FERMOY, a market town in the east riding of Co. Cork, Ireland, in the north-east parliamentary division, 21 m. by road N.E. of Cork, and 14 m. E. of Mallow by a branch of the Great Southern & Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 6126. It is situated on the river Blackwater, which divides the town into two parts, the larger of which is on the southern bank, and there the trade of the town, which is chiefly in flour and agricultural produce, is mainly carried on. The town has several good streets and some noteworthy buildings. Of the latter, the most prominent are the military barracks on the north bank of the river, the Protestant church, the Roman Catholic cathedral and St Colman’s Roman Catholic college. Fermoy rose to importance only at the beginning of the 19th century, owing entirely to the devotion of John Anderson, a citizen, on becoming landlord. The town is a centre for salmon and trout fishing on the Blackwater and its tributary the Funshion. The neighbouring scenery is attractive, especially in the Glen of Araglin, once famed for its ironworks.
FERN (from O. Eng. fearn, a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Dutch varen, and Ger. Farn; the Indo-European root, seen in the Sanskrit parna, a feather, shows the primary meaning; cf. Gr. πτερόν, feather, πτερίς, fern), a name often used to denote the whole botanical class of Pteridophytes, including both the true ferns, Filicales, by far the largest group of this class in the existing flora, and the fern-like plants, Equisetales, Sphenophyllales, Lycopodiales (see [Pteridophyta]).
FERNANDEZ, ALVARO, one of the leading Portuguese explorers of the earlier 15th century, the age of Henry the Navigator. He was brought up (as a page or esquire) in the household of Prince Henry, and while still “young and audacious” took an important part in the discovery of “Guinea.” He was a nephew of João Gonçalvez Zarco, who had rediscovered the Madeira group in Henry’s service (1418-1420), and had become part-governor of Madeira and commander of Funchal; when the great expedition of 1445 sailed for West Africa he was entrusted by his uncle with a specially fine caravel, under particular injunctions to devote himself to discovery, the most cherished object of his princely master, so constantly thwarted. Fernandez, as a pioneer, outstripped all other servants of the prince at this time. After visiting the mouth of the Senegal, rounding Cape Verde, and landing in Goree (?), he pushed on to the “Cape of Masts” (Cabo dos Matos, or Mastos, so called from its tall spindle-palms), probably between Cape Verde and the Gambia, the most southerly point till then attained. Next year (1446) he returned, and coasted on much farther, to a bay one hundred and ten leagues “south” (i.e. S.S.E.) of Cape Verde, perhaps in the neighbourhood of Konakry and the Los Islands, and but little short of Sierra Leone. This record was not broken till 1461, when Sierra Leone was sighted and named. A wound, received from a poisoned arrow in an encounter with natives, now compelled Fernandez to return to Portugal, where he was received with distinguished honour and reward by Prince Henry and the regent of the kingdom, Henry’s brother Pedro.
See Gomes Eannes de Azurara, Chronica de ... Guiné, chs. lxxv., lxxxvii.; João de Barros, Asia, Decade I., bk. i. chs. xiii., xiv.
FERNANDEZ, DIEGO, a Spanish adventurer and historian of the 16th century. Born at Palencia, he was educated for the church, but about 1545 he embarked for Peru, where he served in the royal army under Alonzo de Alvarado. Andres Hurtado de Mendoza, marquess of Cañeté, who became viceroy of Peru in 1655, bestowed on Fernandez the office of chronicler of Peru; and in this capacity he wrote a narrative of the insurrection of Francisco Hernandez Giron, of the rebellion of Gonzalo Pizarro, and of the administration of Pedro de la Gasca. The whole work, under the title Primera y segunda parte de la Historia del Piru, was published at Seville in 1571 and was dedicated to King Philip II. It is written in a clear and intelligible style, and with more art than is usual in the compositions of the time. It gives copious details, and, as he had access to the correspondence and official documents of the Spanish leaders, it is, although necessarily possessing bias, the fullest and most authentic record existing of the events it relates.
A notice of the work will be found in W.H. Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Peru (new ed., London, 1902).