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Buttevant
BOUTEZ-EN-AVANT
Cill na Mullach
Latest Update- 13/02/05
Steeplechase
Community Council
LOCAL BUSINESS
       The town of BUTTEVANT, where the famous "CAHIRMEE" Horse Fair is held annually, lies half way between Cork and Limerick. It Is a town of approximately 1,200 inhabitants. As the ancient BOTH FHINN as in ecclesiastical documents "Bothon" - It is linked with the famous Fianna, who fought in Knockanare. The districts undulating nature gave it the name CILL NA MULLACH in the Irish, which the famous poet Spenser Immortalised in the "Faerie Queen" that ancient Cittie which CILL NA MULLACH cleped is of old. He wrote the poem at Kllcolman Castle a few miles away. The River Awbeg is the poet's "Gentle Mulla"  When the Norman Barrys came they built a great castle over the river. It was a border fortification, a "Buttevant" or "thrusting out" fortress. From this description of their chief stronghold the family war-cry 'BOUTEZ EN AVANT derives.   Around the Norman keep grew a city with charter, mayor and corporation. Together with the Castle Lands, it is extended from the South wall of the Church of Ireland graveyard to Staball, and from the North Gate, traces of which remain, was the tournament ground, now called the Bun Eachtra. The Barrys built Ballybeg Priory (1229) for the Canons Regular of St. Augustin and Buttevant Friary (1251) for the Franciscans. The Canons disappeared with the Reformation, but Friars remained until 1783. Both churches and domestic buildings attached were in the early English style and of first class workmanship. The Columbarium or Dove House at Ballybeg is worth seeing. Only one other has survived in Ireland.   From the beginning of the 19th century, and for over a hundred years, prosperity returned to Buttevant, as a garrison town. In 1922 the military deported and the barracks was destroyed. Depression set in once more. In the early '50's Buttevant began to thrive again with the Lime Works, Messrs. Furney & McCay (Millers), Messrs. Garvey & Solon (Builders) and later Buttevant Concrete Products Limited. The Sisters of Mercy set up the Star Industries to give employment for girls. The old craft of harness-making and shoe-making is gone, but ironwork and stone-cutting still remain. At the present time all but two of these industries have gone, leaving the unemployment at a very high level in the area.  Buttevant is a town of architectural beauty enhanced by its historical monuments and antiquities. We hope that in the future there will be a local museum to display these beautiful artefacts to the general public and tourists. We hope that instead people will learn more about the town from this booklet and take the time to go and view the local history for themselves.
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Market House
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Lombards Castle
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Buttevant Mill
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Clapper Bridge
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Military Gate
FINDING A NAME FOR BUTTEVANT
    
       "THIS PARISH" stated Samuel Lewis n 1837 which is situated on the river Awbeg and on the road from Mallow to Charleville, was anciently called Bothon, and is to have derived its present name from the exclamation Boutez en Avant, 'Push forward' used by David de Barry its proprietor to animate his men in a contest with the MacCarthys, which was subsequently adopted as the family motto of the Earls of Barrymore, who derived their title of Viscount from this place. It appears to have attained considerable Important at an early date after the first (Norman) Invasion, from the notices of it which occur in ancient records still existing.   Among those ancient records is a grant on September 26, 1234 to David de Barry from the Anglo-Norman King, Henry the Third, of a market on Sundays, and a fair on the vigil and feast day of St. Luke the Evangelist and for six days following. This was the David Og Barry who built Buttevant friary for the Friars Minor of St. Francis in 1251 and had it dedicated to St. Thomas the Martyr, one of the many hundreds of churches all over Western Christendom which were dedicated to Thomas A. Beckett, the murdered Archbishop of Canterbury. David Og was later killed. In 1261, at the Battle of Callan, five miles east of Kenmare. the great victory of the MacCarthys over the Normans.  David Barry had fortified the place known to the Irish as Cill na Mullach. This name appears to be incomplete, as a word descriptive of the hills on which the church stood is missing. The Four Masters use Cill na Mullach when referring to the friary erected by David Barry, and in 16th century documents Buttevant is given a Latinized form, Bothonia, in medieval papal and other ecclesiastical documents. In the 1291 papal taxation we find the form Boctanaund which is clearly a corruption of Botavaunt; the form Botavant is used in the Plea Roll of 1314.  In 1317, in the grant already mentioned, £105 was allowed to the citizens by Edward the Second to enable them enclose the town with walls. That a Norman town had grown is shown by the grant of Edward the Third In 1375 which was addressed to the "Provost and Commonlaty of Botavaunt".Nearly four centuries later. Smith, the historian of Cork, stated that some traces of the walls could be seen and they took up a considerable circuit of ground.   David Og's father, Philip de Barry, had built the abbey of Ballybeg a short distance to the south of Buttevant in 1229 for the Augustinians. The remains of both houses show that in detail one resembles the other and there can be no doubt that the friary of Buttevant derives in style from Ballybeg priory. Only a few years lay between them and it may well be that they had the same architect.   As a frontier town Buttevant was often in the wars. Lewis states that during the English civil war between the houses of York and Lancaster the town suffered considerable destruction and In 1568 the Castle of Buttevant was captured by the English Viceroy, Sydney. We may recall that sometime before 1541 the friary was "dissolved" and it was reported that "there are no superfluous buildings which can be thrown down, but only what are necessary for the use of the farmer." The friars however continued to reside in the neighbourhood if not within the old buildings. In 1731, two hundred years after their predecessors had been "dissolved", it was reported "a thatched house within the precincts of the Old Abbey, where one or two of the old friars have dwelt some time past, one of these lately died."
       The town of Buttevant continued in the possession of the Barrymore family until it was sold to John Anderson, founder of Fermoy. who built the extensive barracks, enclosing nearly 23 statute acres, divided into two quadrangles by a central range of buildings, in which was an archway surmounted by a cupola. Nearly in the centre of the town still stands the impressive Lombards' Castle, a quadrangular building flanked at each angle by a square tower.
All text contained within this site was taken from a booklet called BUTTEVANT A SHORT STORY produced in 1991 by trainees on the F.A.S. Community Youth Training Program. The earlier black and white images were also taken from this booklet. The colour images were taken by myself in June 2003. The acknowledgement page for this booklet can be found here.
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Buttevant Co. Cork

 

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