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Sites

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standing stone link ring fort link castle link weir link bridge link
Standing Stone Ring Fort Castle Weir Inniscarra Bridge
oriel house link gunpowder mills link lime kiln link barracks link church link
Oriel House Gunpowder Mills Lime Kiln Military Barracks St Mary and
St John's Church

Brief History

Origin of the Name:

Ballincollig (Baile an Chollaig) translates from the Irish as "Coll's town" after Robert Coll, an Anglo-Norman knight who owned the land in the fifteenth century. Originally interpreted as "Town of the Boar" the boar has now become the symbol of Ballincollig.

The Town

Ballincollig lies ten kilometers west of Cork city and has developed rapidly in the past twenty years. Once a small village, it has grown into a bustling town, doubling its population to nearly 20,000 inhabitants.

The area has been inhabited since Neolithic times (3,000 BC) and has a wealth of historical monuments from every period, the oldest existing structure being the ruins of Ballincollig Castle (1468). In 1659 a total of only eight inhabitants were living in the townland of Ballincollig according to a Cromwellian survey.

Ballincollig village came into being when a gunpowder works was set up on the banks of the River Lee in 1794. The village population grew rapidly as the gunpowder works expanded and an artillery barracks was established. The original village lay on the south side of the main road and was just over 300 meters long, beginning at Castle Park and ending at Station Road.

At the height of its success in the 1850s, the gunpowder works employed over 500 people but with the development of chemical explosives, black powder became redundant and the factory closed in 1903. With this employment loss and the later departure of the British army in 1922, the village declined in importance.

In the 1960s and '70s, the village was designated as a satellite town of Cork city and underwent a major expansion east and westwards with the construction of a number of housing estates, and the population rose once again.

Recently, the development of the former army barracks land has opened up the whole of the north side of the main street and has led to the construction of a vibrant, modern shopping centre. The creation of a 130 acre regional park on the site of the former gunpowder works has provided a popular recreational amenity used widely by the local community and visitors alike.

Protecting Local Heritage

Finding your way around the legislation designed to protect local heritage sites can be a tricky business, involving as it does a large number of acronyms. Protected sites require special permission from local or national government before any development may be carried out on them or around them.

Under the National Monuments Acts, protected sites are called SMRs (Sites and Monuments Record). The following sites in Ballincollig and their unique reference numbers are listed below.

For more information on definitions and responsibilities Click here

Under Local Planning Acts historic sites have to be listed in the County Development Plan as RPSs (Record of Protected Structures). The following sites with their unique number are listed below.

For information and contacts with Cork Co. Council Click here

Or contact us for assistance at info@ballincolligheritage.org