Cork History

At the time of the English invasion, the city and the adjacent country were in the undisturbed possession of the Danes, who held them under Dermot Mac Carthy or Mac Carty, prince of Desmond, of which extensive territory this place was the capital. On the landing of Henry II., in 1172, that chieftain was the first to acknowledge his sovereignty: attending his court on the day after his arrival, he resigned to the English monarch his city of Cork, and did him homage, and paid tribute for the rest of his possessions. The king immediately appointed an English governor, with a garrison, which being soon after obliged, from the small number of his forces, to withdraw, Mac Carty resumed possession; and the inhabitants, in 1174, fitted out 30 barques, and, proceeding to Dungarvan, fell with all their force upon Strongbow's army under Raymond le Gros, who had been plundering the neighbouring country, and had just shipped his booty for Wexford; they were, however, repulsed, and Gilbert their commander was slain.

In 1177, Henry granted the surrounding territory to Milo de Cogan and Robert Fitz-Stephen, with the exception of the city and adjacent cantreds occupied by the Ostmen, which he kept in his own possession. In 1185 the city was besieged by the Irish forces under Mac Carty; Fitz-Stephen, being closely shut up within the walls, sent for assistance to Raymond le Gros, then at Wexford, and that nobleman coming promptly by sea with a reinforcement of 20 knights and 100 archers, the garrison made a sally and routed the Irish at the first onset. In the following year Dermot Mac Carty, while holding a conference with some other Irish chiefs near the city, was slain by a party of English under Theobald Fitz-Walter, the founder of the noble house of Ormonde; but, shortly after, the success which crowned the military efforts of the native Irish left this the only considerable place of strength in Munster in the possession of the English. The city was now surrounded by the troops of Desmond, and a force detached to its relief was totally defeated; but from the secret jealousies that prevailed in the Irish camp, Daniel Mac Carty, one of the principal chieftains, abandoned the siege, and the garrison was saved from destruction.

The English, however, being without succour or provisions, cut off from all intercourse with their countrymen, and perpetually harassed by their enemies, were in a short time obliged to capitulate to the Prince of Desmond; but in a few years they recovered possession of the city, and strengthened it by the erection of an additional fort, which kept the men of Desmond in subjection. Shandon Castle is said to have been built by Philip de Barry, nephew of Fitz-Stephen; and in 1199, John Despenser, the first civic magistrate upon record, was made provost of Cork. From this period a great chasm occurs in the history of the place, which does not appear to have experienced any important changes, or to have been distinguished by any remarkable event, till the death here, in 1381, of the lord-deputy, Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March and Ulster, when John Colton, Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin, was immediately appointed to that office.

In 1492, Perkin Warbeck, in his assumed character of Richard duke of York, arrived here from Lisbon, and was kindly received by the citizens; after a short stay, he embarked for France, whence he returned to this city in 1495, and soon after departed for Scotland; he once more visited this place, and having enlisted a small force, set sail for Cornwall. After the disastrous termination of Warbeck's expedition, the mayor of Cork was hanged for countenancing that impostor; and in 1498, on account of the disloyalty of the citizens, the Earl of Kildare placed a strong garrison here, and compelled the principal inhabitants to swear allegiance to Henry VII., and give bonds and pledges for their future obedience.

In 1541, the mayor was one of four commissioners, appointed in lieu of the Irish brehons or judges, to hear and determine all controversies among the natives of this province. In 1568, the. lady of Sir Warham St. Leger, lord-president of Munster, was, during the absence of her husband, besieged by the insurgents in the city, but was relieved by the lord-deputy, Sir Henry Sidney, with 400 men from England; and in 1575 the lord-deputy again came hither with his forces, and remained six weeks. During this period Queen Elizabeth presented Maurice Roche, mayor of Cork, for his able services against the insurgents, with a silver collar of the order of St. Simplicius, which is still preserved by his descendant, Thomas C. Kearney, Esq., at Garrettstown.

At the commencement of the great Desmond insurrection, the city became the head-quarters of the English forces, and Sir John Perrot arrived with six ships of war for the protection of the port against the threatened assault of the Spaniards. In 1598 Sir Thomas Norris, vice-president of Munster, was obliged to shut himself up here for security against the insurgents sent from Ulster by O'Neill; and in 1601 the lord-deputy assembled at this place the army destined to expel the Spaniards from Kinsale, which was soon after reinforced with 2000 men from England. At this period the city is described by Camden as "of an oval figure surrounded by walls, environed and intersected by the river, which is passable only by bridges, and consisting of one straight street continued by a bridge; it is, however, a little trading town of great resort, but so beset by rebellious neighbours as to require as constant watch as if continually besieged."

On the death of Queen Elizabeth, in 1602, the mayor and corporation refused at first to proclaim the accession of James; the citizens took arms, and set guards upon the gates to prevent any soldiers from entering the town, disarmed the Protestants, refused to admit Sir Charles Wilmot, who came with his army to quell the disturbance, and determined to acknowledge no authority but that of the mayor; they then proceeded to organize a plan of defence, and, among other outrages, fired upon Shandon Castle, then the residence of Lady Carew, and upon the bishop's palace, where were assembled the commissioners to whom the government of the province had been entrusted. The commissioners sent to Halbowling Fort, in the harbour, for a supply of artillery; but the citizens manned some boats to take that fort, and, if possible, to intercept the supply; and though the attempt was frustrated, several men were killed on both sides; and they succeeded, after some difficulty, in demolishing the Queen's Fort, on the south side of the city.

On the 11th of May the lord-lieutenant marched with all his forces into the city, and after condemning some of the leaders to punishment, and leaving a strong garrison, proceeded to Limerick, where similar disturbances had taken place. On this occasion the Queen's Fort was rebuilt as a citadel, to keep the citizens in subjection; and further, to prevent a recurrence of these outrages, the city and liberties were, in 1608, constituted a distinct and independent county. In 1613, James I., in a letter to Sir Arthur Chichester, proposed that Cork should be divided into two counties; but the scheme was opposed by the Earl of Cork, who had lent the lord-president Villiers £500 towards repairing the forts of Cork and Waterford, by which means they were put into a state of defence. In 1636 the Algerines, who had infested this coast five years previously, reappeared, and, aided by the French, spread terror among the inhabitants. The Earl of Strafford, in a letter dated Sept. 15th of that year, states that "the Turks still annoy this coast; they came of late into Cork harbour, took a boat with eight fishermen, and gave chase to two others that saved themselves among the rocks, the townsmen looking on without the power or means to assist them."

In March, 1642, the city was blockaded by the insurgents under General Barry and Lord Muskerry; but part of the garrison, making a sally, pursued a detachment of them to their camp at Rochfortstown, where, without the loss of a single man, they killed 200 of the enemy, put their whole army to flight, and took all their baggage and carriages. In 1644 two conspiracies to betray the city to the insurgents, at the head of one of which was the mayor, were discovered and suppressed. On the approach of Cromwell, in 1649, the inhabitants embraced the cause of the parliament. In 1688 a large party of Irish horse and foot, under Lieut.-General Mac Carty, entered the city at midnight, disarmed the Protestant inhabitants, plundered the houses of the most wealthy, and committed similar excesses in all the neighbouring villages. James II. arrived here shortly after; and in the autumn of 1689 the Protestant inhabitants were seized and imprisoned by Lord Clare, the governor, and many of them were sent to the neighbouring castles of Blarney and Macroom.

In September, 1690, the city was besieged by the army of William III., under the command of the Earl of Marlborough and the Duke of Wirtemberg; and on this occasion, notwithstanding an agreement with the inhabitants to the contrary, the suburbs were burnt by the governor Mac Elligott; the fortresses called the Catt and Shandon Castle were taken without resistance; and from both these, as well as from a battery near the Red Abbey, and from the steeple of the cathedral church, the south fort and the city were assailed. A breach being made by the cannon at Red Abbey, the troops advanced to the assault; on which the garrison, after a siege of five days, surrendered prisoners of war to the number of 4500, of whom many afterwards made their escape, and 160 were blown up in the Breda man of war, then lying in the harbour. In marching to the assault, the Duke of Grafton, who had entered as a volunteer in William's army, was killed. The royal troops took possession of the city on the 29th of September; and the magistrates, resuming their offices, proclaimed King William and Queen Mary.

The annals of the city during the period subsequent to the Revolution, record little deserving of special notice. In 1746, the militia of Cork consisted of 3000 foot and 200 horse, together with a well-appointed company of 100 gentlemen, commanded by Colonel H. Cavendish. In 1787 the city was honoured by the presence of the king, then Prince William Henry, commander of the ship Pegasus, which lay at Cove: two years after, a flood, occasioned by a heavy fall of rain, immediately following a storm of snow, which had continued for several days, laid the whole of the streets under water, to the height of five feet, and in some places of seven; several houses were washed away, many injured, and immense damage inflicted on property. The first mail coach arrived in Cork from Dublin in 1789.