It’s a lovely part of town.

But if you’re new to Cork you might not realise that one city neighbourhood has an especially creepy past, although its name could be a dead giveaway.

In a new book written by Lord Mayor of Cork Cllr Kieran McCarthy, the history of Gallow’s Green, the area adjacent to St Finbarr’s West Church on the intersection of Gould Street and Green Street is explained in murky detail.

“It was here that more malicious criminals, such as murderers and anti-Crown supporters, were hanged next to one of the city’s largest southern-approach roads.” writes Cllr Mc Carthy in Cork: A Potted History.

“Earliest records are from the mid-seventeenth century and the last number of executions were just before the Irish Great Famine. It was at that point that acts of hanging were moved to outside the entrances of the city’s city and county gaols, respectively.”

One of the earliest recorded executions took place at the gallows in 1644 when Lady Roche Viscountess Fermoy refused to renounce her religion. She was deemed one of the first high-profile Catholics to be hanged. In 1798, Cork men involved in the United Irishmen were also hanged en mass at Gallows Green.

‘In one area all the long bones were stacked neatly together’

“Gallows Green was still a focal point of public gathering, especially in 1843 for Fr Mathew’s temperance campaign and his public orations. The site though was subsumed into new housing developments in the later nineteenth century, with just the memory of the gallows surviving,” adds Cllr McCarthy.

“However, the memory of Gallows Green and the location where all the bodies were placed came to surface thirty years ago.

“In July 1990, human remains were uncovered in the back garden of a private residence in Greenmount, Cork City. The original ground level of the garden was almost 2 metres higher than the ground level of the house. It was while reducing the level of the garden that bones were discovered.

“At least fifteen individuals were recovered from the area. None of the skeletons were complete and many of the bones were broken. In one area all the long bones were stacked neatly together, with the skulls lying close by.”

Cork: A Potted History by Kieran McCarthy will be published by Amberley Publishing this month. The book takes the reader on a walking trail of fifty sites, taking a line from the city’s famous lake, The Lough, across the former medieval core and ending in the historic north suburbs of Blackpool.