Ballintemple

Ballintemple () is a suburb of Cork city, Ireland. The village is situated on the east side of the city with its limits extending to the River Lee and the village of Blackrock further to the east. Originally, Ballintemple was a separate village but today it has been enclosed by the city.

==History== thumb|upright|Grave marker in Temple Hill burial ground Temple Hill, Churchyard Lane, and Ballintemple itself derive their names from an ecclesiastical and burial site at the top of Temple Hill. While some historical texts suggest that this graveyard was sited at an early medieval church of the Knights Templar, this is not supported by other texts, and modern historians assert that this association is incorrect. The name may denote land belonging to the church as opposed to the site of a church building. Whatever the case, while the graveyard remains, no archaeological evidence of an adjoining church has been subject to modern survey. The graveyard itself has been surveyed, and while it may have been used in the early mediaeval period, the earliest recorded burial event was that of the entrails of Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Grafton who was killed in the 1690 Siege of Cork and whose intestines were removed and buried here to preserve the body prior to transport back to England. The earliest remaining extant burial markers (with discernable dates) are dated to the early 18th century. The antiquary and folklorist Thomas Crofton Croker surveyed the graveyard in the early 19th century. He recorded a folksong relating to the graveyard as well as documenting a marker for an 18th-century burial of a Lieutenant Henry Richard Temple who died with his young wife during a journey from the Caribbean (via Ireland) to England. During one such survey in the early 1800s, Croker was chased by locals who mistook his survey for grave robbery. The graveyard is accessible but closed to new burials (save to a few families with existing burial rights).