Mallow enjoyed a renaissance during the 1700s as a spa town to rival Bath.
The modern day town is still attracting tourists — but for differing reasons.
Beauing, belleing, dancing, drinking,
Breaking windows, cursing, sinking
Ever raking, never thinking,
Live the Rakes of Mallow;
(From the song ‘The Rakes of Mallow’)
For your young late 18th/19th century English fop, Mallow possessed a
reputation comparable nowadays to a bacchanalian blend of Amsterdam, Las
Vegas and, ahem, Bath.
Upon discovering a source of spa water in 1724, the locals in their own
enterprising way were quick to create a legend around its recuperative benefits,
said to purify the blood.
“There will be Balls, Ridottos, Music Meetings, and all other diversions
as there are at Bath, Tunbridge, and Scarborough,” recorded the Dublin newspaper
Pue’s Occurrences, where the carousing that enveloped Mallow during the
summer months was most vividly captured. By the mid-1800s however, while
the waters continued to flow, the visitors had dried up and the local economy
that had been subsisting on its tourism industry, almost collapsed. The
old Spa House, built over the original spring well, fell into decrepitude
until the last decade when the structure was rescued from climbing brambles
and local apathy, now gleaming in the centre of its newly-refurbished gardens.
The modern-day visitor will have to look harder for the intoxicating
excitement that enveloped the town in another age, the only apparent remnant
of those tributes to excess being the presence of the late Oliver Reed who
hazily saw out his final years in Churchtown village, near Mallow. Still,
the town remains an exceedingly convenient base for those wishing to explore
the local area, and as a springboard for travel beyond.
It is the principal town in Cork, apart from the city, lying at the crossroads
of Munster, near the old trails that led all the way to Tara, Co. Meath
in ancient times, roughly 40 miles from Killarney, 40 miles from Limerick
city and a 25-mile dash to Cork city. Blessed with a variety of hotels and
bed and breakfasts to suit every type of wallet, the town is equally well-stocked
with pubs and night clubs, the kind you will find in every provincial town
in Ireland: from the low-lit faux modernity of The Gallery bar at the foot
of the town beside the old Clock House which greets you at the bottom of
the Main Street, to the traditional music in Kiely’s or the simplicity of
The Olde Fiddle, its walls decorated with ‘45s and old pictures of the local
GAA teams.
The real attractions, however, lie outdoors. The River Blackwater juts
through the town, on its way to the sea at Youghal, rich in wild brown trout
and the subject of an immense amount of fishing during the season. Just
outside the town sits Mallow Golf Club, home to the current Irish Senior
Team Cup champions, and a well-regarded course in its own right.
Just outside the town, on the road to Killarney sits the newly refurbished
Cork racecourse which is a regular host for national hunt events, and a
sumptuous tribute to the area’s rich steeplechasing heritage. A necklace
of villages surround Mallow all steeped in its traditions. From Churchtown,
the home of celebrated trainer Vincent O’Brien, to trainer and former jockey
John Joe O’Neill who rode Dawn Run to her emotional success in the 1986
Cheltenham Gold Cup, born in Castletownroche, seven miles from the town,
to the place where the very first steeplechase race was ever run, from Buttevant
to Doneraile, 200 years ago this year. Apart from a modest plaque on the
wall outside St. Mary’s Church in Doneraile, where the race ended, and a
monument to O’Brien’s heroics in Churchtown, where he based his stables
before he moved to Ballydoyle, the area’s history is barely remarked on,
but present for anyone with a nose to seek it out.
Its history extends far beyond the spa waters too, ranging from William
O’Brien, one of Ireland’s most prominent parliamentarians in the 19th century
whose birthplace is commemorated in the centre of the town, to Thomas Davis,
19th century journalist and poet, the great intellectual and politician
Edmund Burke and Canon Patrick Sheehan, whose writing put Mallow, and the
nearby village of Doneraile on the map.
In Killavullen, six miles from Mallow, is the ancestral home of the Hennessy
family, better known as makers of cognac while just outside the village
is the tranquil Nano Nagle Centre, developed as a tribute to the founder
of the Presentation Order of Sisters, born and raised on the land where
the centre is built.
Due to the town’s centrality, there has been a castle in Mallow since
1185. The current incarnation began its existence as stables which were
renovated in 1829. The new castle has been in the hands of the McGinn family
from Washington DC for the past 18 years, like the town its most opulent
days now the preserve of legend.
