Category: ANGLO-IRISH

Ireland experienced a number of famines during the 18th and 19th century, the most severe being 1846 – 1849. The following explanations have been offered for this period;

1. failure of the potato crop due to blight
2. overpopulation
3. machination in agriculture causing unemployment in rural areas
4. bad government and oppressive government

To examine all of these separately would not give a complete answer as any one of them would not of itself cause starvation. There is no wisdom like the wisdom of hindsight so it is in hindsight that we attempt to give a fair and accurate account of events in England in Ireland in the years 1845 -1848 that caused over 6 million people to die of starvation in 3 years. Continue reading “The Great Famine – Why did it happen ?”

Local tradition holds that a large castle similar to Liscarrol was raised in Lohort by Prince John in 1185. Due to lack of surviving documentary evidence, some historians are reluctant to accept the tradition and certainly no trace of an early castle remains on the site now. Prince John was descended from the Plantagenet dynasty.

The earliest structure on the site was an early Gaelic settlement known to local tradition as Seanloghort. Two of their large irregular-shaped raths adjacent to the present castle lawn, survived until recent times. There are traces of an early church site and burial ground with an associated holy well Tobar Tighe Lachtnan. Little is known of the early days of the Norman presence in Lohort; the Fitzgeralds of Mallow were lords of the lands until they were under Black Rent to the McDonagh McCarthys of Duhallow by the mid-15th century . Continue reading “Lohort Castle, Cecilstown”