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| THE SQUARE, FERMOY, CO. CORK. -As Fermoy is a garrison town, its public square is frequently the scene of fine military parades and maneuvres, especially in the summer season, when "the bold soldier boys," in flaming scarlet, can show off their martial figures to advantage before adoring cooks and nursemaids. The town is one of the best built of its size in Ireland, and has the advantage of standing on the storied banks of the lovely Munster Blackwater, whose name is a synonym of sylvan beauty. Notwithstanding its present aspect of comparative importance and prosperity, Fermoy was a somewhat insignificant place until about the first quarter of this century. In the vicinity are the ruins of the venerable Abbey of Bridgetown-the shrine and burial place of the once powerful and warlike Norman-Irish family of the Roches. Castletown Roche, formerly the homestead patrimony of the family, is in the neighborhood of the Abbey. The Roches, who had dispossessed the Milesian Irish in the days of Henry II, were themselves dispossessed by the Cromwellians, and Charles II., when restored to the throne, with characteristic ingratitude, for they had lost everything in his father's cause, refused to reinstate them. The last known representatives of the direct line of this family died in poverty or holding menial positions. |
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