Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article, 

Cork Independent, 11 February 2016 

Cork Harbour Memories (Part 48)

Jephson Legacies at Mallow

   Mallow town developed rapidly in the late sixteenth century and seventeenth century as an English plantation town. Mallow castle was burned down by supporters of James II in 1689, marking the end of its use. Instead of restoring the house, the Jephsons converted other buildings into a new residence. Shortly afterwards a new bridge nearby was built over the River Blackwater. The section of four small arches on the town side of Mallow Bridge is all what remains of the first stone bridge over the river. Built in 1712, it had a total of fifteen arches. During the severe flood of 1853 several of the arches were swept away and others were severely damaged. This section was replaced by a new bridge of four arches in 1856. On the bridge stands a monument to the volunteers of the old Irish Republican Army of the Mallow area who gave their lives in the War of Independence.

   Throughout the centuries the town has prospered as a market town, helped by the River Blackwater, its rich agricultural hinterland, its central location and its importance on the railway network. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, through the Jephsons, Mallow became famous as a spa resort and became known as ‘The Irish Bath’. Pigot’s Directory of 1824 describes Mallow as follows: “The modern structures consist of a handsome church, and a new market house, with convenient buildings adjoining, erected by the present proprietor; here also are chapels for Roman Catholics, Wesleyans, Calvinists and Independents. Contiguous to the town is a spring of moderately tepid water, bursting from a limestone rock; its medicinal qualities attract a numerous assemblage of fashionable society, for whose convenience commodious baths are about to be erected; it was discovered in the year 1724, and in quality assimilates to the hot water of Bristol – its temperature is 68 ½ . Mallow since the year 1803 has returned one member to the Imperial parliament, elected by a seneschal and freeholders”.

  The Jephson legacy permeated into the nineteenth century. This is evident in the history of the some of the key historic buildings in the town. A descendant of Sir John Jephson, husband of Elizabeth Norrey was Charles Denham Jephson-Norreys who donated a site south of Main Street, Mallow for the construction of St Mary’s Roman Catholic Church. There in 1818 the Church of St Mary was built. This was a triumph in an intolerant time when the struggle for emancipation was still eleven years from victory. The new church was originally built behind a row of houses that stood along Main St. Access was by a narrow lane to the west and south of the present Credit Union building, formerly the National Bank. It was unacceptable in the days before Catholic Emancipation in 1829 to have a Catholic Chapel in a prominent position. These houses were gradually removed, thus providing a piazza fronting on to Bank Place.

   The new St Mary’s Church was cruciform in plan including a basic nave with side aisles and shallow transepts with galleries. Initially it had an earthen floor and no seats. During the first two decades of the twentieth century Canon Wigmore (P.P. 1881-1917) had the church enlarged and some of it rebuilt. He employed the services of Messrs Ashlin and Coleman architects to carry out this work. The interior was also embellished with a beautiful rib vaulted plaster ceiling and fluted columns this was the work of the Orangie family from Italy. In the 1990s the roof was found to be unsafe and it was completely re-roofed. Unfortunately, the ceiling executed by the Orangie family earlier in the century was unable to be saved. The ribbed vaulted portion over the nave was replaced by a plain tunnel vault.

   The spa house was built in 1828, by Charles Denham Orlando Jephson (1799-1888), MP. It is in the old English style of rural architecture, and in its day contained a small pump-room, an apartment for medical consultation, a reading-room, and baths. The building was fitted up for supplying at short notice, hot and cold salt-water, vapour, and medicated baths. The approach to the spa from the town was and still is partly through an avenue of lofty trees along the bank of an artificial canal, affording great scenery.

   Situated in the heart of Mallow town centre and overlooking Main Street to the north, is one of the town’s most recognisable landmarks – the clock tower. The half timbered Tudor style facade fills the building with character. It was built around 1855 using the designs of Charles D O Jephson who also dabbled as a local amateur architect. The building was once a licensed premises. The bell tower became structurally unsound and was removed around 1970 for safety reasons. The building has been used as offices for many years and the owners have recently invested a considerable sum in works to bring the internal of the building to a high standard. Adjacent today stands the Thomas Davis Statue in remembrance of an eminent Irish statesman, writer, and one of the instigators of the Young Ireland Nationalist movement.

To be continued…

For more on North Cork history, check out Kieran’s and Dan Breen’s new book, North Cork Through Time (2015).

Captions:

830a. St Mary’s Roman Catholic Church Mallow, c.1900 (source: Cork City Museum)

830b. Spa House, Mallow, c.1900 (source: Cork City Museum)

830c. Clock House, Mallow, c.1900 (source: Cork City Museum)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 4 February 2016

Cork Harbour Memories (Part 47)

Inquisition at Mallow

   Continuing on from last week, an inquisition taken in the year 1611 reveals more information about the nature of early seventeenth century Mallow and the principal landowners. There were several who leased lands within the Jephson manor including the Hydes, Spensers (see last week), Cuffes, and Audleys. To fulfil the plantation of this area of North Cork, they all would have built their own fortified house as such on these lands.

   Apart from Mallow Castle, another structure called Castle Garr or Short Castle was located on the northern side of the Mallow hamlet. It was the residence of Richard Aldworth with 300 acres in fee farm from the Jephsons. The Aldworth family originated in Berkshire, England, from whence Richard Alworth moved to Ireland at the time of Queen Elizabeth’s Irish wars. An Aldworth photograph album is kept in Cork City and County Archives. The legal document with the reference U2/2 includes a Pedigree of the Aldworths since their coming into Ireland. The first Richard got the estate of Short Castle, near Mallow, forfeited by the Earl of Desmond. His grandson, Sir Richard (d.1629), was appointed Provost Marshall of Munster, and married a daughter of Richard Boyle, Earl of Cork. The family was granted lands formerly owned by the MacAuliffe clan, including the Manor of Newmarket. There are letters patent from Charles I in 1639 renewing the grant. Newmarket House became the family seat, and many family members are buried in Trinity Church, Newmarket. Colonel Richard Aldworth married Elizabeth St Leger, daughter of Lord Doneraile by whom the Doneraile Estate and Title came into the family in the person of St Leger Aldworth his second son. Elizabeth (d.1775) is thought to have been the only woman ever admitted to the Masonic order.

   Historian Dr John F Berry wrote an extensive article, published way back in 1906, on the history of Mallow Castle estate in the Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society. In this article, he draws on and attempts to translate calendar state and other parliamentary papers to recreate the importance of the Mallow plantation. He records how small and large English communities worked together to made the Munster plantation project work. Some of his place names may not be the exact spelling of present day townlands and some places may have been subsumed by modern day place-names. However, he lists the fee farm holders of Robert Williamson (Starch House, 315 acres) and Roger Wallen (300 acres, Ballyfintery). Next are listed the lessees who had agreed terms for 21 years – Robert Hoames (300 acres, Cloghlucas), Gregory Newman (300 acres, Dromsligagh) William Smith (400 acres, Churbeston and Gortaghmore), Thomas Bettesworth (300 acres, Ballylogh), Thomas Bellamy (300 acres, Lower Quarter), John Gibbes (200 acres Corraghen Early), Thomas Langly and Walter Jenkins (360 acres, Upper Quarter), Philip Waghen (100 acres, Lackenyloagh), William Hollydaie (4 acres), Walter Harris (60 acres), Thomas Edwardes and William Newman and Donston Heard (120 acres), and Thomas Mylier (5 acres).

   The 1611 inquisition provides insight into the small hamlet of Mallow with a population of possibly 100 people (compared to over 10,000 people today). Recognition is given in the inquisition to the names of 25 copyholders, who held houses and gardens within the town of Mallow – John Wreg, John Joanes, George Harbert, Thomas Basnet, Cuthbert Eliott, Christopher Grigg, Thomas Dowdall, Francis Robinson, David Dawkins, William Peiton, Robert [ ], William Sloane, Hugh Laughan, Timothy Lee, Reynarde [ ], William Gilbert, John Uppcott, Mathew Harris, Nicholas Dodington, John Foster, Walter Harris, Christopher Gifford, Robert Hoames, Michae [ ], and Philip Vaghan.

    The inquisition fulfilled the terms of the plantation and the town was incorporated on 27 February 1613 to James I. Under the charter, the town was to be a free borough, and to be known as the borough of Mallow. Under it a corporation, consisting of a provost, twelve free burgesses and a commonalty was created, and Robert Holmes was named first provost. The provost and free burgesses were to have power to send two fit men to parliament.

   Nineteenth-century antiquarian accounts record that on the breaking out of the Confederate wars in 1641, Mallow town comprised 200 houses occupied by English settlers, of which 30 were described as strongly built and roofed with slate. On 11 February, 1642, Confederate forces under Lord Mountgarret entered the town. On that occasion Captain Jephson entrusted the castle of Mallow to the custody of Arthur Bettesworth, with a garrison of 200 men, an abundant supply of arms and ammunition, and three pieces of ordnance. It held fast. Later in time, the castle of Mallow was assaulted and taken by the Earl of Castlehaven, in 1645, and was nearly reduced to ruins.

   In 1642 Castle Garr was to be defended by Lieutenant Richard Williamson, who, after sustaining repeated assaults, in which he lost most of his men, and several breaches had been made, agreed to surrender upon terms. After he had left the fortress, finding that the insurgents did not keep the terms of capitulation, Lieutenant Williamson and a party of men fought their way back through their ranks and retired into Mallow Castle, which had been maintained with better success by Bettesworth.

To be continued…

For more on North Cork history, check out Kieran’s and Dan Breen’s new book, North Cork Through Time (2015).

Captions:

829a. Main Street, Mallow, c.1900 (source: Cork City Museum)

829b. Main Street, present day (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 21 January 2016

Cork Harbour Memories (Part 45)

Stories at the Plain of the Rock

     Upstream on the Blackwater from Fermoy and shown on John Speed’s Map of Munster c.1610 (from The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine, 1611-12) is the historic town of Mallow. The name is derived from the Irish Magh Ealla (The Plain of the Rock). The original Mallow castle was built by the Anglo-Normans in 1185 AD, after the native O’Keeffe’s had been dispossessed. In 1282, the Desmond Fitzgerald’s built a new castle. Soon afterwards, a Baron of the Geraldines, Thomas Fitzmaurice, traded his land in Kerrylocknaun, Connaught, with the Desmond Fitzgeralds.

   After Thomas Fitzmaurice died in 1298, the land stayed in Geraldine hands until their rebellion in the closing stages of the sixteenth century, when the Earl of Desmond’s brother, Sir John of Desmond took possession of it. However, he and his wife, Ellen, had no children, so the castle was not inherited and left to decay. It then passed through a stream of owners, including Sir William Pelham and Sir John Norreys of Rycote in Oxfordshire. His brother, Sir Thomas Norreys, inherited the 6,000 acre estate in the late sixteenth century.

   The nearby town for centuries also formed part of the territories of the great Fitzgerald family, the Earls of Desmond. This place was one of the centres of the operations of the English forces in North Cork. After the rebellion of the Desmonds in the reign of Elizabeth, the Queen fortified the castle for the defence of the ferry across the river. In 1584, the castle and the manor were granted by the Queen to Sir Thomas Norreys/ Norris, Lord-President of Munster. Today walking around the grounds of the ruinous but impressive structure, information panels by Dúchas, the Heritage Service, detail that the fortified house was built between 1584 and 1599 by the Norreys. The building stone was taken from an older castle on the same site, which had belonged to the Fitzgeralds. The castle is a long building with projecting bays in the centres of the two long walls, with octagonal turrets at the corners of the front of the house. There were four storeys in the main block, including an attic and cellar space. Floors and room partitions comprised of wood, except for one stone wall across the middle of the building. There are small holes below the windows through which the muskets could be fired.

   Thomas Norreys (1556–1599) appears on several occasions in the Annals of the Four Masters and described in the Dictionary of National Biography of Great Britain. He was the fifth son of Henry, baron Norreys of Rycote and Wytham Abbey in Oxfordshire (the latter previously in Berkshire), and his wife, Margery, the youngest daughter of John Williams, 1^st Baron Williams of Thame. He matriculated from Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1571, aged 15, and graduated with a BA in 1576. Sir John Norris (1547?-1597) and Sir Edward Norris were his brothers. In December 1579 he became, through the death of his eldest brother William and the influence of Sir William Pelham, captain of a troop of horse in Ireland. Thomas took an active part in the following year in the campaign against Gerald Fitzgerald, fifteenth earl of Desmond. During the absence of Sir Nicholas Malby, president of Connaught, in the winter of 1580-1, Thomas acted as governor of that province, and fought the Burkes and other Gaelic Irish families. In 1581-2 he was occupied, apparently between Clonmel and Kilmallock, in watching the movements of the Earl of Desmond. On the retirement of Captain John Zouche in August 1582, on account of ill-health Thomas he became colonel of the forces in Munster. He compelled the Earl of Desmond to abandon the siege of Dingle, but, nothing came of it.

   In 1588 Thomas accompanied Sir Richard Bingham in an expedition against Connaught. In 1595 he and his brother John were wounded in a skirmish near Athlone. In September 1597, he was appointed President of Munster in Sir John’s place, having been already Vice-President thereof for some years. His brother John was appointed President of Munster in June 1584. In 1589 he was joint commander with Francis Drake in an expedition against Spain. In February 1595 he landed a force of some 2,000 troops to oppose O’Neill and the chieftains of the north. John was mortally wounded in a conflict with the Burkes near Kilmallock in the summer of 1599.

   Around 1610, the date of John Speed’s map, Sir Thomas’s daughter Elizabeth, married an English knight, Sir John Jephson, and they came to live at Mallow Castle. Queen Elizabeth I was her Godmother. In 1612, James I confirmed to Elizabeth Jephson, the castle, manor, lordship and cantred of Mallow, a total of 6,000 acres in surrounding townlands, a fishing weir and two mills on the River Owenmore and Blackwater and a ferry over the latter. John Jephson was the son of William Jephson of Froyle, Hampshire and in 1603, he was knighted by Sir George Cary. He served in the army and became a major-general. In 1621, Jephson was elected Member of Parliament for Hampshire and in 1624, he was elected Member of Parliament for Petersfield and was re-elected MP for Petersfield in 1625.

To be continued…

For more on North Cork history, check out Kieran’s and Dan Breen’s new book, North Cork Through Time (2015).

Captions:

827a. Postcard of Mallow Castle, .c.1900 (source: Cork City Musuem)

827b. Mallow Castle, Present Day (picture: Kieran McCarthy)