Ancient Munster: Where Cork City and County are now.

            Cork was once part of the Kingdom of Deas Mumhan, which has been called South Munster, and has been called Desmond by the English. It has been ruled by the MacCarthy Mor dynasty. Who can tell us about the Mum people.

            It seems fair to call the coming of the Normans an invasion. They certainly caused changes in Munster which were not pleasant to everyone. The MacCarthy clan and much culture were pushed westward into what is West Cork and County Kerry. The clan became centered on Dunloug Castle near Mizen Head. Some have said that their castle there dates to 1207 AD. There is more to be said about tht site and the O'Mahony. We may get to them later. For us right now the coming of the Normans is a fairly recent happening.

            But we can move on to even more recent times for another paragraph. The Hiberno-Norman family became the earls of Desmond, which sounds very English. Cork, city was given an English Royal charter in 1318 and became an outpost of England. But even a diminished Irish culture is still catchy and resistant. By about 1583 the city and the county was a mess. We might say destroyed and devastated Some said that they had been resettled by some of the worst England had to offer. But even many of their offspring became a useful part of a new Ireland.

            Ireland has suffered plenty of troubles. The troubles of Normans and English entering the land I think began in about 900 AD when defending against the  viking raids from the north so weakened the land that Norman and English saw it as a tasty morsel to be taken. The viking norsemen had taken most of the gold and the more transportable, but what Norman and English saw was the rich green land itself.

            I was wanting to get into truly ancient times, but getting through the early troubles is proving difficult. Desmond was Deas Mumhan, but we now continue to speak of English influence. So, a historic kingdom in south western Ireland has been called Desmond. It was founded in 1188 by Tadhg MacCarthaigh. He became king of Munster. That Desmond included all of what is now County Cork and most of Kerry. The division of Kerry from Cork took place with the Treaty of Glanmire when the land was divided between Desmond and Thomond. The sullivan and Donovan were important there, but that is another story,`

            I have been trying to get too much early Irish history into to few paragraphs and now I am moving into some prehistory of the island.

            Earlier there were the Earinn who held al of Munster, the better half of all of Eri. I am thinking that the Iverni of that fertile land were Earinn. Many of Munster once thought of themselves as people of the deer. who drank deer milk before the coming of cows. They were probably a people called Earinn or Eirenn or the like.

            I think the MacCarthy called themselves people of the deer, but the MacCarthy may have come with the cows.

            Well, there seems to be much more Irish prehistory than I can handle in one essay. For now I'll just leave you with some bits and piece of that history and hope it gives you a taste for more. More than one sort of Greek knew Mizen Head and so did a Phoenician or two. The Fomorians knew it and probably Balor and Lugh did too.

        There were deer in the south of Ireland over 30,000 years ago. There was plenty of time for people to learn to eat them with time left over to learn to milk them.

            Early Irish were also boatmen who navigated the sea. The were probably fishers of the sea, but I have seen no evidence of that.

            Munster had an increasing population by 8,000 BC. By 5,000 BC Aegean cow milk was probably replacing deer milk. Anyway some kind of cow milk was available on the island by then.

            The copper of Old Munster was supporting the making of bronze by 2,000 BC.

            Correct my errors and help with this work. I have heard that there are those who believe that I know so much about this far south of Ireland that I must have lived there from before 20,000 years ago to about 4,000 BC. Its not true and I could really use your help to find out more about Irish prehistory.

            Thank you for reading.

                                                                                            R. C. Sheehan