Buttevant
Encyclopedia
Buttevant is a medieval market town, incorporated by charter
of Edward III
, situated in North County Cork
, Ireland
.
While there may be reason to suggest that the town may occupy the site of an earlier settlement of the Donegans, Carrig Donegan, the origins of the present town are clearly and distinctly Norman, and closely connected with the settlement of the Barrys
from the 13th century. Here they built their principal stronghold in North Cork.
Buttevant is located on the N20 road
between Limerick
and Cork
and the R522
regional road
. The Dublin–Cork railway line
passes by the town, but the station, from which at the outbreak of World War I
in 1914, newly raised battalions of the Royal Munster Fusiliers
and the Royal Dublin Fusiliers
who had completed their training at the local military barracks, set out for the Western Front
.
The Buttevant Rail Disaster
occurred on 1 August 1980. At 12:45 a CIE
express train from Dublin to Cork entered Buttevant station at 115 km/h carrying some 230 Bank Holiday passengers. It careered into a siding and smashed into a stationary ballast train. The carriages immediately behind the engine and goods wagon jack-knifed and were thrown across four sets of rail-line. Two coaches and the dining car were totally demolished by the impact. It resulted in the deaths of 18 people and over 70 people being injured.
70% of Irish rail deaths over a 28 year period occurred as a result of this event (and the subsequent Cherryville junction accident which killed a further seven people)[1]. CIE and the Government came under severe public pressure to improve safety and to modernise the fleet. A major review of the national rail safety policy has held and resulted in the rapid elimination of the wooden-bodied coaches that had formed part of the train.
family: Boutez-en-Avant. The Rotulus Pipae Cloynensis (1364) makes ten references to Bothon in its Latin text. The Lateran Registers record the name tempore Pope Innocent VIII
as Bottoniam (7 March 1489) and Buttumam (3 June 1492); and tempore Pope Alexander VI
in various forms: as "Bothaniam" (14 February 1499), "Betomam" (12 March 1499), and "Buttomam" (15 January 1500). Edmund Spencer, in Colin Clouts Come Home Againe (1595), gives an early example of the modern name and associates it with Mullagh, his name for the river Awbeg:
The Bibliothèque Royale in Brussels contains the manuscript of Father Donatus Mooney's report on the Irish Province of the Franciscans compiled in 1617/1618 in which he notes that the place "is called 'Buttyfanie' and, in Irish, 'Kilnamullagh' or 'Killnamallagh'". Philip O'Sullivan Beare
in his Historiae Catholicae Iberniae, published in Spain in 1620, gives the name 'Killnamollacham' for the town and translates it into Latin as 'Ecclesia Tumulorum'. James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde
, refers to "Buttiphante" in a letter of January 1684 (Carte Manuscripts
, Bodleian, 161, f. 47v), while Sir John Percival, progenitor of the Earls of Egmont, recorderd in his diary for the 16 March 1686 that the troopers "being att Buttevant Fair this day took Will Tirry and his wife and brought them hither and I examined them".
The Irish denomination for Buttevant has reached such a degree of confusion as to make it almost unidentifiable. The oral tradition of the area consistently gives Cill na Mullach, or 'Church of the Hillocks', for Buttevant. When the area was still largely Irish speaking, that tradition was recorded by O'Donovan in the field books of the General Survey of Valuation, Griffith's valuation
, which was taken in the Barony of Orrery and Kilmore ante 1850. Peadar Ua Laoghaire
confirms the tradition in his Mo Scéal Féin. That notwithstanding, several other nomenclatura have insistently been assigned to Buttevant by Irish Government officialdom: Cill na mBeallach, Cill na Mollach, and more recently Cill na Mallach by the Place Names Commission, explaining eruditely that it may signify The Church of the Curse, for which, the general public can be excused for thinking the Commission were referring to nearby Killmallock. P.W. Joyce in his The Origin and History of Irish Names of Places, published in Dublin in 1871, dismisses as erroneous and an invention of later times, the theory that the Irish name for Buttevant meant the Church of the Curse, and cites the Four Masters noting that a Franciscan Friary was founded at Cill na Mullach in 1251.
The name Buttevant is reportedly a corruption of the motto of the DeBarry family. On the Barry coat of arms the inscription is "Butez en Avant" - Be in Front.
Henry III of England
, by grant of 26 September 1234, conceded a market at Buttevant to David Og de Barry to be held on Sundays, and a fair on the vigil and day of St. Luke the Evangelist (17 October and 18 October), and on six subsequent days. This was done to further the economic prosperity of the borough and connected with a widespread network of such markets and fairs which indicate "an extensive network of commercial traffic and an important part of the infrastructure of the growing agrarian and mercantile economy". The most important markets and all fairs were associated with the major boroughs and can be used as a gauge of their economic and social significance as also the 1301 quo warranto
proceedings in Cork at which John de Barry "claimed the basic baronial jurisdiction of gallows
, infangetheof, vetitia namia and fines for shedding blood (where 'Englishmen' were involved) in his manors of Buttevant, Castlelyons
, Rathbarry and Lislee".
The town of Buttevant accumulated a series of such grants over several centuries. Fairs and markets were held at Buttevant for cattle sheep and pigs on 23 January, 30 April, 27 May, 27 August, and 21 November. Cattle and sheep fairs were held on 27 March, 14 October, 17 December. Pig markets were held on 11 July. Fairs falling on Saturdays were held on Mondays. Fridays were devoted to egg markets. Horse fairs were held on the Fourth Monday in October. Cahirmee Horse Fair
, the only surviving fair, is held on 12 July.
The development of the settlement followed a pattern frequently repeated in the Norman colonies of North Cork and Limerick
. The original nucleus of the town consisted of a keep situated on an elevation on the south side of the town. Opposite the keep, on a pre-Norman site, was built the parish church, dedicated to St. Brigit, sister of St. Colman
of Cloyne. A mill, another characteristic element of Norman settlements, was located on the river, to the north of the keep. In addition, a hospice for lepers was established about a mile to the North East outside of the town wall. This basic structure was repeated in nearby Castletownroche
, where it is still clearly to be seen, in Glanworth
, Mallow
, and in Kilmallock
and Adare
.
A further feature of Norman settlements in North Cork was their concomitant religious foundations. Early colonial sites, such as Buttevant and Castletownroche, saw the introduction of the more traditional monastic communities which were housed in foundations outside of the town walls. The Augustinian priories of Bridgetown
(ante 1216) and Ballybeg
(1229) being respectively founded by the Roches and the de Barry contiguous to the settlements of Castletownroche and Buttevant. With the rise of the new mendicant orders, essentially urban in character and mission, the Norman settlements saw the foundation of mendicant houses within the town walls as with the Franciscans in Buttevant (1251), and the Dominicans in Kilmallock (1291) and Glanworth (c. 1300).
The burgage
of Buttevant developed to the north of the keep and eventually increased in size to about 50 acres (202,343 m²) enclosed by walls for which Murage
grants had been made by the crown in 1317. The native inhabitants were excluded from residence within the walled area and confined to a quarter of their own to the north west of the walled town.
A bridge, still extant, was built over the river Awbeg around 1250.
In 1317, the 11th. of Edward II of England
, John fitz David de Barry requested and obtained from the exchequer
a grant of £105 for the commonality and town of Buttevant for its walling. A further grant was made on 6 August 1375, the 49th. of Edward III, to the provost and commonality of the town together with the customs of its North Gate.
.
passed through in his novel Castle Richmond; James Joyce
played a game of hurling there in his Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man; the revered Canon Sheehan of Doneraile
mentions Buttevant in several of his novels, not least in Glenanaar in the setting of the fatal events of the Fair of Rathclare; and Elizabeth Bowen
mentions it in her elegiacal family history Bowen's Court.
Clotilde Augusta Inez Mary Graves (1863–1932), the daughter of Major W.H. Graves and Antoinette Dean of Harwich, was born at Buttevant castle on 3 June 1863. She was cousin of Alfred Perceval Graves
, the father of the poet Robert Graves
.
Convent educated in Lourdes
, she converted to Catholicism and embarked on a literary career. She was a successful London and New York playwright who enjoyed considerable literary acclaim in the first decades of the 20th century. In 1911, under the pseudonym of Richard Dehan, she published The Dop Doctor. It was made into a film in 1915 by Fred Paul
. The film gave considerable offence in South Africa due the harsh portrayal of English and Dutch characters. It was eventually banned under the Defence of the Realm Act. The story hinges around a drunken and disgraced medic who eventually makes his way to South Africa where he redeems his honour at the siege of Mafeking. Albert Gérard, in his European-language writing in Sub Saharan Africa ISBN 9630538326, regards the book's description of the siege of Mafeking "as a heroic justification of British Imperial strategy and the vindication of a belief in the righteousness and superiority of the British cause. The Dop Doctor contains pro-Jingo arguments of the type which offers the stereotypical portrait of the Boer as backward and despiciably primitive, and the black man as a shadow figure behind the civilizing foreground, an appendage of an argument over what to do with his labour". Between Two Thieves and One Braver Thing followed in 1914. She died at Hatch End, Middlesex
on 3 December 1932.
In the Gaelic tongue, An tAthar Peadair O Laoghaire makes unflattering mention of garrisoned Buttevant in Mo Sceal Fein; while the great Irish antiquarian of the 18th century, An tAthar Séamus O Conaire, one time member of the Royal Society of Antiquities, rests westward facing outside of the Friary portal.
Charter
A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified...
of Edward III
Edward III of England
Edward III was King of England from 1327 until his death and is noted for his military success. Restoring royal authority after the disastrous reign of his father, Edward II, Edward III went on to transform the Kingdom of England into one of the most formidable military powers in Europe...
, situated in North County Cork
County Cork
County Cork is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and is also part of the province of Munster. It is named after the city of Cork . Cork County Council is the local authority for the county...
, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
.
While there may be reason to suggest that the town may occupy the site of an earlier settlement of the Donegans, Carrig Donegan, the origins of the present town are clearly and distinctly Norman, and closely connected with the settlement of the Barrys
De Barry Family
The de Barry family is an ancient family of Cambro-Norman origins which once had extensive land holdings in Wales and County Cork, Ireland. The founder of the family was a knight who assited in the Norman Conquest of England and Wales during the 11th century...
from the 13th century. Here they built their principal stronghold in North Cork.
Buttevant is located on the N20 road
National primary road
A national primary road is a road classification in the Republic of Ireland. National primary roads form the major routes between the major urban centres. There are over 2,700km of national primary roads. This category of road has the prefix "N" followed by one or two digits...
between Limerick
Limerick
Limerick is the third largest city in the Republic of Ireland, and the principal city of County Limerick and Ireland's Mid-West Region. It is the fifth most populous city in all of Ireland. When taking the extra-municipal suburbs into account, Limerick is the third largest conurbation in the...
and Cork
Cork (city)
Cork is the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland and the island of Ireland's third most populous city. It is the principal city and administrative centre of County Cork and the largest city in the province of Munster. Cork has a population of 119,418, while the addition of the suburban...
and the R522
R522 road
The R522 road is a regional road in Ireland which runs from Newcastlewest in County Limerick the N73 national secondary road near Doneraile in County Cork. En route it passes through Dromcolliher, Buttevant and Doneraile.The road is 51km long.-References:...
regional road
Regional road
A regional road in Ireland is a class of road not forming a major route , but nevertheless forming a link in the national route network. There are over 11,600 kilometres of regional roads. Regional roads are numbered with three digit route numbers, prefixed by "R" A regional road in Ireland is a...
. The Dublin–Cork railway line
Rail transport in Ireland
Rail services in Ireland are provided by Iarnród Éireann in the Republic of Ireland and by Northern Ireland Railways in Northern Ireland.Most routes in the Republic radiate from Dublin...
passes by the town, but the station, from which at the outbreak of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
in 1914, newly raised battalions of the Royal Munster Fusiliers
Royal Munster Fusiliers
The Royal Munster Fusiliers was a regular infantry regiment of the British Army. One of eight Irish regiments raised largely in Ireland, it had its home depot in Tralee. It was originally formed in 1881 by the amalgamation of two regiments of the former East India Company. It served in India and...
and the Royal Dublin Fusiliers
The Royal Dublin Fusiliers
The Royal Dublin Fusiliers was an Irish infantry Regiment of the British Army created in 1881, one of eight Irish regiments raised and garrisoned in Ireland, with its home depot in Naas...
who had completed their training at the local military barracks, set out for the Western Front
Western Front (World War I)
Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...
.
The Buttevant Rail Disaster
Buttevant Rail Disaster
Buttevant Rail Disaster was a train crash that occurred 137 miles from Heuston Station on the Dublin to Cork mainline at Buttevant Railway Station, County Cork in the Republic of Ireland on 1 August 1980. At 12:45 the 10:30am Dublin to Cork express train entered Buttevant station carrying some...
occurred on 1 August 1980. At 12:45 a CIE
Córas Iompair Éireann
Córas Iompair Éireann , or CIÉ, is a statutory corporation of the Irish state, answerable to the Irish Government and responsible for most public transport in the Republic of Ireland and, jointly with its Northern Ireland counterpart, the Northern Ireland Transport Holding Company, between the...
express train from Dublin to Cork entered Buttevant station at 115 km/h carrying some 230 Bank Holiday passengers. It careered into a siding and smashed into a stationary ballast train. The carriages immediately behind the engine and goods wagon jack-knifed and were thrown across four sets of rail-line. Two coaches and the dining car were totally demolished by the impact. It resulted in the deaths of 18 people and over 70 people being injured.
70% of Irish rail deaths over a 28 year period occurred as a result of this event (and the subsequent Cherryville junction accident which killed a further seven people)[1]. CIE and the Government came under severe public pressure to improve safety and to modernise the fleet. A major review of the national rail safety policy has held and resulted in the rapid elimination of the wooden-bodied coaches that had formed part of the train.
Origins of the name
BarryDe Barry Family
The de Barry family is an ancient family of Cambro-Norman origins which once had extensive land holdings in Wales and County Cork, Ireland. The founder of the family was a knight who assited in the Norman Conquest of England and Wales during the 11th century...
family: Boutez-en-Avant. The Rotulus Pipae Cloynensis (1364) makes ten references to Bothon in its Latin text. The Lateran Registers record the name tempore Pope Innocent VIII
Pope Innocent VIII
Pope Innocent VIII , born Giovanni Battista Cybo , was Pope from 1484 until his death.-Early years:Giovanni Battista Cybo was born at Genoa of Greek extraction...
as Bottoniam (7 March 1489) and Buttumam (3 June 1492); and tempore Pope Alexander VI
Pope Alexander VI
Pope Alexander VI , born Roderic Llançol i Borja was Pope from 1492 until his death on 18 August 1503. He is one of the most controversial of the Renaissance popes, and his Italianized surname—Borgia—became a byword for the debased standards of the Papacy of that era, most notoriously the Banquet...
in various forms: as "Bothaniam" (14 February 1499), "Betomam" (12 March 1499), and "Buttomam" (15 January 1500). Edmund Spencer, in Colin Clouts Come Home Againe (1595), gives an early example of the modern name and associates it with Mullagh, his name for the river Awbeg:
- "Old father Mole, (Mole hight that mountain gray
- That walls the Northside of Armulla dale)
- He had a daughter fresh as floure of May,
- VVhich gaue that name vnto that pleasant vale;
- Mulla the daughter of oldMole, so hight
- The Nimph, which of that water course has charge,
- That springing out of Mole, doth run downe right
- to Butteuant where spreding forth at large,
- It giueth name vnto that auncient Cittie,
- VVhich Kilnemullah cleped is of old:
- VVhose ragged ruines breed great ruth and pittie,
- To travallers, which it from far behold"
Philip O'Sullivan Beare
Philip O'Sullivan Beare was an Irish soldier who became more famous as a writer.He was son of Dermot O'Sullivan and nephew of Donal O'Sullivan Beare, Prince of Beare. He was sent to Spain in 1602, and was educated at Compostela by Vendamma, a Spaniard, and John Synnott, an Irish Jesuit.He served...
in his Historiae Catholicae Iberniae, published in Spain in 1620, gives the name 'Killnamollacham' for the town and translates it into Latin as 'Ecclesia Tumulorum'. James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde
James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde
James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde PC was an Irish statesman and soldier. He was the second of the Kilcash branch of the family to inherit the earldom. He was the friend of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, who appointeed him commander of the Cavalier forces in Ireland. From 1641 to 1647, he...
, refers to "Buttiphante" in a letter of January 1684 (Carte Manuscripts
Carte Manuscripts
The Carte Manuscripts are archived historical papers collected by Thomas Carte . They are held in the Bodleian Library, at the University of Oxford, England.Among Carte's collection were many documents relating to the history of Ireland...
, Bodleian, 161, f. 47v), while Sir John Percival, progenitor of the Earls of Egmont, recorderd in his diary for the 16 March 1686 that the troopers "being att Buttevant Fair this day took Will Tirry and his wife and brought them hither and I examined them".
The Irish denomination for Buttevant has reached such a degree of confusion as to make it almost unidentifiable. The oral tradition of the area consistently gives Cill na Mullach, or 'Church of the Hillocks', for Buttevant. When the area was still largely Irish speaking, that tradition was recorded by O'Donovan in the field books of the General Survey of Valuation, Griffith's valuation
Griffith's valuation
Griffith's Valuation was a survey of Ireland completed in 1868. -Griffith's background:Richard John Griffith started to value land in Scotland, where he spent two years in 1806-1807 valuing terrain through the examination of its soils...
, which was taken in the Barony of Orrery and Kilmore ante 1850. Peadar Ua Laoghaire
Peadar Ua Laoghaire
Father Peadar Ua Laoghaire was an Irish writer and Catholic priest, who is regarded today as one of the founders of modern literature in Irish.-Life:...
confirms the tradition in his Mo Scéal Féin. That notwithstanding, several other nomenclatura have insistently been assigned to Buttevant by Irish Government officialdom: Cill na mBeallach, Cill na Mollach, and more recently Cill na Mallach by the Place Names Commission, explaining eruditely that it may signify The Church of the Curse, for which, the general public can be excused for thinking the Commission were referring to nearby Killmallock. P.W. Joyce in his The Origin and History of Irish Names of Places, published in Dublin in 1871, dismisses as erroneous and an invention of later times, the theory that the Irish name for Buttevant meant the Church of the Curse, and cites the Four Masters noting that a Franciscan Friary was founded at Cill na Mullach in 1251.
The name Buttevant is reportedly a corruption of the motto of the DeBarry family. On the Barry coat of arms the inscription is "Butez en Avant" - Be in Front.
History
Henry III of England
Henry III was the son and successor of John as King of England, reigning for 56 years from 1216 until his death. His contemporaries knew him as Henry of Winchester. He was the first child king in England since the reign of Æthelred the Unready...
, by grant of 26 September 1234, conceded a market at Buttevant to David Og de Barry to be held on Sundays, and a fair on the vigil and day of St. Luke the Evangelist (17 October and 18 October), and on six subsequent days. This was done to further the economic prosperity of the borough and connected with a widespread network of such markets and fairs which indicate "an extensive network of commercial traffic and an important part of the infrastructure of the growing agrarian and mercantile economy". The most important markets and all fairs were associated with the major boroughs and can be used as a gauge of their economic and social significance as also the 1301 quo warranto
Quo warranto
Quo warranto is a prerogative writ requiring the person to whom it is directed to show what authority they have for exercising some right or power they claim to hold.-History:...
proceedings in Cork at which John de Barry "claimed the basic baronial jurisdiction of gallows
Gallows
A gallows is a frame, typically wooden, used for execution by hanging, or by means to torture before execution, as was used when being hanged, drawn and quartered...
, infangetheof, vetitia namia and fines for shedding blood (where 'Englishmen' were involved) in his manors of Buttevant, Castlelyons
Castlelyons
Castlelyons is a small village in East County Cork in the Province of Munster in Ireland. It is situated south of Fermoy. In the 2002 census it recorded a population of 211....
, Rathbarry and Lislee".
The town of Buttevant accumulated a series of such grants over several centuries. Fairs and markets were held at Buttevant for cattle sheep and pigs on 23 January, 30 April, 27 May, 27 August, and 21 November. Cattle and sheep fairs were held on 27 March, 14 October, 17 December. Pig markets were held on 11 July. Fairs falling on Saturdays were held on Mondays. Fridays were devoted to egg markets. Horse fairs were held on the Fourth Monday in October. Cahirmee Horse Fair
Cahirmee Horse Fair
Cahirmee Horse Fair is held on 12 July every year in the town of Buttevant, County Cork, Ireland.The ancient horse fair was originally held at the Fair Field of Cahirmee, some two miles to the East of the town. In 1921 it was transferred into the town and is still held on 12 July every year.M. P...
, the only surviving fair, is held on 12 July.
The development of the settlement followed a pattern frequently repeated in the Norman colonies of North Cork and Limerick
Limerick
Limerick is the third largest city in the Republic of Ireland, and the principal city of County Limerick and Ireland's Mid-West Region. It is the fifth most populous city in all of Ireland. When taking the extra-municipal suburbs into account, Limerick is the third largest conurbation in the...
. The original nucleus of the town consisted of a keep situated on an elevation on the south side of the town. Opposite the keep, on a pre-Norman site, was built the parish church, dedicated to St. Brigit, sister of St. Colman
Colman of Cloyne
Saint Colmán of Cloyne , also Colmán mac Léníne, was a monk, founder and patron of Cluain Uama, now Cloyne, Co. Cork, Ireland, and one of the earliest known Irish poets to write in the vernacular.-Sources:...
of Cloyne. A mill, another characteristic element of Norman settlements, was located on the river, to the north of the keep. In addition, a hospice for lepers was established about a mile to the North East outside of the town wall. This basic structure was repeated in nearby Castletownroche
Castletownroche
Castletownroche is a village on the N72 National secondary road in County Cork, Province of Munster, Ireland. In ancient times, it was known in Irish as Dún Chruadha, meaning Cruadha's Fort...
, where it is still clearly to be seen, in Glanworth
Glanworth
Glanworth is a village on the R512 regional road 8 km northwest of the town of Fermoy in County Cork, Ireland. It lies some 40 km northeast of the city of Cork, the county's administrative centre, and 210 km southwest of the capital, Dublin...
, Mallow
Mallow, County Cork
Mallow is the "Crossroads of Munster" and the administrative capital of north County Cork, in Ireland. The Northern Divisional Offices of Cork County Council are located in the town....
, and in Kilmallock
Kilmallock
Kilmallock or Kilmalloc is a town in south County Limerick, Ireland, near the border with County Cork. There is a Dominican Priory in the town and King's Castle . The remains of medieval walls which encircled the settlement are still visible. The Dublin–Cork railway line passes by the town,...
and Adare
Adare
-General information:Adare's origin is as a settlement by a crossing point on the river Maigue. It is situated 16 km from Limerick City. Renowned as one of Ireland's prettiest villages, Adare is designated as a Heritage Town by the Irish government...
.
A further feature of Norman settlements in North Cork was their concomitant religious foundations. Early colonial sites, such as Buttevant and Castletownroche, saw the introduction of the more traditional monastic communities which were housed in foundations outside of the town walls. The Augustinian priories of Bridgetown
Bridgetown
The city of Bridgetown , metropolitan pop 96,578 , is the capital and largest city of the nation of Barbados. Formerly, the Town of Saint Michael, the Greater Bridgetown area is located within the parish of Saint Michael...
(ante 1216) and Ballybeg
Ballybeg
Ballybeg is a generic name given to small Irish towns. The name comes from the Gaelic words Baile Beag which literally means Little Town...
(1229) being respectively founded by the Roches and the de Barry contiguous to the settlements of Castletownroche and Buttevant. With the rise of the new mendicant orders, essentially urban in character and mission, the Norman settlements saw the foundation of mendicant houses within the town walls as with the Franciscans in Buttevant (1251), and the Dominicans in Kilmallock (1291) and Glanworth (c. 1300).
The burgage
Burgage
Burgage is a medieval land term used in England and Scotland, well established by the 13th century. A burgage was a town rental property , owned by a king or lord. The property usually, and distinctly, consisted of a house on a long and narrow plot of land, with the narrow end facing the street...
of Buttevant developed to the north of the keep and eventually increased in size to about 50 acres (202,343 m²) enclosed by walls for which Murage
Murage
Murage was a medieval toll for the building or repair of town walls in England and Wales.This was granted by the king by letters patent for a limited term, but the walls were frequently not completed within the term, so that the grant was periodically renewed....
grants had been made by the crown in 1317. The native inhabitants were excluded from residence within the walled area and confined to a quarter of their own to the north west of the walled town.
A bridge, still extant, was built over the river Awbeg around 1250.
In 1317, the 11th. of Edward II of England
Edward II of England
Edward II , called Edward of Caernarfon, was King of England from 1307 until he was deposed by his wife Isabella in January 1327. He was the sixth Plantagenet king, in a line that began with the reign of Henry II...
, John fitz David de Barry requested and obtained from the exchequer
Exchequer
The Exchequer is a government department of the United Kingdom responsible for the management and collection of taxation and other government revenues. The historical Exchequer developed judicial roles...
a grant of £105 for the commonality and town of Buttevant for its walling. A further grant was made on 6 August 1375, the 49th. of Edward III, to the provost and commonality of the town together with the customs of its North Gate.
Franciscan friary
The Franciscan friary is situated behind the church in Buttevant Main Street and is near the Awbeg riverRiver Awbeg
Awbeg River is a river in the southern part of Ireland. It is a tributary of the Blackwater River and flows into that larger river at a point in County Cork. Its name comes from the Irish Abha Bheag .-The course:There are two branches of the Awbeg...
.
Literary history
Buttevant also has many literary associations: Edmund Spencer, from his manor at Kilcolman, referred to it and the gentle Mullagh (the Awbeg River) in The Faerie Queen ; Anthony TrollopeAnthony Trollope
Anthony Trollope was one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era. Some of his best-loved works, collectively known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, revolve around the imaginary county of Barsetshire...
passed through in his novel Castle Richmond; James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
played a game of hurling there in his Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man; the revered Canon Sheehan of Doneraile
Patrick Augustine Sheehan
The Very Rev. Patrick Augustine Canon Sheehan in Gaelic: An Canónach Pádraig Aguistín Ó Síothcháin , was an Irish Roman Catholic priest, author, political activist was invariably known and referred to as Canon Sheehan of Doneraile, having been appointed on July 4, 1895 Parish Priest of Doneraile,...
mentions Buttevant in several of his novels, not least in Glenanaar in the setting of the fatal events of the Fair of Rathclare; and Elizabeth Bowen
Elizabeth Bowen
Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen, CBE was an Irish novelist and short story writer.-Life:Elizabeth Bowen was born on 7 June 1899 at 15 Herbert Place in Dublin, Ireland and was baptized in the nearby St Stephen's Church on Upper Mount Street...
mentions it in her elegiacal family history Bowen's Court.
Clotilde Augusta Inez Mary Graves (1863–1932), the daughter of Major W.H. Graves and Antoinette Dean of Harwich, was born at Buttevant castle on 3 June 1863. She was cousin of Alfred Perceval Graves
Alfred Perceval Graves
Alfred Perceval Graves , was an Anglo-Irish poet, songwriter, and school inspector . His first marriage to Jane Cooper, eldest daughter of James Cooper of Cooper Hill, Co. Limerick, resulted in five children: the journalist Philip Graves, Mary, Richard, Alfred, and Susan...
, the father of the poet Robert Graves
Robert Graves
Robert von Ranke Graves 24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985 was an English poet, translator and novelist. During his long life he produced more than 140 works...
.
Convent educated in Lourdes
Lourdes
Lourdes is a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in the Midi-Pyrénées region in south-western France.Lourdes is a small market town lying in the foothills of the Pyrenees, famous for the Marian apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes occurred in 1858 to Bernadette Soubirous...
, she converted to Catholicism and embarked on a literary career. She was a successful London and New York playwright who enjoyed considerable literary acclaim in the first decades of the 20th century. In 1911, under the pseudonym of Richard Dehan, she published The Dop Doctor. It was made into a film in 1915 by Fred Paul
Fred Paul
Fred Paul was a Swiss-born British actor and film director. Paul was born in Lausanne in 1880 but moved to Britain at a young age. He was a prolific actor and directors in the 1910s and 1920s, but his career dramatically declined with the arrival of sound films.-Selected filmography:Director* The...
. The film gave considerable offence in South Africa due the harsh portrayal of English and Dutch characters. It was eventually banned under the Defence of the Realm Act. The story hinges around a drunken and disgraced medic who eventually makes his way to South Africa where he redeems his honour at the siege of Mafeking. Albert Gérard, in his European-language writing in Sub Saharan Africa ISBN 9630538326, regards the book's description of the siege of Mafeking "as a heroic justification of British Imperial strategy and the vindication of a belief in the righteousness and superiority of the British cause. The Dop Doctor contains pro-Jingo arguments of the type which offers the stereotypical portrait of the Boer as backward and despiciably primitive, and the black man as a shadow figure behind the civilizing foreground, an appendage of an argument over what to do with his labour". Between Two Thieves and One Braver Thing followed in 1914. She died at Hatch End, Middlesex
Middlesex
Middlesex is one of the historic counties of England and the second smallest by area. The low-lying county contained the wealthy and politically independent City of London on its southern boundary and was dominated by it from a very early time...
on 3 December 1932.
In the Gaelic tongue, An tAthar Peadair O Laoghaire makes unflattering mention of garrisoned Buttevant in Mo Sceal Fein; while the great Irish antiquarian of the 18th century, An tAthar Séamus O Conaire, one time member of the Royal Society of Antiquities, rests westward facing outside of the Friary portal.
Transport
- Buttevant and Doneraile railway station opened on 17 March 1849, but finally closed on 7 March 1977.
- On 1 August 1980, eighteen people were killed and sixty two were injured in a rail accident at Buttevant railway stationButtevant Rail DisasterButtevant Rail Disaster was a train crash that occurred 137 miles from Heuston Station on the Dublin to Cork mainline at Buttevant Railway Station, County Cork in the Republic of Ireland on 1 August 1980. At 12:45 the 10:30am Dublin to Cork express train entered Buttevant station carrying some...
on the main CorkCork (city)Cork is the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland and the island of Ireland's third most populous city. It is the principal city and administrative centre of County Cork and the largest city in the province of Munster. Cork has a population of 119,418, while the addition of the suburban...
-Dublin line. A train carrying 230 passengers was derailed when it crashed into a siding at 70 mi/h. This accident led to a sworn public inquiry and a major review of the national rail safety policy. On the twenty fifth anniversary of this accident, a commemorative service was held and a plaque in memory of the dead erected at Buttevant station. It was also featured on a documentary on Irish disasters on RTÉ television in 2008.
Miscellaneous
- The steeplechaseSteeplechase (horse racing)The steeplechase is a form of horse racing and derives its name from early races in which orientation of the course was by reference to a church steeple, jumping fences and ditches and generally traversing the many intervening obstacles in the countryside...
originated in 1752 as a result of a horse race from the steeple of Buttevant Protestant church to that of DoneraileDoneraileDoneraile is a town in County Cork, Province of Munster, Ireland. It is located on the R581 regional road 8 km east of the N20 road which runs from Limerick to Cork. It is about 12 km north of Mallow town...
, four miles (6 km) away. - The nearby village of Churchtown, County Cork was home to Oliver ReedOliver ReedOliver Reed was an English actor known for his burly screen presence. Reed exemplified his real-life macho image in "tough guy" roles...
. The British actor is buried in Bruhenny Graveyard in the town (opposite O'Brien's Pub). - The town received media attention in 2007, after being featured in the RTERaidió Teilifís ÉireannRaidió Teilifís Éireann is a semi-state company and the public service broadcaster of Ireland. It both produces programmes and broadcasts them on television, radio and the Internet. The radio service began on January 1, 1926, while regular television broadcasts began on December 31, 1961, making...
series Soupy NormanSoupy NormanSoupy Norman was a nine-part Irish television programme broadcast by RTÉ. It was aired weekly on Thursday nights at 23:05 on the RTÉ Two channel, in ten-minute segments. The series ran from 24 May to 24 July 2007...
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See also
- River AwbegRiver AwbegAwbeg River is a river in the southern part of Ireland. It is a tributary of the Blackwater River and flows into that larger river at a point in County Cork. Its name comes from the Irish Abha Bheag .-The course:There are two branches of the Awbeg...
- List of abbeys and priories in Ireland (County Cork)
- List of towns and villages in Ireland
- Market Houses in IrelandMarket Houses in the Republic of IrelandMarket houses are a notable feature of many Irish towns with varying styles of architecture, size and ornamentation making for a most interesting feature of the streetscape. Originally there were three, four or even five bays on the ground floor which were an open arcade. An upper floor was...