Coachford is a village in County Cork, Ireland. It is located on the north side of the River Lee. The village is located in the Civil Parish of Magourney. Coachford is part of the Cork North-West. Coachford owes its name to once being a crossing point over a stream for horse-drawn coaches, and this stream continues to flow beneath the village to the present day. The Lee was flooded for a hydroelectric power plant and farmland including many houses were flooded by the newly formed lake. Coachford is located around a crossroads where the R618 and R619 regional roads intersect. Mallow is north of the village, Macroom is west, Cork City is east and Bandon is south.
History
Coachford does not feature on the 1811 Grand Jury Map of Cork, but is mentioned in the Freeman's Journal, dated 10 January 1822, and the area and its environs were known as "Magourney". The Village developed rapidly during the Famine and subsequently. By 1888, the Cork & Muskerry Light Railway had a terminus at Coachford, adding to local business, accessibility and vibrancy. By the end of the 19th-century, the village also had a creamery, complimenting its agricultural hinterland. By the 1950s, a Vocational School was established, known today as Coachford College. The 2011-15 Aghabullogue-Coachford-Rylane Community Council commissioned URS consultants to draw up a for the three villages in 2012.
Noted local deaths during the Troubles
Mrs. Mary Lindsay, Leemount House, Coachford, an elderly widow, was executed by the IRA, on 9 March 1921. Attempting to prevent bloodshed she, along with a Roman Catholic priest, tried to persuade the IRA gang against a planned ambush. The IRA ignored them and she then warned the British Army of a planned ambush in nearby Dripsey, for which six IRA volunteers were executed. She and her driver were shot and her home, Leemount House, burned down, after the British authorities refused to commute the executions of the six IRA volunteers. A character based on Mrs. Lindsay was played by Dame Sybil Thorndike in the 1959 film, Shake Hands with the Devil, which starred James Cagney, Don Murray and Michael Redgrave. An IRA man named Frank Busteed later claimed credit for the killings and for burning down Mrs. Lindsay's home. Near Rooves Bridge is a monument to Captain Tadhg Kennefick of the Irish Republican Army, who was killed during the Irish Civil War by the Free State Army. On his way home to his mother's funeral, he was stopped at a checkpoint where Free State soldiers tied him to the back of a truck near a hamlet called Peake and dragged him a distance of four miles to the bridge where he was shot by soldiers and his body dumped in a ditch. Local people who witnessed this recovered his body. A monument now stands on the site where his body was recovered.
Sites
Close to Coachford is Mullinhassig Waterfall. It is about west of Coachford just off the Macroom Road. About south of Coachford on the road to Bandon is Rooves Bridge, constructed over the River Lee in the 1950s to replace the old bridge which was submerged due to the building of the hydroelectric dam at Inniscarra about down river. Rooves Bridge is the longest bridge spanning the River Lee.
Sport
The village is the home of Aghabullogue GAA, best known for capturing Cork's first hurling All-Ireland title in 1890 when they defeated Castlebridge, Wexford in the final.
Arts
The local drama group, Coachford Players, is an amateur drama group, established in 1987, which performs a full-length play each year. Mary Lynch of Coachford exhibits her work on a regular basis in Coachford, Macroom, and environs.
Education
The village and its environs are served by and Coachford College. The College has a catchment area spread towards Macroom and Ballincollig, Bandon and Kanturk, taking a large rural area near Cork City. There are 707 students split nearly evenly between boys and girls. An extension was completed in 2002 and provides the college with a sports hall. A new school is planned with construction starting in 2019/2020.
