon House. He was the eldest son of Jeremiah (1745-1802). Jeremiah was a Cork based merchant who achieved much success in the leather industry in the late eighteenth century. At that time tanning became an important industry in the late 1700s and early 1800s. In the early nineteenth century, there were forty-four tanyards employing over four hundred people in the City of Cork.

        James Murphy was born in 1769 at Coolroe in the parish of Carrigrohane. James married Mary Galway in 1792 and resided at Morrison’s Island, Cork where his twelve children were born. James was a merchant, an importer and a ship-owner. In partnership with his brother Nicholas, they were handling teas, pepper, coffee, indigo, rum and both raw and refined sugar. All were imported from their relevant countries of origin.  In 1825, James Murphy with his brothers set up Midleton Distillery. Two years later, he took over the business interest of his brothers and changed its name to James Murphy & Co. James Murphy had twelve children, Jeremiah, John, Edward, Nicholas, Henry, Francis James, Daughters Kate and Anna Maria. They were all born on Morrison’s Island. James Murphy moved to Blackrock sometime after 1818. The move coincided with James attaining a 21-year lease of Ringmahon Castle and grounds from William Crawford, the brewer in 1820.

More on the historical walking tour…

Caption:

740a. Section of Grand Jury Map of Cork City, 1811 (source: Cork City Library)