Charleville was founded in 1661 by
Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery. Roger Boyle had been a supporter of
Oliver Cromwell in the
English Civil War. When
King Charles II was restored in 1660, he had to prove his loyalty to the crown. He did this by naming Charleville after the English king. The villages of Brohill and Rathgoggin, who in their former guise preceded the formation of the town of Charleville in the area, fell under the rule of the following political entities: the
Eoghanachta of southern Munster, at some point by the Hiberno-Norman Lordships of Ireland 1169–1541 (although this rule was nominal rather than actual), and subsequently by the
Kingdom of Desmond 1118 – 1596. The lands of Broghill and Rathgogan were purchased by Roger's father
Richard Boyle as a part of the
Plantation of Munster and Roger subsequently established his residency there after the founding of Charleville. During the time of the
Penal Laws, practising the
Catholic faith was illegal. As a result, the parish of Charleville was amalgamated with the parishes
Bruree and Colmanswell, both in the
Diocese of Limerick. In 1704, Fr. Daniel Mac Namara of Bruree was registered as the Catholic priest for this very large pastoral area. The fact that Catholics had to attend Mass secretly meant that the old chapel in Holy Cross cemetery was abandoned. The remains of this church – now overgrown with ivy – are still to be seen in the centre of the graveyard. Indeed, like so many other pre-1700 churches, the old church of Holy Cross literally became part of the surrounding graveyard, in that several gravestones, both marked and unmarked, are to be found within the building itself. Upon one such gravestone is a Latin
epitaph to none other than
Seán Clárach Mac Domhnaill (1691–1754), who was, in his time, the Chief Poet of Munster, as well as a resident of Charleville.
William Alcock Tully, commissioner of
Crown lands in the
Kennedy and Warrego pastoral districts and 2nd
Surveyor General of Queensland spent his formative years here. During this time, he surveyed the townsite of
Charleville, Queensland which he named after Charleville, County Cork. ==Geography==