Campile

History

Archaeological evidence of ancient settlement in the area include several burnt mounds and ringforts in the neighbouring townlands of Ballyvelig, Tinnock, and Dunbrody. Approximately 1 km southwest of Campile is the 12th century Dunbrody Abbey, and the 17th century bawn of the (incomplete) Dunbrody Castle. In 1798, during the United Irishmen Rebellion, a rebel camp was located on nearby Slieve Coillte hill. During World War II, in which Ireland remained officially neutral, the German Luftwaffe bombed Campile. The bombing took place on 26 August 1940. The bombs were dropped by a lone German bomber that appeared over Campile around lunch time. A second aircraft dropped a number of bombs at nearby Ambrosetown. The first bomb dropped at Campile failed to detonate. Local man Teddy Drought, who was fifteen years old and worked in Shelburne Co-op at the time of the bombing, described witnessing the aircraft approach and the first bomb being dropped while sat on a wall with a friend. In an interview with RTÉ in 1990, Drought recalled the following scene: "A bomb come down-we didn't know at the time it was a bomb-came down through the roof and down on the ground alongside the two of us (...) it busted, it didn't explode". The bomb that exploded and killed the three women landed on the restaurant section of the Co-op where the women had been working. Despite this, a commonly given explanation for the bombing is that the German pilot had gotten lost and mistook Ireland's South-East for Wales.