Overview
The word ‘steeplechase’ was coined in Buttevant. In 1752 two riders raced four and a half miles cross-country from the steeple of the town’s Protestant church to the steeple at Doneraile, the first recorded race of its kind anywhere. That mix of horses and medieval stone is the town in a sentence: Buttevant was the only walled town in medieval north Cork, and it still hosts one of Ireland’s oldest horse fairs.
It’s a working town on the N20 halfway between Cork and Limerick, about 28 miles north of Cork city, not a polished heritage attraction. Michael Palin reckoned it ‘proves that everything you have heard about Ireland is true’. If you can, time your visit for 12 July and the Cahirmee Horse Fair; any other day, the medieval North Gate and the friary are the things to see, and the summer Saturday heritage walk is the easy way to join them up.
A Norman frontier town
The present town is Norman, founded by the de Barry family, who settled in the area in the 12th century and made Buttevant their principal stronghold in north Cork. The site may sit on an earlier settlement of the Donegans, Carrig Donegan, and Buttevant Castle was raised by the de Barrys on a Donegan fortification, set on a limestone ridge jutting out over the River Awbeg.
In 1234 David de Barry was granted a weekly Sunday market and an annual fair around the feast of St Luke in October, fixing the town’s role as a trading centre. Defence came later: royal grants to enclose the town with walls were issued in 1317 and 1375, giving Buttevant an inner and outer wall that split the Anglo-Norman merchants from the native Irish quarter to the north-west. The North Gate still stands on the main street, the most visible survivor of all that.
The name itself is argued over. The romantic version traces it to the de Barry war cry Boutez-en-Avant, ‘strike forward’; the soberer one, favoured by local archaeologists, takes it from boutavant, the Norman-French for an advance rampart, which fits a castle pushing forward into Gaelic territory. The Irish name, Cill na Mullach, simply means ‘church of the hillocks’.
The Cahirmee Horse Fair
The one old market tradition still going is the Cahirmee Horse Fair, held every 12 July. It originally took place at the fair field of Cahirmee, about two miles east of the town, and moved onto Buttevant’s streets in 1921. In the years before the First World War it was reckoned one of the greatest horse fairs in these islands, and local lore claims both Napoleon’s horse Marengo and the Duke of Wellington’s mount were bought here. Expect crowds, horses traded kerbside and the main road closed for the day; come early if you’re driving.
Walking the medieval town
- Buttevant Franciscan Friary – The 13th-century friary stands beside the main street near the river and is a National Monument in state care. It’s an unguided ruin with on-street parking, open during church hours; take a bit of care on the uneven, ancient ground.
- The North Gate and town walls – Stretches of the medieval wall and the surviving gate are still traceable through the street pattern.
- Ballybeg Priory – The 13th-century Augustinian ruins just south of town are quieter and usually overlooked, with a notable round dovecote.
The Buttevant Heritage Group runs guided walks of the town every Saturday at 3pm through the summer, starting outside St Mary’s Church on the Main Street; this is the most reliable way to get the history straight from people who know it.
The town also kept a barracks: 19th-century military quarters where battalions of the Royal Munster and Royal Dublin Fusiliers trained before shipping out in 1914. After the War of Independence and Civil War it was largely destroyed, and today the limestone Neo-Gothic gateway survives while the old parade ground is the GAA pitch.
Kilcolman Bog
About four kilometres north-east, Kilcolman Bog is a national nature reserve and wildfowl refuge in a glacial limestone hollow, a mix of reed-swamp, fen and open water. It comes alive in autumn and winter, when ducks and Greenland white-fronted geese overwinter here; there are hides for watching them. Nearby Kilcolman Castle is where Edmund Spenser lived and wrote much of The Faerie Queene.
Getting there
- By road – Buttevant is on the N20 between Cork and Limerick; roughly 36 minutes’ drive from Cork city.
- By bus – Bus Éireann runs hourly between Buttevant and Cork, a journey of about an hour.
- By train – The Dublin–Cork line passes through, but the station closed in 1977; the nearest working station is Mallow.
- Parking – Free street parking around the market square most weekdays. It fills fast on 12 July, so arrive early for the fair.