in the 1970s. The nearby Puxley Mansion was burnt by the IRA in 1920. People Notable people from the town include: Timothy Harrington (died 1910). Irish National League MP (Parnellite) and sometime Lord Mayor of Dublin. He is commemorated by a statue at the east end of the town. Standish James O'Grady (died 1928), the writer, was also born here where his father was the Church of Ireland clergyman. Castletownbere erected a shrine to O'Grady near his birthplace, the Glebe House. Dr Aidan MacCarthy (1914–1992) a prisoner of the Japanese during World War II and noted author of the book A Doctor's War. Both his daughters live in the town, one who used to run a restaurant and another who runs MacCarthy's Bar on the square (the latter featuring on the cover and in the title of the 1998 book by Pete McCarthy). Amenities Local religious congregations and buildings include the Church of the Sacred Heart (Catholic) and St Peter's Church (Church of Ireland). The Church of the Sacred Heart was built in 1912 on the site of an earlier chapel. There was a full-time Anglican clergyman in the town until shortly after the Second World War. St Peter's Church is now owned by the local community development association. The association also contributed to improvements in the community playground. Sport There is a nine-hole golf course two miles east of the town which was founded in 1989. A Gaelic Athletic Association pitch to the west of the town caters for traditional Gaelic Games and a rowing regatta is contested every August bank holiday weekend. In literature In The Commodore by Patrick O'Brian, Jack Aubrey's squadron chases the French invading squadron to an unnamed place along the coast near here. The flagship is badly damaged in the fray, so Commodore Aubrey is pleased when two Royal Navy ships appear from Bere Haven, having heard the cannon fire. After tending all the wounded ashore, a local friend of Dr Maturin assumes he is there to see his wife, staying with a relative of her first husband, where the two have a joyous reunion, ending the novel on a high note. A local place name is given in the novel as Duniry, presumably a nod to Dunboy or Dursey. The area is the setting for Daphne du Maurier's 1943 novel Hungry Hill'' named after the mountain here, the highest peak in the Caha