In 2025 a song called ‘Killeagh’, by the band Kingfishr, went to number one in the Irish charts – written for this small East Cork village and its hurling club. It’s a fair introduction to a place whose identity runs deeper than its spot on the map suggests. Killeagh sits right on the N25 between Midleton and Youghal, about 32km east of Cork city, and most traffic passes straight through. The reason to pull off is the woodland behind it.
Glenbower Wood
Glenbower Wood, just north of the village along the river, is the thing to stop for: a community-run woodland of riverside paths, easy enough for families and dog walkers, and free to wander. It was once the demesne of the De Capel Brooke family, and that connection survives in the village’s May Sunday Festival, a tradition going back to the 1830s, when the family threw the estate open to the people of Killeagh for the day. Time a visit for the early-May weekend and you’ll catch the village at its liveliest.
A bit of history
Killeagh – Cill Ia, usually read as ‘grey church’ or ‘church of Aedh’ – grew up around an early church; a Saint Abban is said to have founded a 7th-century nunnery near where the Church of Ireland church now stands. There was a medieval castle here too, said to have been built by the Carews and recorded in 1364 as owing an annuity to William Skiddy, a mayor of Cork. Recent roadworks turned up more of that past: archaeologists from Rubicon, digging ahead of village improvements on the N25, uncovered evidence of the medieval settlement, since written up as ‘The people of medieval Killeagh’. The village’s protected buildings include the old Killeagh mills, the two churches, and the ruins of Dromdihy House, built by the Davis family in the 1830s and now a shell north of the village.
Around the village
Since 2017 Killeagh has had Greywood Arts, an artists’ residency and events centre – an unusual thing to find in a village this size. Otherwise it’s a working main street rather than a tourist strip: a Centra, a post office, a couple of pubs. The hurling is taken seriously here (the GAA club won the Cork Intermediate Championship in 2001), and that, more than anything, is the Killeagh the song is about.
Practical
Killeagh is on the N25, roughly 35 minutes from Cork city and a few minutes from Castlemartyr; there’s roadside parking along the main street. Buses on the Cork–Youghal–Waterford route stop in the village. Glenbower Wood is free and open year-round. If you can, come on the early-May bank-holiday weekend for the festival; otherwise it’s a half-hour leg-stretch in the woods on the way between Cork and the coast.