Carrignavar

51.989°N 8.477°W / 51.989; -8.477

Carrignavar Carraig na bhFear
Village
Carrignavar Location in Ireland
Coordinates: 51°59′20″N 8°28′37″W
Country	Ireland
Province	Munster
County	Cork
Barony	Barrymore
Civil parish	Dunbulloge and Whitechurch
Elevation	120 m (390 ft)
Population  (2016)[1]	519
Eircode (Routing Key)	T34
OSI grid reference	W6770281992

Carrignavar (Irish: Carraig na bhFear, meaning 'the rock of the men'^[2][3]) is a village in County Cork, north of Cork city. It lies east of Whitechurch and west of the R614 road, by a bridge over the Cloghnagash River. For election purposes, Carrignavar is within the Dáil constituency of Cork North-Central, and (for planning purposes) is designated a "key village" within the municipal district of Cobh by Cork County Council.^[4]

History

A castle was built at Carrignavar by Donal or Daniel McCarthy, younger brother of the first Viscount Muskerry, of the MacCarthy of Muskerry family.^[5][6] It was said to have been the last fortress in Munster to fall to Cromwell.^[7] His descendants (surname variously spelt McCarty or McCartie) lived there into the nineteenth century,^[6][8][9] though, by 1840, little more than a square tower remained.^[7] In the eighteenth century, Charles MacCarthy was a Jacobite sympathiser and patron of late Gaelic poetry; he and his poets converted, at least in form, from Roman Catholicism to the Anglican Church of Ireland to escape the Penal Laws.^[10]

Carrignavar House, a castellated country house, was built beside the castle ruins in the late nineteenth century.^[8] John Sheedy bought it in the early twentieth century and later sold it to the Sacred Heart Fathers, who opened Sacred Heart College (Irish: Coláiste an Chroí Naofa) secondary school there in 1950.^[8][11]