Tuesday 5 October 2010

Hurleys of Kinsale: My General Ignorance

'Our' branch of the Hurleys originate in Kinsale, County Cork.

I hope to look into more of Kinsale in future posts, but without looking online (honest!) these are the things I think I know so far (true or false, time will tell):
  • Kinsale has a deep natural harbour. This resulted in a German U-Boat going there during WW2. I'm not sure how that ended up, but I seem to recall it was scuttled, captured or similar???
  • Kinsale was the setting for a terrible defeat for Irish Catholic forces in Tudor times. I read a history of it in an Irish mag a few years back and I think Spanish troops landed there or thereabouts but couldn't link-up with the main Irish force from further north???
  • I think Kinsale was in the "wild west" of Co. Cork - rebel territory that was opposed to the partition of Ireland - and so fought against the pro-partition forces in the Civil War of 1921, as featured in the film Michael Collins. I haven't read up on this yet, so I might be out by a few miles...

Welcome to my world of Irish ignorance! I hope that this blog will help me learn more about my Irish heritage, the Irish Hurleys, Kinsale and Co Cork in general.

Anyone out there in internet land who can help - I'd love to hear from you.

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