Clashmore
Clais Mhór

The Ireland's Ancient East
STOP 04 / 04

Clais Mhór · Co. Waterford

A great trench, a small saint, and one bar still keeping the lights on.

Clashmore is a small village in west Waterford, in the barony of Decies-Within-Drum, twelve miles south-west of Dungarvan and five kilometres inland from Ardmore Bay. The Irish name is Clais Mhór — the great trench — and that is the village honestly described. It sits in a hollow the River Lickey has cut through the soft ground on its way to the Blackwater estuary, and the main street climbs out of that hollow in two directions. A couple of hundred people live here. That is the size of the place.

The story is older than the village. In the 7th century St Carthage of Lismore sent a disciple, Mochua, down to found a monastery in the trench by the river. Mochua is also remembered as Cronan, and the Catholic church built in 1827 carries that name; the holy well at the edge of the village still carries the other. A village of some kind has existed at the gates of that vanished monastery ever since. The street pattern you walk now was laid out in the early 19th century — Protestant church 1813–18, distillery 1825, Catholic church 1825–27, a run of two-storey houses 1820–40 — when Lord Hastings, the 13th Earl of Huntingdon, was rebuilding Clashmore through his wife's inherited estate.

The distillery turned out 20,000 gallons of whiskey a year for about five years, then converted to a flour mill until the 1890s, then closed. The Powers of Clashmore House, whose heiress had married Hastings, faded into the late 19th century along with everyone else's grand demesne. What is left now is the village in the trench, one bar with the regional name on the door, a Catholic church on the rise, and the road down to Raheen Quay where the Lickey reaches the Blackwater. Come for an afternoon between Ardmore and the Blackwater Drive. Don't expect more than that, and you will not be disappointed.

Population

~210

Walk score

End to end in five minutes

Founded

Monastic site, 7th century

Coords

51.9992° N, 7.7969° W

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At a glance.

Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.

01 The trench

Clais Mhór — the great hollow.

The village name describes the dip the village sits in. The Lickey runs the bottom of it, the road climbs out of it both ways, and that is the whole geography in one word.

Stories & lore → 02 The saint

Mochua of Clashmore, disciple of Carthage.

A 7th-century monk sent down from Lismore by St Carthage, also remembered as Cronan. Feast day 10 February. The Catholic church is St Cronan's; the holy well at the edge of the village still bears his other name.

Stories & lore → 03 The road

Five kilometres in from the sea, halfway between two towns.

Ardmore is five kilometres south on the R673. Youghal is ten kilometres west across the Blackwater. Clashmore is the quiet village neither of them notices on the way.

Getting there →

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The pubs.

None of these are themed Irish pubs, because they don't need to be. A few that earn the trip:

The Decies Bar

Local, quiet most nights

Village bar

On the main street. Was Duggan's before it was the Decies. The name is the old Munster name for this corner of Waterford — Déise — and the regulars are mostly the people who live within walking distance. Music nights when a band is booked. The rest of the year, a pint and a chat.

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Stories & lore.

The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.

A 7th-century monastery in a hollow

Mochua and the trench

St Carthage of Lismore — Mochuda — sent disciples out across the Déise in the 7th century to plant churches in his pattern. One of them, Mochua, came down off the high ground to a hollow on the River Lickey and founded the monastic site that gave Clashmore its existence. He is also recorded as Cronan, and the two names attach to two pieces of the same village now: St Cronan's Catholic Church on the hill, built 1825–27, and St Mochua's Well at the edge of the village. The pattern day is 10 February. The well is still walked.

A planned village, a five-year whiskey

Hastings and the distillery

Almost everything the visitor sees in Clashmore was put up between 1813 and 1840. The Protestant parish church went up first. The Catholic church followed in 1825. In the same year a distillery opened by Francis Hastings, 13th Earl of Huntingdon — who had married Elizabeth Anne Power, heiress of Clashmore House — and for about five years it produced 20,000 gallons of whiskey annually. By 1840 the distilling had stopped. The buildings worked on as a flour mill until the 1890s. The Earls of Huntingdon's other Irish projects went the same way. The two-storey houses of the village are the part of the plan that took.

Raheen Quay and the reed beds

Where the Lickey meets the Blackwater

Two kilometres from the village the Lickey runs out into a tidal pill at Raheen Quay, where it joins the Blackwater estuary. Coasters used to come up the pill on the high tide and tie at the small stone quay. The trade is long gone. What remains is the quay itself, the reed beds, and a quiet stretch of estuary water that Ardmore tourists do not know about and Youghal tourists drive past. A walk down and back from the village is half an hour. On a still evening it is worth that and more.

Getting there.

By car

On the R671 between the N25 (Cork–Waterford road) and Youghal, with a turn south on the R673 down to Ardmore. Five kilometres from Ardmore, ten from Youghal, twenty from Dungarvan. Cork city is an hour west; Waterford city an hour east.

By bus

No regular service into the village itself. The Cork–Waterford 40 stops at Kinsalebeg crossroads on the N25, three kilometres north — from there it is a walk or a local taxi.

By train

No station. Nearest mainline stops are Cork (Kent) and Waterford Plunkett, both about an hour by road.

By air

Cork Airport (ORK) is about 55 minutes by car. Waterford Airport is closer on the map but has almost no scheduled flights.