The Lower Blackwater Region
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Youghal Bridge // Knockanore
Postcard
Rhincrew / Rhinecrew / Rincrew was the site of a preceptory of the Knights Templar founded by Raymond le Gros in 1193 to control the river crossing.
Templemichael parish is thought by some to take its name from the Templars of Rhincrew.
Templemichael Castle, a Tower House probably built as a FitzGerald stronghold in the C16th, is a scenic riverside ruin.
Templemichael parish church (CoI), erected in 1823 and in use until quite recently, is now derelict, but through a gap in the door it is possible to see the Smyth family’s crumbling vault.
Ballynatray Estate & Molona Abbey
Ballynatray Estate, recently purchased by an English businessman for c.12,000,000 Euros, is private property, but is crossed by several public rights of way.
Ballynatray House is a fine Georgian mansion, incorporating some walls of a much earlier house and parts of a medieval castle. (Photo – Irish Waterway History)
The land was acquired after the Desmond Rebellion by Sir Walter Raleigh, who sold it along with all his other Irish property to Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork, through whom it passed to his son-in-law Grice Smyth, whose descendant, another Grice Smyth, built the current house in 1795.
His daughter, Penelope Caroline Smyth, fled to Gretna Green in 1846 to marry Carlos Ferdinando Borbone, Prince of Sicily and son of the King of Naples. The couple went on to marry a further three times – in Madrid, in Rome and in England – but their union was never recognised under Sicilian law because the King of Naples withheld his consent. Penelope Smyth was so beautiful that she featured in a book called Some Fair Hibernians (1897).
The Smyth’s of Ballynatray were a very tragic family, with a lot of young deaths, and the last generation of the family literally died out in the 1950s. Uncannily, at least half of all the deaths in the family took place on the 13th day of the month. Two of the three siblings of the final generation, all of whom died before the age of 35, also died on the 13th.
The family were apparently very well regarded in the area, mainly due to their benevolence to their tenants during the Great Famine.
Molana Abbey, originally built on an island, is accessible (on certain days of the week) via an early C19th causeway built by Grice Smyth. (Photo – Irish Waterway History)
Founded in the C6th by Saint Maelanfaidh, the monastery was a powerful influence throughout Ireland for several centuries before falling victim to Viking rapacity. It was re-established as an Augustinian Priory after the C12th arrival of the Normans by Strongbow’s colleague Raymond le Gros, who was reputedly buried here in 1186.
Ballynatray estate occupies much of the modern parish of Glendine and contributes to the unique beauty of this wooded area.
Glendine was the scene of a ferocious battle between “the Ravens of Munster” and “the Ravens of the West” in 945 AD.
Glendine parish church (RC) has an idyllic grotto-like setting in a small wooded valley with a tumbling river and a picturesque cascade.
Kilcockan parish is noted for its scenic hilly landscape.
Kilcockan church, probably established in the C6th, was clearly connected with Molana Abbey, and was served by Augustinians from there from c.1200 until King Henry VIII‘s 1540 Dissolution of the Monasteries. The vault is the longest but by no means the oldest of the graves in this ancient place.
Strancally Castle
Strancally Castle on the west bank of the River Blackwater is a Gothic revival mansion complete with arrow loops and a keep, designed by James and George Pain and built for John Keily in the 1820s.
The original castle, now in ruins, was built by Raymond le Gros and later held by the FitzGeralds of Desmond; it became infamous in folklore for its “murder hole”, used by some Spanish tenants around 1570 to dispose of neighbouring landowners into the river below. Stories vary as how it came to be destroyed, but most agree that an early 19th bolt of lightning delivered the coup de grace.
There is no access to the privately owned estate.
Them Golden Fields I Trod is a book of local memoirs by Francie Murray, profusely illustrated with black and white photographs taken during the 1930s and 1940s of historic sites, people, and events.
Headborough House
Headborough House, on a hillside overlooking the spot where the River Bride flows into the Blackwater, was formerly the seat of the Smyths of Headborough, a branch of the Smyth family of nearby Ballynatray.
The house dates from the C17th, but was largely remodelled in 1827 by the Rev. Percy Smyth (who also built a summer residence, now Monatray House Hotel). His son Percy Smyth (1839 – 1910) died of a heart attack on the way back from the funeral of his wife; their three sons died without issue, and her cousin Patrick Perceval Maxwell inherited the house in 1952.
His wife was the prolific popular novelist Magdalen King-Hall (1907 – 1971), whose Tea At Crumbo Castle (1949), about the tragic life of an Anglo Irish family, is based on Strancally Castle, while her How Small A Part Of Time (1946) is based on the C18th Anne and Eliza Coughlan of Ardo House (now known as “McKenna’s”), near Ardmore.
The property is strictly private.
Knockanore is an unremarkable village, but its name has been made famous by an excellent locally produced artisan cheese.
Knockanore is within easy reach of Tullow and Camphire south of Cappoquin, all on ByRoute 2.
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