Fermoy museum to focus on 200-year army link

A TOWN steeped in military history is to commemorate it by opening up a museum which will be dedicated to a 200-year association with the British and Irish armies.

Fermoy in Co Cork first became a garrison town in 1798 and during WWI it housed at one stage 14,000 troops stationed in training camps in the town and at nearby Kilworth.

The Irish army moved into Fitzgerald Camp in 1948 and occupied it for the next 50 years, until the Government closed the facility as part of a barracks rationalisation programme in 1998.

Military historian Paudi McGrath said the museum, which will be established in the town centre, will house a database of all soldiers who served in the British army in Fermoy.

“We know there are loads of houses around Fermoy which would possess military memorabilia which we’re hoping to source. We will also be contacting former members of the Defence Forces asking them to donate memorabilia they will have brought back from UN missions abroad,” Mr McGrath said.

The project will be promoted by Avondhu Tourism Association. Its chairman, Sean Lomasney said they intended to develop a tourist office also. They have identified a suitable site in the town centre and hope to open early next year.

“We’re also planning to launch a major ecclesiastical history of the region. The area is also steeped in church history. There was a major monastery in the town at one stage. That is why the Irish for Fermoy is Mainistir Fhear Maí, meaning ‘Monastery of the Men of the Plain’,” Mr Lomasney said.

The tourism group has until recently spent most of its time concentrating on developing walking routes along the Blackwater Way.

It also developed a former reservoir on the outskirts of the town at Knockanannig, which it stocked with coarse fish and which attracts anglers from all over Europe.