Page 122 - GAHS Journal Volume 9

TO CLON AND BACK

alleged killer himself emerged. It was a sobering but satisfying
end to a day in the company of a guide steeped in the history of
the locality, who was able to set Collins’s story, from boisterous
boyhood to guerrilla leader to statesman, in the context of the
countryside of which he was to the end so much a part.

It’s always a bonus on these trips to stay in a place which
values its own historic associations, and that evening back at the
hotel we were happy to gather for
a short pre-dinner talk by
proprietor Michael O’Neill on the
evolution of Fernhill over three
quarters of a century and four
generations of the O’Neill family.
In the process we gained an
insight into the development of
tourism in West Cork – and
incidentally discovered that
Clonakilty is home to more than
one brand of black pudding!

Wednesday morning saw us
heading out of West Cork and
onto the road for Cork city. At
Nano Nagle Place, our first stop of
the day, we visited the heritage
centre developed in the original
complex of buildings where Nano Nagle, daughter of a
prosperous Catholic family, carried on her charitable and
educational work in the eighteenth-century. Highlights of the tour
were the small room known as ‘Miss Nagle’s parlour’, in which
Nano transacted much of the business of the project, the walled
garden behind, and off it the Sisters’ Graveyard, which contains
Nano’s own tomb. Imaginative displays and the welcoming,

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