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Kinsale in the early 18th century
Kinsale is known for its historic streetscape and brightly coloured shops.
Historical populationYearPop.±%18217,068—    18317,312+3.5%18416,918−5.4%18515,501−20.5%18614,850−11.8%18716,404+32.0%18815,386−15.9%18914,605−14.5%19014,250−7.7%19114,020−5.4%19262,747−31.7%19362,422−11.8%19462,087−13.8%19511,930−7.5%19561,808−6.3%19611,763−2.5%19661,848+4.8%19711,989+7.6%19812,401+20.7%19862,581+7.5%19912,751+6.6%19963,064+11.4%20023,554+16.0%20064,099+15.3%20114,893+19.4%20165,281+7.9%20225,991+13.4%
In January 1334, under a charter granted by King Edward III of England, the Corporation of Kinsale was established to undertake local government in the town.
The corporation existed for over 500 years until the passing of the Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act 1840, when local government in Kinsale was transferred to the town commissioners who had been elected in the town since 1828. These Town Commissioners became the Kinsale Council under the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 and the Kinsale Town Council existed until 2014 when this layer of local government was abolished in Ireland as part of measures to reduce the budget deficit following the 2008 financial crisis (see Post-2008 Irish economic downturn). It returned two members to the Irish House of Commons prior to its abolition in 1800.
In its history, Kinsale has also important occasional links with Spain. In 1518, Archduke Ferdinand, later Emperor Ferdinand I, paid an unscheduled visit to the town, during which one of his staff wrote a remarkable account of its inhabitants.
Market House; built c. 1600
In 1601, a Spanish military expedition to Ireland – the last of the Armadas launched against the Kingdom of England – landed in Kinsale in order to link with Irish rebel forces and attack England through Ireland. As a result, the battle of Kinsale took place at the end of the Nine Years War in which English forces, led by Charles Blount, 8th Baron Mountjoy, defeated the rebel Irish force, led by Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone and Red Hugh O'Donnell, two Gaelic princes from Ulster. The Irish forces were allied with the forces of King Felipe III of Spain, who was also King of Portugal and the Algarves.
In September 1607, a few years after this battle, the Flight of the Earls took place from Rathmullan in County Donegal in which a number of the native Irish aristocrats, including both Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone and Rory O'Donnell, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, abandoned their lands and fled to Continental Europe. Shortly after the battle, James's Fort was built to protect the harbour. Completed by 1607, the central structure was a half-bastioned four-sided stone fortification, surrounded by pentagonal earthworks to a bastion fort or star-shaped fort design.
In 1649, Prince Rupert of the Rhine declared Charles II as King of England, Scotland and Ireland at St Multose's Church in Kinsale upon hearing of the execution of Charles I in London by Parliamentarian forces during the English Civil War. The Virginia trading fleet made this harbour the safest destination during their wartime voyages.
Charles Fort, located at Summer Cove and dating from 1677 in the reign of Charles II, is a bastion-fort that guards the entrance to Kinsale Harbour. It was built to protect the area and specifically the harbour from the use by the French and Spanish in the event of a landing in Ireland. James's Fort, which dates from the reign of King James VI and I, is located on the other side of the cove, on the Castlepark peninsula. Records indicate that an underwater chain was strung between the two forts across the harbour mouth during times of war to damage or block potential incoming enemy vessels.
James II lands at Kinsale
James II landed at Kinsale in March 1689 with a force of 2,500 men, raised with the support of King Louis XIV, as part of his campaign to regain power in England, Scotland and Ireland. In 1690, James II and VII returned to exile in France from Kinsale, following his defeat at the Battle of the Boyne by William III of England (also Stadtholder William III of the House of Orange-Nassau) after the 'Glorious Revolution' (or Revolution of 1688) in England against the background of wars involving France under King Louis XIV.[citation needed]
From 1694, Kinsale served as a supply base for Royal Navy vessels in southern Ireland, and a number of storehouses were built; it was limited to smaller vessels, however, due to the sandbar at the mouth of the river.
English navigator and privateer Captain Woodes Roger mentions Kinsale in the memoir of his 1708 expedition from Cork; in particular, he mentions a pair of rocks known as 'the Sovereigne's Bollacks' on which his ship almost ran aground. Kinsale's naval significance declined after the Royal Navy moved its victualling centre from Kinsale to Cork harbour in 1805 during the Napoleonic Wars in the period of France's First Empire.[citation needed]
Long Quay, Kinsale, c. 1900
When the ocean liner RMS Lusitania was sunk by a U-boat of the German Empire on 7 May 1915 on a voyage from New York City to Liverpool during the First World War, some of the bodies and survivors were brought to Kinsale and the subsequent inquest on the bodies recovered was held in the town's courthouse.
Kinsale was linked by a branch line via Farrangalway and Ballymartle to the Irish railway system of the Cork, Bandon and South Coast Railway and its successors from 1863 until 1931, when the branch was closed by the Great Southern Railways during a low point in Kinsale's economic fortunes. The station, inconveniently located for the town and harbour, was on Barrack Hill and the line ran to a junction at Crossbarry on the Cork (Albert Quay) to Bandon line.
In 2005, Kinsale became Ireland's second Fair Trade Town, with Clonakilty being the first. Kinsale, with its "electrifyingly bright streets", was rated as among the "20 most beautiful villages in the UK and Ireland" by Condé Nast Traveler in 2020.
