MOOREPARK CASTLE
as a tourism destination?
With a vision for developing the commercial potential of Moorepark Castle, Kilworth, an informal talk was given to An Taisce in August 1975 by Jerry Keating, vice chairman South Western Fisheries Board.
Outlining the history of the castle to those present on site, it was hoped that, with some investment of time and money, a committee could be set up to steer the venture, which would allow guided tours of the imposing structure.
The vision was that Moorepark Castle would be roofed, with some work carried out internally and a hut built nearby, to allow for the serving of refreshments after tours, facilitated by the senior boys and girls from the local schools. Alas, the proposal came to nought.
Hereunder is the talk given by Mr Keating.
'The village of Kilworth itself - or Cill Úird, the church of the order - was founded by St Colman, a disciple of St Mochuda, at Eastertide 635AD. Colman accompanied St Mochuda to Lismore and was appointed dispenser of food to the lepers there. Duugal, a chieftain of this area, offered St Mochuda a site for a church in his territory at about this time and Mochuda sent Colman to him accompanied by fifty monks. Duugal presented him with 50 cows and a choice of a place in the land of his tribe and service to his monastery till doom. Thus, St Colman founded his church here around 636AD, calling it Cill Úird, the church of the order, because it was one of the earliest Irish foundations to adopt the Roman ‘order’ of celebrating Easter.
Ireland was already threatened for a century by the powerful monarchy of Norman England when Dermot MacMurrough, King of Leinster, induced that warrior race to help him recover his lost kingdom. Rapidly, they went from success to success and in the early part of the thirteenth century one of them, de Caunton, obtained large tracts of the O’Keeffe country, on the banks of the Blackwater Funcheon and Araglin rivers, taking in all the present day Kilworth. The de Caunton family came in with Strongbow and the de Caunton who built Cloghleagh Castle (1220), was called Richard Condon. He was a descendent of Nesta, the daughter of the King of South Wales - she married 3 times, 1) Henry I of England, 2) Gerald of Windsor, 3) Stephen Constable of Cardigan. From her marriage to Gerald of Windsor, she had four children, 3 boys named Odo, Raymond Le Gras and Griffen, one girl called Mabel who married a Nicholas de Cauntitune and their son was called Richard Condon, Baron of Ballyderown and Kilworth Castle, Cloghleagh.
Around this time also, there were other powerful Norman families, named the Roches in Castlelyons and the Flemings in Glanworth. Now around this time and after a period, the Norman families became Gaelicised and become more Irish than the Irish themselves. There was constant discord between the Roches and Flemings and Condon and seemed to be a way of life all over Munster around the time.
The castle of Glanworth was owned by a Norman knight, a Sir William Fleming who had an only daughter named Amice. She was a considerable heiress whose land Condon sought in marriage, but the lady had other ideas and refused him. Condon then attacked the castle, but to the rescue came Roche from Castlelyons and the two met in mortal combat and Condon was killed. Roche married Amice and became a lord of all the lands around Fermoy and Glanworth.
But again trouble started, when around 1308 Maurice Condon killed a Richard Taloon in an ambush and the Roches, in revenge, killed Maurice and took his brother David to Dublin and after trumped up charges, after the death of Edward II hanged him.
Around the year 1570 fearing for the Catholic region and their lands, they joined the overlords the Earl of Desmond and rebelled against the tyrannous English rule. However, all was to no avail, the rising was supressed and the then Patrick Condon, forfeited his lands and castles to the crown. The castle of Cloghleagh was the principal stronghold, standing on limestone rock fifty feet above the river Funcheon. 72 feet high and a winding clockwise stairs.
At this time, around 1637, the vast Condon estates were granted to a number of English settlers and the largest portion, including the present day parish of Kilworth, going to a Francis Fleetwood of Staffordshire for a nominal fee. Cromwell was at this time on the rampage in Ireland and all Munster was devastated by war. But Patrick Condon did not tamely submit to the forfeiture and prolonged litigation ensued resulting in a pardon being granted to him by Queen Elizabeth in 1601 for alleged good service in the previous ten years of turmoil and directions were given that he be returned to his estates. Nevertheless, the Condons being Catholic and Anglo-Irish were never trusted by the crown and when the great rebellion broke out in October 1691, the conniving Fleetwood family were in possession of much of the Condon estates, including Cloghleagh Castle. Once more the Condons found themselves matched against the forces of the crown in the defence of their religion and now, also in hope of regaining their lost territories.
In July 1692, a supposedly half-witted brogue maker of Kilworth was selling his wares, when he and his collection of brogues were seized by a trooper in the village and carried to Cloghleagh Castle. Under the brogues were a couple of jars of poteen, the troopers heartily laughed at the protesting brogue maker as they drank his refreshments. Soon, they began to doze and at this point, the brogue maker raised the trap door of the underground passage, part of which still remains to be seen to this day and admitted the Condons, who showed no quarter to any of the occupants.
At the beginning of May 1643, Lord Inchiquin, commander of the English forces in Munster, marched out of Cork with an army divided into two commands in order to teach the rebels a lesson. Inchiquin was known as Murrogh the Burner. One of the commands was led by Sir Charles Vavasour, he advanced towards Cloghleagh, killing and pillaging as he went.
Around June 3rd he laid siege to the castle and after a very obstinate defence by the Condons, the castle was taken and the occupants, about 20 men, 11 women and 7 children, were taken to a nearby glen and suffered a terrible death, being hacked to death by the English troops. Local tradition says that after this terrible event, that Lord Castlehaven was on his way from the Waterford area to help the Condons and when Vavasour tried to beat a hasty retreat to Fermoy, was overtaken at Manning Ford about 4 miles upstream near
Glanworth where Vavasour himself was taken prisoner and 600 men as well and it is said, the Funcheon ran red with blood on that day.
Shortly after this defeat, what was left of the Condons retreated across the Funcheon and on to the Blackwater at Baile na Faine. The great rebellion was finally vanquished in 1649/50 by Cromwell.
Then followed the confiscations of all lands and it seems that the Condons were transplanted to Connaught as a punishment for further misdeeds. After this also, a lot of Anglo-Norman chiefs fled to France and some to America. With the Condons gone, the Fleetwoods gave up as they were fed up with all the fighting and bloodshed and in November 1684, a man called Richard Moore of Clonmel purchased from the Fleetwoods the manors, towns and lands of Kilworth, Cloghleagh, Ballincarriga, Ballyderown, Glenseskin, Kilclough and Coolmoohan, all in the present parish of Kilworth for the sum of £5,500. He selected about one thousand acres of it to form his demesne and enclosed it with a wall 12 feet high and seven miles long to become known as Moorepark and, on the hill above it, he built a magnificent mansion which was destroyed by fire in 1908.
This Richard Moore was a glover at Barnnstaple in England who settled in Clonmel in 1655. He was a shrewd and industrious man, so prosperous that his son was able to buy the estates from Fleetwood.
The estates are stated then to have 40,000 English acres. Moore was a personal friend of William IV of England to whom he lent £3,000 which was never repaid, although William appointed him governor of Tipperary. Moore's grandson was advanced to the peerage of Ireland in 1764 when he was made Baron Kilworth of Moorepark and in 1776, was created Viscount Mount Cashell in 1781. When he died in 1790, his son Lord Kilworth assumed the duties of the 2nd Earl of Mount Cashell. He married the daughter of his nearest neighbour Lord Kingsborough. It is of the 2nd Earl of Mount Cashell that we know chiefly about because of the book about his interesting wife, Lady Mount Cashell. Her marriage to Lord Mount Cashell was not a happy one and she left him on a tour of the continent and married a William Tighe in Rome in 1805.
The 3rd Earl of Mount Cashell was Stephen Moore and he assumed the title in 1822 when his father died. Stephen died in 1883 and is buried in the family vault in the Protestant church in Kilworth.
Another Stephen Moore, born 1825, became 4th Earl - he died in 1889 unmarried. Charles his brother of the latter, became 5th Earl of Mount Cashell. He married in 1845 Charlotte, daughter and heiress of Richard Smyth of Ballynatray. His son, Richard died in 1888 and Richard’s son, Claude died in 1890. So the Lloyd Smyths are the last link with the Cashells.
So Charles the 5th Earl had direct descendants and when he died in 1898 after having married Florence Cornelius, for Lady Charlotte had died in the meantime, the title went to Edward Moore B.L., his English first cousin. Edward the 6th Earl died in 1915 and unmarried and so the title became extinct. The estate was eventually bought by the British war office as a training ground.
It’s also interesting to note that Lord Edward Fitzgerald, when ‘on the run’, was sheltered by the Mount Cashell family, at that time he was the leader of the United Irishmen.