In the 1860s there were 875 inhabitants in Ballincollig, with a large number of British soldiers with their families living in the town. With the creation and blossoming of the Ballincollig Gunpowder Mills came a need for housing and community services. Up to 1808, catholic families living in Ballincollig had to travel to Clash cross in Carriganarra, Ballinora or Kilnaglory to attend mass.

Inheritance, Heritage and Memory in the Lee Valley is my new book. It is based on the series of articles that featured in the Cork Independent newspaper from October 2007 to June 2009. It documents my explorations in the parishes of Aghabullogue, Inniscarra and Ovens on the northern valleyside on Inniscarra Reservoir, part of the course of the River Lee.

In the year 1888, the Ballincollig Gunpowder Mills were bought by John Briscoe and soon after came under the control of Curtis's and Harvey. The mills closed in 1903 due to the advent of the production of dynamite. The Curtis and Harvey's mills were then absorbed into Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI). The site was bought by Cork County Council in 1974, which developed it into a public park.

A newspaper article in the Cork Constitution in 1856 gives a very important insight into the stages of gunpowder production at Ballincollig Gunpowder Mills. Once refined etc, the three ingredients of gunpowder – sulphur, saltpetre and charcoal were then removed to the mixing house. The journalist in 1856 could not ascertain the precise proportions or parts of the final mix. He noted that the process was religiously kept and never divulged to strangers. However, the usual proportions given by chemists were 75 of saltpetre, 15 of charcoal and 10 parts of sulphur.

When conflict broke out in 1854 with the Crimean War, followed by rebellions in India, a succession of ensuing colonial conflicts and culminating in the Boer War of 1899 – 1902, Ballincollig Gunpowder Mills was an active and productive centre. It thrived because of war within and through the expansion of the British empire. It also flourished due to the business strategies and network of business partnerships the owners, the Tobins engaged with within the empire.

In the early nineteenth century, Ballincollig was one of three principal Royal Gunpowder Mills in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The other mills were at Waltham Abbey in Essex and Faversham in Kent. However, the mills at Ballincollig were constructed much later (1794) than the latter and hence the County Cork site was based on existing plans and technologies that had developed over many centuries.

From the ridges at Scornagh, just west of Ballincollig, the view to the Inniscarra side of the Lee Valley is amazing. On the ordnance survey map of Scornagh, Bronze Age fulacht fia or cooking sites are shown. So I'm not the first to 'feast' on the view here; Prehistoric residents set up camp here and munched their boiled meat. But for me at this point I felt that I was giving one of my goodbyes to the rural Lee valley as I descended and headed into a busy Ballincollig.

There are many meanings that one can gleam from churches such as St John the Baptist – in particular there are meanings within elements such as its architecture and memorials. I also read in Fr James Tobin's history of Ovens (1985), that when the Church was built there was very little seating accommodation. Seats were later made by Con Sheehan of Ovens, at the cost of £1 each.

St John the Baptist in Ovens is not the first church that I have wandered up during the off peak mid-afternoon silence in such buildings. I tend to search for clues, memories, looking for plaques and searching for stained glass windows of St Finbarre and his memory in the River Lee valley's churches. I seem to continue to train my eye in looking for the smaller details of the human experience in the Irish landscape.

In Ovens, the sign to Eire Og reminds one of the presence of the GAA and its profound cultural and social legacy in the Irish landscape. Eire Og was founded in 1928. It won the Cork County Senior Hurling Championship that year and reached the County Final again in 1930. Football was also played in Ovens by Bridevalley, the club which existed before Eire Og was formed and continued to be played at intermediate level for some years after.