Conna (Conaithe in Irish) is a village of some 300 inhabitants in East Cork, Province of Munster, Ireland. It is situated on the river Bride, not far from the town of Fermoy. The village contains several pubs, a shop, a post office, a Roman Catholic church and a nearby Church of Ireland chapel. The village is dominated by Conna castle, a five-story tower house situated on a limestone outcrop near the river.
In 1554 the Fitzgeralds began building Conna Castle and completed the building ten years later. The castle and its estate was seized by the English and passed into the hands of Walter Raleigh, the English settler. The rightful heir to the castle, James FitzThomas (The Sugán Earl) staged a rebellion the capture the castle. He failed, was captured and imprisoned in London Tower. The castle then went through a series of different owners before ending up in the hands of the Earl of Cork. It is believed that Oliver Cromwell passed by the castle fired cannons at it before moving on. The castle continued to move from owner to owner until Hilary L’Estrange purchased the castle in 1851. He passed it on to his son, Rev A. G. K. L'Estrange, on whose death in 1915, the castle was willed into the care of the state, the first such property to be so willed.
-- Conna Castle has an interesting if tragic history. Towering over the countryside overlooking the River Bride, this fine medieval skyscraper rises 85 feet from a great limestone bluff. Its builder Sir Thomas Ruadh FitzGerald was the eldest son of the 14th Earl of Desmond who died here in 1595. He built the castle in about 1550, and should have succeeded to his father's title and lands, but was disallowed in favour of his younger half-brother Garrett. His claim to the title passed to his eldest son James, known as the "sugan earl" because his claim was sure to fail - which it eventually did. After joining the revolt of 1599, he was betrayed, captured, and died in the Tower of London. That same year Conna was taken by the Earl of Essex, partly dismantled, and later granted to Richard Boyle Earl of Cork, who repaired the tower. In 1645 it was captured by Confederate forces under Lord Castlehaven, and the men of the garrison were put to the sword. The tower's history continued its sad course in 1653 when it was destroyed in a fire in which Avis, Joanna, and Jane German, daughters of Edward German, perished in the flames, as appears by a monument with an inscription recording this calamity in Knockmourne church. The castle, of which only a high square tower remains, stands on an isolated limestone rock on the south side of the river Bride. -- Mike Searle
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