Fire your imagination

SET in a woodland, the old Parochial House upriver of Cork city at Inniscarra, is at Canon’s Cross – or is it cannon’s cross?

Given to the Diocese of Cloyne in the 19th century by the Blarney Estate, this beguiling period property just eight miles against the River Lee’s flow from the city was home to various Roman Catholic clergymen, hence the appellation and spelling Canon’s Cross.

But, in earlier ownership, local history recalls its initial ownership in the name of a Fitzgibbon family, a member of which fought in the Crimean War – and who returned to live here with two souvenir cannon which stood at its entrance.