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Macroom (/məˈkruːm/; Irish: Maigh Chromtha) is a market town in County Cork, Ireland, located in the valley of the River Sullane, halfway between Cork city and Killarney. Its Irish language name may translate as "meeting place of followers of the god Crom" or "crooked oak",[1] the latter a reference to a large oak tree that apparently grew in the town-square during the reign of King John.[2] Its population has grown and receded over the centuries as it went through periods of war, famine and workhouses, forced emigration and intermittent prosperity. The 2011 census gave an urban population of 3,879 people,[3] while the 2016 census recorded 3,765 people.
Bridge over the river Sullane, viewed from Masseytown
Macroom began as a meeting place for the druids of Munster. It is first mentioned is in 6th-century records, and the immediate area hosted a major battle c. 987 involving the Irish king Brian Boru. During the middle ages, the town was invaded by a succession of warring clans, including the Murcheatach Uí Briain and Richard de Cogan families. In the early modern period the MacCarthy's took control and later the area found prosperity via milling. The MacCarthys built a series of tower houses, some of which survive.[4] The family lost influence during the Williamite wars of the 1690s, after which authority over the town castle waxed and waned between the MacCarthys and a number of English families. In the 17th century, Macroom became a central point of conflict in the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland.

The population fell in the 1840s during the Great Famine. Evidence can be found in the former workhouse, now the district hospital at the north side of New Street, and the mass graveyard to the west, near Clondrohid. During the late 18th and early 19th century, a number of Anglo-Irish families, and a branch of the Massey family, settled in the area. Many of their estate houses were burned in the period around the Irish War of Independence as the town was caught the turmoil of IRA activity.

From 1976 to 1982, Macroom hosted the Mountain Dew Rock festival, with lineups that included Rory Gallagher, Thin Lizzy and Van Morrison. Today the town is an economic hub for the mid west Cork region, and the location of a Danone milk processing factory, which dries and cans infant formula from milk supplied by local dairy farmers. Until the 1950s, New Street was the town's economic hub, and contained many small retail outlets.

The area around Macroom contains a number of Stone Age megaliths. This standing stone is part of a 3500-year-old complex in Knocknakilla between Macroom and Millstreet
Evidence of pre-history human activity in the Macroom area survives in the many Iron Age burial monuments; the area is unusually rich with standing stones, dolmens and stone circles.[5] Later, in the early dark ages, Macroom seems to have been a centre for Bardic conventions and a base for the Druids of Munster.[6] The first historical reference to Macroom dates from the 6th century, when the townland was known as Achad Dorbchon and held within the kingdom of Muscraighe Mitine.

The Eóganachta were then the dominant clan of Munster and held kingdoms from Muscraighe Mitine to the midlands town of Birr. At some point, they were replaced by the Uí Floinn, who commissioned a castle in Macroom so as to establish Raithleann as capital of Muskerry.

Muscraighe Mitine underwent three invasions during the 13th century. The Murcheatach Uí Briain and Richard de Cogan arrived in 1201 and 1207 respectively; the MacCarthys became the dominant and most powerful family and held Macroom Castle until the mid-17th century.[8] From the 14th century, Macroom became the capital of the Barony of Muskerry and the centre for trade, burial and religious worship. It was one of the earliest Irish milling centres, and from the end of the 16th century the town grew from a village to a functionally diverse urban centre. The locality grew outwards from the castle. The MacCarthys established the town as a centre for markets and fairs, and in 1620 a market house was built to the east of and facing the castle. The family introduced a plantation scheme which aimed to attract new agriculture and industrial techniques and methods to the area.

Modern period
By the mid-17th century English families owned approximately one-third of the town in value terms. The Protestant families introduced butter making, a labour-intensive industry. A 1750 tenement list details 134 buildings and 300 families, with a population ratio of 6 to 1 between Catholic and Protestants. The town had developed from a locality of mud cabins in the early 1660s to a linear shaped urban settlement of mainly thatched cabins, which were later replaced by solid cottages following a campaign by the Irish Land and Labour Association (ILLA). Macroom Castle was for a period controlled by Admiral Sir William Penn, a British Admiral