Mallow

Mallow sits in north County Cork along the Blackwater River, about 30 kilometres from Cork city. The N20 makes it a handy stop between Cork and Limerick, with good connections to Killarney, Fermoy, and the coast. The railway junction is brilliant, with Cork just 20 minutes away and Dublin in 2.5 hours. Once known as "the Bath of Ireland" for its Georgian spa days, you'll still see grand houses from that era alongside the ruins of Elizabethan Mallow Castle. It's a proper market town serving the dairy farms round about, with decent fishing on the Blackwater. The castle grounds keep a rare herd of white fallow deer, descendants from Norman times.