The Wonderful Newmarket, Co. Cork, Ireland
Co. Cork, Ireland has to be one of the most splendid parts of a fantastic country, and the small market town of Newmarket is one of its important market towns.
Newmarket town - or, in the classical Irish tongue, Áth Trasna - the intersection at the ford, is in the Barony of Duhallow, in the north-west of Co. Cork. Bordered by Limerick and Kerry, and with the popular Blackwater river running close by, brimming with its delicious salmon, it is a part of Ireland that you would be crazy to not visit.
The province of Newmarket itself, with just around 2,500 dwellers, stands proof for the adjective ’sleepy’ almost as well as anywhere in the country - unless you appear to be passing through after an extremely vital G.A.A. Victory, when the town’s own song, Up Up Newmarket, will be heard - they take their sport tremendously seriously here.
Located on a valley surrounded by the foothills of the Mulmuaghreirk Mountains, where Fionn (the legendary Finn McCool) chased the wild boar and the stag, Newmarket also has numerous alluring pre-historic locations around it - a cairn, gallauns (boundary stones) and forts. It is, indeed, a place full of Irish history; John Philpot Curran was born here and his daughter, Sarah, was the love of rebel head Robert Emmet. Just outside the town is the splendid Island Wood, home of the Twelve Apostles Tree - it has 12 smaller trunks extending from out of its main trunk. This unfrequented wooded area, with the River Dalua, bursting with salmon and trout, running splendidly through it, is an appropriately popular spot for quiet contemplation.
The Island Wood in Newmarket, County Cork, Ireland, in fact, has been blended into a 100-mile walk known as the Duhallow Trail, delving into this enchantingly serene portion of the earth, and passing though Newmarket itself. Other especially important sectors of the trail are the mesmerizing town of Kanturk and its popular castle, taken care of by An Taisce - The Irish National Trust and a magnificent structure. At the nearby graveyard of Clonfert, there is a sentimental, small Celtic cross representing the massed burial site of numerous victims of the Great Famine.
In Newmarket itself you will get to see the lively James O’Keefe Institute - really a housedwelling place built in 1725 for the Aldworth family, a member of which had set up the town a century earlier. it is now a thriving centre for the local community.
There are no hotels in Newmarket, County Cork,, Ireland but still there are several wonderful guesthouses or places doing Bed and Breakfast in the area. K.D.’s Fast Food, has a good reputation for the quality of its menu and its breezy aura and there are other places where you can find excellent food, such as Marie’s Restaurant, on the Main Street. It is certainly a town where you can be assured of a genuine, warm Duhallow welcome.
Co. Cork has a wide range of splendid attractions for visitors. The historic city of Cork itself is of course world famous. The exotic blue flag beaches of Ballybunnion are nearby. Blarney Castle and Killarney are just a short drive. And there are wonderfully exotic golf courses, lakes, hill-sides and rivers.
located on the R576, at its junction with the R578, Newmarket, one of County Cork’s hidden treasures, should be part of everyone’s schedule when they’re in Ireland’s southwestern corner.
