From Fermoy the N72 runs west, passing Ballyhooly Castle, to Mallow, an important sugar manufacturing center situated in the wooded valley of the Blackwater, a river well stocked with fish. In addition to good fishing the town has a golf course (18 holes) and a racecourse, and there is also hunting in the area. In the 18th and 19th C. Mallow was
a much frequented spa, and still preserves something of the atmosphere of those days. It has a number of notable buildings - the Court House, the Market House, the picturesque half-timbered Clock House, some good 18th century dwelling houses and a few relics of its heyday as a fashionable spa, the old Spa House, the racecourse and the three gushing Springs in Fermoy Road. At the southeast end of the town are the ruins of Mallow Castle (16th C.: National Monument), with a small museum. Nearby are the remains of an earlier castle.