Churctown is a beautiful Georgian stone village built between 1820 and 1846. It is located in the rolling countryside of the Golden Vale. The area around Churchtown has been settled for 4000 years; a Bronze axe head found in the parish and so too were the remains of a Great Irish elk. A pre-reformation church ruin stands in the village graveyard it is, over 1000 years. old.

The history of Churchtown is recorded in the ancient manuscript 'The Pipe Roll of Cloyne'. In 1291, Odo de Barry presented Robert Cheusner with the Vicarage of Bruhenny. The Barry family held sway here from early Norman times to the reign of Elizabeth I, along with the Fitzstephen and De Cogan families. From then on, the Percivals under Richard Percival, Lord Twickenham bought large tracts of land in Cork and then received grants of confiscated Barry lands. These included the great Liscarroll Castle. The Percivals held sway until the sale of their lands under the Ashbourne Act of 1895.

Churchtown village was burned in approx 1822 and rebuilt between 1820-46 in the shape of a square. Churchtown has been home to many a famous and infamous name; hometown of Boss Murphy's, the racehorse trainer, Dr. Vincent O'Brien, Gaelic poet Sean Clarach MacDomhnaill and Napoleons favourite doctor, Dr. Barry Edwards O'Meara. The actor Oliver Reed also lived here and now rests in the graveyard.

For more info on churchtown visit www.churchtown.net

Greenways Festival 2003

Churchtown is talking part in the Greenways Festival in summer 2003 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the legendary 1603 march of O’Sullivan Beara from the Beara Peninsula to the Breifne area. Click here for info on the events