Editing Mitchelstown (section)

==History==
{{more citations needed|section|date=April 2024}}
Before the development of Mitchelstown, a 7th-century settlement was established in the nearby townland of Brigown.<ref name="booklet"/> Brigown ([[Irish language|Irish]]: ''Brí Ghabhann'', meaning "hill of the smiths")<ref>{{cite web|url = https://www.logainm.ie/en/12851 | website  =logainm.ie | title = Brí Ghabhann / Brigown (Townland) }}</ref> was founded by a [[monk]] named Fionnchú (Findchú in Old Irish), now popularly known as Saint Fanahan.<ref name="booklet"/><ref name="logainmFionnchu"/> On the eastern side of the town is a holy well associated with the saint that is traditionally visited on 25 November, his annual [[pattern day]].<ref name="logainmFionnchu">{{Cite web |title=Tobar Fhionnchon/Saint Fionnchú's Well |url=https://www.logainm.ie/en/1410655 |access-date=2024-11-14 |website=logainm.ie |language=en}}</ref> By the 9th century, Brigown had a round tower (this tower was damaged in a lightning strike in 1720 and demolished in 1807).<ref name="booklet"/><ref>{{cite book | first = Bill | last = Power | title = Another Side of Mitchelstown | publisher = PsyOps Books | date = 2009 | pages = 1, 33 }}{{ISBN missing|date=April 2024}}</ref>

Mitchelstown itself is based at or near the site of a 13th-century Norman settlement called "Villa Michel".<ref name="booklet"/> During the 13th century, "Villa Michel" was granted market rights giving it a commercial focus within the region.{{citation needed|date=April 2024}} From about 1300 to 1600, the town was the property of the White Knights, Chiefs of the Clan Gibbon (FitzGibbons), a branch of the Earls of Desmond. The White Knights were lords over large portions of modern-day counties [[County Cork|Cork]], [[County Limerick|Limerick]] and [[County Tipperary|Tipperary]] consisting of an estate of over 40,000 hectares.{{citation needed|date=April 2024}} The first Mitchelstown Castle was built by the White Knights sometime in the 14th century and it lasted until the 1770s.{{citation needed|date=April 2024}} The original town itself appears to have evolved from a cluster of cabins and laneways around this castle probably starting in the late-thirteenth or early-fourteenth centuries.{{citation needed|date=April 2024}}

The area known as Kingston College (or "King's Square") was built around 1764 by [[James King, 4th Baron Kingston]] for the cost of £12,000. It was initially established as housing for elderly, impoverished [[Protestantism|Protestants]]. When James died in 1764, his 10-year-old granddaughter Caroline FitzGerald inherited the estate. Five years later she married her 15-year-old cousin, [[Robert King, 2nd Earl of Kingston|Robert King, Viscount Kingsborough]] who himself later inherited large estates in counties Roscommon and Sligo.{{citation needed|date=April 2024}} For a time, their joint land ownership was around 70,000 hectares.{{citation needed|date=April 2024}} The revolutionary writer [[Mary Wollstonecraft]], briefly worked as a governess to three of their daughters.<ref>{{cite magazine | url = https://www.historyireland.com/18th-19th-century-history/from-the-education-of-daughters-to-the-rights-of-woman-mary-wollstonecraft-in-ireland-1786-7/ | title = From the Education of daughters to the Rights of woman: Mary Wollstonecraft in Ireland, 1786–7 | magazine = History Ireland | issue = 1 (January/February 2016) | volume = 24 }}</ref>

Unlike other landlords of the time, who had a "hands off" management style, Caroline and Robert King undertook a number of progressive projects in their Mitchelstown estate from the mid-1770s onwards.{{citation needed|date=April 2024}} The demesne wall, reputed to be the longest park wall in Ireland,{{citation needed|date=April 2024}} took 16 years to build. It is 10&nbsp;km long, encloses 500 hectares and was originally over 3 metres in height in most places.{{citation needed|date=April 2024}}

The medieval town was demolished and replaced by the present town which is centred more to the south-east. The town was laid out in a grid pattern of two main streets intersected by a number of smaller streets.{{citation needed|date=April 2024}}

Some of its streets are named after members of the King family, namely [[Robert King, 1st Viscount Lorton|Robert]], [[George King, 3rd Earl of Kingston|George]], [[Edward King (Royal Navy officer)|Edward]], James, Thomas and also King (the family name). The other streets of the Georgian town are Church Street, Baldwin Street, Alley Lane, Chapel Hill, Convent Hill, King Square, New Square and Mulberry Lane.{{citation needed|date=April 2024}}

The layout established by the second and third [[Earl of Kingston|Earls of Kingston]], between 1776 and 1830, utilised the natural features of the site to give views of the Galtee Mountains.{{citation needed|date=April 2024}} This is best illustrated by how George Street was designed with Saint George's Arts and Heritage Centre (formerly Saint George's Church) closing the view on the southern end, and the northern view being terminated by Kingston College and Temple Hill on the Galtee Mountains.{{original research inline|date=April 2024}}

[[Mitchelstown Castle]] was rebuilt between 1823 and 1825 by George King, 3rd Earl of Kingston.{{citation needed|date=April 2024}}

During the Irish Civil War in 1922, the castle was occupied by the Irish Republican Army. During six weeks of occupation, its contents were looted and the building was burnt on the night 12 and 13 August 1922 – ostensibly to prevent it from being used by the [[Irish Free State]] army. However, there is no evidence to support that claim.{{citation needed|date=April 2024}} Another motive, put forward for the fire, was to cover up the looting and destruction of the building.{{citation needed|date=April 2024}} The ashlar limestone of the house stood as a ruin until about 1930 when it was bought by the monks of [[Mount Melleray Abbey]] who used it to build their new monastery in County Waterford.{{citation needed|date=April 2024}}

===Mitchelstown massacre===
{{anchor|Massacre}}<!-- [[Mitchelstown Massacre]] and [[John Mandeville (Land Leaguer)]] redirect here-->
Between 1879 and 1881, and again between 1886 and 1888, local tenantry, led by [[John Mandeville (Land Leaguer)|John Mandeville]] and [[William O'Brien]], MP, organised a [[rent strike]] on the Mitchelstown Estate, then owned by Anna, Dowager Countess of Kingston and her second husband, William Downes Webber. On 9 September 1887, a protest was held later in the day in New Market Square outside the Market House where Mandeville and O'Brien were being tried. Neither man appeared in court. After the court ended, approximately 8,000 demonstrators paraded into New Square. As the speeches began from a wagon in the square, the police attempted to get an official police notetaker closer to the platform so that he could hear and record what was being said. Their motives were misunderstood, and they were held back by the crowd. They retreated, returning moments later with fifty reinforcements. This time, they fixed bayonets and used the butts of their rifles to hit horses that had been placed around the edge of the crowd to prevent their access to the wagon. In the melee that followed, hand-to-hand combat involving police being beaten with sticks and stones being thrown at them. The police retreated to their barracks, which was on a house that overlooked part of the square. As the last constable arrived at the barracks, he drew his revolver and fired a single shot into the air. This created confusion amongst the police inside the barracks, who by that time had been placed at the upstairs windows with carbine rifles. Several shots were fired into the crowd. Three men were killed and several more injured. The dead men were John Shinnick of [[Fermoy]], John Casey of [[Kilbehenny]] and Michael Lonergan of [[Galbally, County Limerick]].<ref>Bill Power, 'White Knights Dark Earls, the rise and fall of an Anglo-Irish dynasty,' (The Collins Press, 2000)</ref><ref>W.E. Vaughan, 'A New History of Ireland VI: Ireland Under the Union, 1870-1921'(Oxford, 2010), p. 72</ref> The incident generated considerable international attention and became known as the "Mitchelstown Massacre". The phrase "Remember Mitchelstown" (first coined by [[William Ewart Gladstone|William Gladstone]]) became a rallying cry for Irishmen at home and abroad. The memorial to Mandeville that stands in Market Square was unveiled in 1906 by [[William O'Brien]] MP. It also commemorates the names of the three men killed in 1887.{{citation needed|date=April 2024}}