Online archive delves back two centuries charting progression of North Cork town

A new online archive offers a fascinating look back almost two centuries in to the development of a North Cork town.

The University College Cork (UCC) Library Special Collections and Archives has announced the opening of the Mallow Castle Estate Maps and Plans Collection, which dates back to the first decades of the 19th century.

Mallow Castle stands on about 33 acres of gardens and parkland at Deerpark, in Mallow town, overlooking the Blackwater River.

It holds a significant place in Irish history, with the first castle in Mallow constructed in the late 12th century, before passing to the Earls of Desmond.

Toward the end of the 16th century, Sir Thomas Norreys, lord president of Munster, rebuilt the castle as a fortified mansion, and, upon his death, it passed to his daughter, Elizabeth, and her husband, Sir John Jephson, with their descendants remaining in Mallow for almost 400 years.

Abandoned

Badly damaged by fire in the late 17th century Williamite War, the castle was abandoned by the Jephsons, who in the 19th century built the new mansion house on the site of the older castle’s stable block.

The main Mallow Castle Archive contains a few original leases and transcripts of title deeds from the early 17th century, as well as an almost unbroken series of leases from the Jephsons to tenants in Mallow from 1660s to 1960s.

Between 1813 and 1888, Sir Denham Jephson-Norreys took a personal interest in the building of houses for tenants, and public buildings in the town of Mallow, such as Spa House and the Clock House, and the Mallow Castle Maps and Plans Collection includes many drawings and plans of these.

The many drawings and plans depicting the 19th century rebuilding of Mallow Castle in Tudor style, largely to Sir Denham’s own designs, are also in the collection.

The collection can be browsed now on Foinse, UCC Library’s website.