Kinsale's 'forgotten local heroes' commemorated in ceremony to mark handover of Cork barracks

Members of the Lord Edwards Own Re-enactment Group dressed as British soldiers leaving the Charles Fort barracks at a centenary commemoration in Kinsale. Photo: John Allen

The symbolic significance of the handover of a long-held British barracks in a strategic Cork town to the fledgling Irish state a century ago was recalled at a commemorative ceremony on Monday.

The forgotten local heroes of the War of Independence period in Kinsale were also honoured and parallels were drawn between Ireland's struggle for independence and the war in Ukraine during the event at Charles Fort in Kinsale to commemorate the centenary of the 1922 handover by the crown forces to the Irish provisional government of two British barracks in the town, which had for centuries been a key strategic location in the British empire.