Qualla: Clonakilty

Clonakilty: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Five kilometres west of Clonakilty, in a farmhouse at Woodfield, a child named Michael Collins was born in 1890. Thirty-two years later he would be dead, ambushed in a Cork road by men who had once called him a comrade. In the years between, he ran the intelligence network that broke British rule in Ireland, signed the treaty that created the Irish Free State, and became - by the age of thirty-one - the most influential man in the country. The town claims him because he lived here, attended school here, gave speeches from O'Donovan's Hotel on the Main Street. A statue of him stands on Emmet Square. The schoolhouse is gone but the museum opened in 2016. In a place this size, the gravity of one life is still felt.

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Clonakilty: The Castle of the Woods

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The town's name in Irish is Cloich na Coillte - the castle of the woods. A 14th-century stronghold called Coyltes Castell stood near here, recorded in a 1378 plea roll, in what was then a ten-mile strip of fallow woodland separating the baronies of Ibane and Barryroe. The Norman ...

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Clonakilty: The Battle of the Big Cross

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

During the Irish Rebellion of 1641, Catholic rebels burned much of Clonakilty. The Protestant settlers fled to Bandon. A force led by Lord Forbes reoccupied the town in October 1642, then left two Scottish companies and one Irish company to garrison it while he marched to relieve...

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Clonakilty: Collins's Town

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Michael Collins lived in Clonakilty on Emmet Square, then called Shannon Square, after the Earls of Shannon who were the local landlords. He attended the local boys' national school. He spoke at political meetings from the balcony of O'Donovan's Hotel. By 1919, he was Director of...

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Clonakilty: Tidy, Fairtrade, Autism-Friendly

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 2003, Clonakilty became Ireland's first Fairtrade Town. In 2007, the European Commission named it a 'European Destination of Excellence' - the first Irish town to receive that title. In 2018, it was certified as Ireland's first Autism-friendly town - shops trained in sensory-f...

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Clonakilty: De Barra's and Inchydoney

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

De Barra's Folk Club on Pearse Street has hosted Christy Moore, Sharon Shannon, Roy Harper, John Spillane, Frances Black, and most of the names that constitute the folk music tradition in Ireland. Noel Redding, the bassist for the Jimi Hendrix Experience, moved here in the 1970s ...

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