Harborfront – The medieval walled town’s economy was fueled by its harbor, where ships came to be stocked. The old walls defined the original town and created a fortified zone that facilitated the taxation of goods.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, this small and easily defended harbor was busy with rich and hungry tall ships getting provisions and assembling into convoys for the two-month trip to America, mostly for military transport and establishing colonies. (By the 1800s, most Irish emigrants fleeing faming departed for America from Cobh instead, which had a deeper harbor for new steam-powered sailing ships.
The memorial shaped like a mast of a tall ship is a reminder that this was also a port of military consequence. Dozens of ships from the Spanish Armada could moor here, threatening England. Since Spain and Ireland had a common religion and common enemy (Catholicism and England), Kinsale had a more prominent place in history than its size might suggest.
This is reclaimed land. What seems like part of the old center was actually built later on land reclaimed from the harbor. The town sits on the floor of a natural quarry, with easy-to-cut shale hills ideal for a ready supply of fill. Notice the mudflats in the harbor at low tide.
The clear-cutting of the once-plentiful oak forest upriver (for shipbuilding and barrel-making) hastened erosion and silted up the harbor. By the early 1800s – when British shops needed lots of restocking for the Napoleonic Wars – ships were bigger, Kinsale’s port was slowly dying, and nearby Cobh’s deep-water port took over the lion’s share of shipping. Kinsale settled into a quieter existence as a fishing port.
Town Center – The subtle curves of Main Street trace the original coastline. Dalton’s Pub is here – one of 25 pubs in this small but never-thirsty town. Dalton’s is one of many inviting local pubs famous for live folk and traditional music.
Town Pound – This small enclosure was where goods and livestock used to be impounded until the owner could pay the associated tax. After the James and Charles forts were built in the 1600s, the town wall became obsolete – and also boxed in the town, preventing further expansion.
So the townspeople disassembled the wall and used its ready-cut stones for building projects like this.
St. Multose Church – This Anglican church comes with a fortress-like tower. While rebuilt in recent centuries, it goes back to the Middle Ages. In its very proper Anglican interior, you’ll see a list of vicars going back to 1377. The humble base of the baptismal font dates from the 6th century.
Check out the old doorway into the church. These days, this door is always locked, but it was once the main entrance. Notice the worn lines scratched into the stone around eye level. Oliver Cromwell’s soldiers garrisoned in the church in the mid-1600s and sharpened their swords on the doorway. By looking at things you would tell there were (not surprisingly) more right-handed swordsmen.
Lusitania Victim Graves – This remembers “Victims of the Lusitania Outrage 1915.” Nine months into World War I, just off the coast of Kinsale, the Germans torpedoed the Lusitania with 128 Americans on board. It sank within 20 minutes, and more than half of the 2,000 passengers drowned. This tragedy led to the United States going “over there” and joining what was called “The Great War”
