St. Finbarr's Boys' National School Website

The Centre Battery

Donal Fitzgerald from the Bantry Historical Society told us that the batteries were built in 1803. There are 3 batteries in all and each battery had 18 guns. There were 7 officers and 188 men in the batteries. They were not long in use because in 1807 there was only one man in charge of all 3 batteries. When the soldiers left, the batteries were used as houses. Two people lived in the middle battery until 1994. They were William Cotter and his sister Elizabeth. These 2 people gave the following information about the building of the batteries: 'it was great work, all done by hand they had no tractors or machinery in those days. Carts, horses, mules and all others were sent to the island by boats and rafts from the town. The centre battery was built of clay, brittle, shale and earth. Good work was made. The digging was done in the old-fashioned way, in the shape of a circle and the mess was dumped on the South side for further use.

Still work went on. Big rafts were built on the shore. These plus, little laughers were used to bring the cut stone from Ardnagashel point to Croangle Slip. When they got to the slip they would bring it in big carts tugged with 6 to 8 horses or mules up to the building site.

When the outsides plus insides were done, the middle was filled in a way that all rain; water of all catchment places was dug to a deep well. Which was placed to the south centre. A moat of 50 feet deep was built around the outside to keep out invaders. Finally, when the centre platform section was finished, work started on the building of:

-Officers' base
-Soldiers' base
-Stables
-Warehouse
-Cannon Shot / Armour
-Gun Power store

These were built in archway style with red brick, which came from the U.K.

The cannons had 18 balls, gunpowder etc were first imported from Plymouth to Cork & to Bantry Harbour.

After the building of the Centre Battery and the arrival of six large guns, a group of seven soldiers were coming from Cork. As the centre battery had houses the soldiers were put there but because of the condition of it they had to build another house at the south side for the horses etc. It was burnt down on the 29th of December 1804, and they lost 24 horses, which were trapped inside. A few months later a decision was made in London to take away the force. The battery was given to a local merchantman called Iremonger and three workmen (The Murphy brothers). A year later, the batteries were no longer used but one man was employed as caretaker in 1807.