Happy Christmas to everyone, time to slow down and enjoy
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 23 December 2015
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,
Cork Independent, 23 December 2015
Cork Harbour Memories (Part 42)
Landmark histories at Lismore Castle
The setting for the construction of the Boyle legacy was the impressive Lismore Castle and beautiful town of Lismore. A building of national importance, the castle incorporates the framework of various building projects dating primarily to the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. The National Inventory of Architectural Inventory records that the vestiges of medieval fabric in some of the towers confirming the archaeological significance of the site. The castle forms a principal landmark feature in the centre of Lismore, the range to north overlooking the broad River Blackwater. The various battlemented towers and turrets ornament the skyline and are visible from a distance.
Historical interpretative panels around the town record that the name Dungarvan is said to have originated from an old fortification to the east of the town. St Carthage is said to have founded a monastery, a celebrated seat of learning and the head of a diocese in the vicinity. Such was the fame of the place that not less than 20 churches were founded in its vicinity. In 812AD it was plundered by the Danes, who over a period till 915, ransacked the monastery five times. In the year 1095 the town was destroyed by an accidental fire, and in 1116, 1138, and 1157 both the town and the monastery suffered from fire.
The Anglo-Normans, after landing at Waterford, marched to Dungarvan and secured it by erecting a fortress for its defence in 1185. Four years afterwards it was taken by the Irish, who put Robert de Barry, the commander, and the whole of the garrison to the sword. The fortress, however, soon afterwards was rebuilt by the Anglo-Norman garrison in the area, and for many ages continued to be the residence of the bishops of the see. In 1518 McGrath, Archbishop of Cashel and Bishop of Lismore granted the manor and other lands to Sir Walter Raleigh. In time, these with the rest of Raleigh’s lands were purchased by Sir Richard Boyle. The castle was greatly strengthened and improved by Boyle, who built three other forts in the neighbourhood. Boyle also obtained a charter of incorporation for the town in 1613, and a grant for a market and fairs. The surrounding lands within a mile and a half round the parish church were made a free borough. The charter also invested the corporation with the privilege of returning two members to the Irish parliament. At the commencement of the Confederate war in 1641, the castle was besieged by a force of 5,000 Irish under Sir Richard Belling. It was defended by the Earl’s son, Lord Broghill, who compelled them to abandon the attempt.
On the death of Richard, third Earl of Burlington, and fourth Earl of Cork, the most considerable part of that nobleman’s estates, both in England and Ireland, devolved upon his daughter, Lady Charlotte Boyle. She married in 1748, William Cavendish, fourth Duke of Devonshire, in the possession of whose descendant, the present Duke, the castle now remains. The Lismore Castle papers held in the National Library of Ireland record the mid-eighteenth century estate supported a diverse range of urban and rural communities and comprised agricultural land of variable quality, about 70 per cent of it in the valleys of the rivers Bride and Blackwater in west Waterford and east Cork. This comprised considerable holdings at Lismore and the Manors of Tallow, Lisfinny, Curraglass and Mogeely, and Conna and Knockmourne in County Waterford. The remainder lay fifty miles to the west in and around Bandon, with smaller portions of Spittal lands in the south of County Tipperary and detached portions near Cork, Youghal and Dungarvan.
The present detached multiple-bay rubble stone Gothic castle at Lismore was reconstructed in 1849, on a complex quadrangular plan about a courtyard incorporating fabric of earlier rebuilding of 1812, and the original castle, 1612. The historic gardens at Lismore Castle are divided into two very different halves. The Upper Garden is a complete example of the seventeenth century walled garden first constructed by Richard Boyle, in about 1605. The outer walls and terraces remain and the plantings have changed to match the tastes of those living within the Castle. The Lower Garden was mostly created in the nineteenth century for the 6th Duke of Devonshire, Joseph Paxton’s patron. The garden is informal with shrubs, trees and lawns. The stately Yew Avenue is where Edmund Spencer is said to have written the Faerie Queen. This avenue is much older than the garden itself, probably seventeenth century.
Nearby is the impressive Saint Carthage’s Cathedral, which traces its origins back to an enclosed early monastic settlement. The present building, however, incorporates an early seventeenth-century chancel and a late seventeenth-century nave to which the tower and spire were added in 1827 by the Pain brothers George (1793-1838) and James (1779-1877). Among the treasures of the cathedral are four memorial stones dating to the ninth century; the tomb of the McGrath family (1557) with its carved figures of Saints Gregory the Great and Catherine of Alexandria amongst others; funerary monuments of Classical and Gothic design including one (ob. 1805) signed by Thomas Rickman (1776-1841) of Liverpool; and the celebrated Currey Memorial Window (1896), a pre-Raphaelite masterpiece executed by Sir Edward Burne-Jones (1833-98).
To be continued…
Happy Christmas and happy new year to all readers of the column, many thanks for the continued support.
Captions:
824a. The impressive Lismore Castle from a mid nineteenth century drawing (source: Cork City Library)
824b. The beautiful Lismore Castle Gardens, September 2015 with members of the Irish Post Medieval and Archaeology Society (picture: Kieran McCarthy)
Cork City Council Commences Electricity Generation at Tramore Valley Park, Cork
Cork City Council, through its normal operations, buildings, transport etc consumes approximately 30 million units of energy per annum of electricity, fuel, gas, etc. As part of the National Climate Change policy, Cork City Council, like all other public bodies, is required to reduce its energy consumption by 33% by the year 2020 which equates to 10 million units per annum.
The Kinsale Road landfill site (now Tramore Valley Park), which ceased accepting waste for landfilling in 2009, will continue to generate methane gas from the 3 million tonnes of waste deposited over the 40 year lifetime of the landfill site. This gas will now be beneficially used to generate electricity for Cork City Council and also ensure that the Council meets its EPA license obligations in regard to landfill gas treatment. The quantity of electricity being generated is adequate to supply 500 houses on an ongoing basis until 2021.
The project is a collaboration between Cork City Council, The Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, who are providing ongoing support for the sale of electricity under the REFIT scheme, and a private energy supplier, Vayu Energy. Michael O’Brien, Senior Engineer, stated:
“The electricity generation project will generate 3 million units of energy per annum that will be sold to Vayu Energy. The project, which has been funded by Cork City Council, will reduce emissions to the environment and will also substantially contribute to the Council’s 2020 energy reduction targets, as well as showcasing an innovative project in the Tramore Valley Park. It is timely that the project be commissioned in the same week as the global summit in climate change is taking place in Paris”.
Ross McConnell, Vayu Energy stated:
“We are delighted to be partnering with Cork City Council on this project. It’s an excellent example of the type of initiative that will help in meeting the Government’s targets for renewable energy. We see enormous potential for schemes such as this to transform the way electricity is produced in Ireland over the decades to come. This is important not only from an environmental sustainability viewpoint but also in terms of the country’s long-term economic competitiveness and security of energy supply”.
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 17 December 2015
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,
Cork Independent, 17 December 2015
Cork Harbour Memories (Part 41)
The Boyles: From London to Charleville
The line of Richard Boyle’s family was long. Apart from those introduced the last number of weeks, the children of his household in the decade of the 1610s and 1620s included: Geoffrey Boyle (1616-1617), Dorothy Boyle (1617-1688),Sir Lewis Boyle, 1st Viscount of Kinalmeaky (1619-1642), Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrey (1621-1679), Mary Boyle (1625-1678), Francis Boyle, 1st Viscount Shannon (1625-1699) and Margaret Boyle (1629-1637). Many of these married well, all part of their father’s quest for success and for further privilege.
Sir Lewis Boyle (1619-1642) married Elizabeth Feilding, Countess of Guildford, on 26 December 1639 at Chapel Road,Whitehall, London. He was created 1st Baron of Bandon Bridge on 28 February 1627/28, as an heir to his father. He was created 1st Viscount Boyle of Kinalmeaky, on 28 February 1627/28. He fought on the English side in the Battle of Liscarroll in North Cork on 2 September 1642. The Battle was part of the confederate wars (1641-1653). The war was fought between the native Irish Catholics and the Protestant British settlers supported by England and Scotland. The confederate Catholics formed their headquarters in the city of Kilkenny essentially making confederate Ireland an independent state.
Francis Boyle, 1st Viscount Shannon (1625-1699), married Elizabeth Killigrew, daughter of Sir Robert Killegrew on 24 October 1638 at King’s Chapel, Whitehall. He was educated at Eton College, Windsor. He fought in the Battle of Liscarroll in 1642. He was created 1st Viscount Shannon, Co. Limerick on 6 September 1660. He was Captain of the Troop of Horse between 28 July 1662 and 1685 and was invested as a Privy Counsellor of Ireland. He held the office of Governor of County Cork on 20 August 1672 and lived at Shannon Park. Carrigaline.
The national British biography records that Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrey (1621-1679), after two years of study at Trinity College, was sent, when seventeen, to travel on the Continent with his brother, Lord Kynalmeaky. On his return, he commanded a troop in the expedition against the Scotch, under the Earl of Northumberland. In 1640 he married a daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, and arrived with her at Lismore the very day hostilities began in Ireland. He fortified his father’s house. At the battle of Liscarroll he was taken prisoner, but was soon rescued. He opposed the cessation of arms in 1643, and in 1644 joined Lord Inchiquin and others in a letter to the King, praying that no peace should be concluded with the Irish. He acted under Lord Inchiquin at CastleLyons, Youghal, and elsewhere, and in 1646 took Lord Muskerry’s castle at Blarney.
After the execution of Charles I, Roger retired to his estate in Somersetshire, and was about to depart for the Continent to plot for the restoration of the Stuarts, when Oliver Cromwell called on him, showed him duplicates of his foreign correspondence, proving that his plans were known. He offered him the option of imprisonment or service under the Commonwealth. He accepted the latter, returned to Ireland, and met Cromwell near Waterford, late in 1649, with 1,500 men whom he had assembled.
Afterwards in England Roger continued to be one of Cromwell’s most trusted friends and advisers. Roger was for a time governor in Scotland, and was one of Richard Cromwell’s council. Finding the latter an incompetent ruler, he favoured the restoration of Charles II. Returning to Ireland, and working with pro Charles II forces, he seized Youghal, Clonmel, Carlow, Limerick, Drogheda, Galway, and Athlone for the King, and helped to end the rule of the Parliament in Ireland. After the Restoration he was made Earl of Orrery, Lord Justice, and President of Munster.
When he was created Earl of Orrery in 1660 he was granted lands in counties Cork, Kerry, Limerick and Kilkenny in 1666 amounting to almost 14,000 acres. In 1661 he built a mansion amongst the ancient church lands at Rathgogan in North Cork. He renamed the area Charleville, in honour of Charles II. The ancient parish church of Rathgogan had been for a long time in ruins. Samuel Lewis in his Topographical Dictionary of Ireland in 1837 denotes that the charter granted from Charles II to Roger, Earl of Orrery made the town a free borough, and the inhabitants were incorporated under the designation of the “Sovereign, Bailiffs, and Burgesses of the Borough of Charleville”. The corporation consisted of a sovereign, two bailiffs, twelve burgesses, and an indefinite number of freemen. A classical school was founded by Roger, who endowed it with £40 per annum. The charter conferred upon the corporation the privilege of returning two members to the Irish parliament, which was regularly exercised till the Act of Union, when the borough was disfranchised, and the £15,000 awarded as compensation was paid to the Earls of Shannon and Cork. Such was the importance of the Charleville that it was incorporated into the main Limerick Road and Samuel Lewis in 1837 records that a military force of two officers and 40 men were stationed there, but there was no permanent barrack. Such was the importance of securing this town in a military strategic sense, a constabulary police station had also been established in the town by Lewis’s study.
To be continued…
Happy Christmas and happy new year to all readers of the column, many thanks for the continued support.
Captions:
823a. Roger Boyle, 1621-1679 (source: Hutton Archive)
823b. Main Street, Charleville, c.1900 (source: North Cork Through Time by Kieran McCarthy & Dan Breen)
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 10 December 2015
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,
Cork Independent, 10 December 2015
Cork Harbour Memories (Part 40)
Robert Boyle – A Man of Science
Continuing on from last week to explore the legacy of Richard Boyle’s children, Catherine Boyle (1615-1691) was the seventh child of Richard Boyle and Catherine Fenton. In the 1650s her younger brother Robert Boyle (1627-1691) had a laboratory in her London house, as well as in Oxford, and they conducted science experiments together. Her personal archive of letters suggest that her influence and encouragement on her brother’s work were considerable. Robert’s contemporaries widely acknowledged Catherine’s influence on his work, but later historiographies dropped her from the record. Theirs was a lifelong intellectual partnership, where as brother and sister, supported each other’s scientific ideas. This year marks the 400th anniversary of the birth of Catherine Boyle, later Lady Ranelagh, A special commemorative plaque was unveiled at the entrance to Lismore Castle earlier this year on 27 June as part of the annual Robert Boyle Summer School.
The Encyclopedia Brittania describes Lismore Castle-born Robert Boyle as an Anglo-Irish natural philosopher and theological writer, a prominent figure of 17th-century intellectual culture. He was best known as a natural philosopher, particularly in the field of chemistry, but his scientific endeavours covered many areas including hydrostatics, physics, medicine, earth sciences, natural history, and alchemy. In his memoirs he denotes; “I look upon experimental truths as matters of great concernment to mankind”. His enormous output also comprised Christian devotional and ethical essays and theological tracts on biblical language, the limits of reason, and the role of the natural philosopher as a Christian. He subsidised many religious missions as well as the translation of the Scriptures into several languages. In 1660 he helped found the Royal Society of London.
In a biography of Boyle by Michael Hunter (2009) entitled Boyle, Between God and Science, he details that Robert was educated at Eton and arising out of his work in literature and science, in 1654 he was invited to Oxford. He took up residence at the university from c.1656 until 1668. In Oxford he was exposed to the latest developments in natural philosophy and became connected with a group of notable natural philosophers and physicians, including John Wilkins, Christoper Wren, and John Locke. These individuals, together with a few others, formed the Experimental Philosophy Club, which at times convened in Boyle’s lodgings. Much of Boyle’s best-known work dates from this period. In 1659 he and Robert Hooke, the inventor and subsequent curator of experiments for the Royal Society, pursued the creation of their famous air pump and used it to study pneumatics. Their discoveries regarding air pressure and the vacuum appeared in Boyle’s first scientific publication, New Experiments Physico-Mechanicall, Touching the Spring of the Air and Its Effects (1660).
Boyle and Hooke discovered several physical characteristics of air, including its contribution in combustion, respiration, and the transmission of sound. One of their discoveries, published in 1662, later became known as Boyle’s Law. The law describes the inversely proportional relationship between the absolute pressure and volume of a gas, if the temperature is kept constant within a closed.
In 1668 Boyle left Oxford and took up residence with his sister Catherine in her house on Pall Mall in London. There he set up an active laboratory, employed assistants, received visitors, and published at least one book nearly every year. Living in London also provided him the opportunity to participate actively in the Royal Society.
The very first Royal Society of London meeting occurred on 28 November 1660 following a lecture at Gresham College by Christopher Wren. Joined by other leading polymaths or knowledgeable people including Robert Boyle and John Wilkins, the group soon received royal approval, and from 1663 it would be known as ‘The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge’. The Royal Society’s motto ‘Nullius in verba’ is taken to mean ‘take nobody’s word for it’. It is an expression of the determination of Fellows “to withstand the domination of authority and to verify all statements by an appeal to facts determined by experiment”. The first issue of Philosophical Transactions was published in 1665 and set up the important concepts of scientific priority and peer review. It is now the oldest continuously-published science journal in the world.
Robert Boyle was a man who achieved both national and international renown during his lifetime. He was offered the presidency of the Royal Society (in 1680) and the episcopacy but declined both. Throughout his adult life, Boyle was sickly, suffering from weak eyes and hands, recurring illnesses, and one or more strokes. He died at age 64 after a short illness made worse by his grief over Catherine’s death a week earlier. He left his papers to the Royal Society and a bequest for establishing a series of lectures in defence of Christianity. These lectures, now known as the Boyle Lectures, continue to this day.
The annual Robert Boyle Summer School in Lismore is also a celebration of the life, works and legacy of Robert Boyle, the “Father of Modern Chemistry” and native of Lismore. Starting with an introduction to Boyle, his work and times and continuing over four days with talks, walks and discussion, the school is a place where scientists and non-scientists can meet and discuss ideas relating to our modern world.
To be continued…
Captions:
822a. and 822b. Portraits of Boyle by the same artist, Johann Kerseboom; the image of Boyle is the same but the setting and frame are presented differently (source: Chemical heritage Foundation)
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 3 December 2015
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,
Cork Independent, 3 December 2015
Cork Harbour Memories (Part 39)
The Boyle Family Legacy
At Richard Boyle’s monument in St Mary’s Church in Youghal, some of his sixteen children are represented in small statue form. Joan Apsley married Richard at Limerick on 6 November 1595; she was 17 and he was 28. She was one of two daughters and co-heirs of William Apsley, of Limerick, one of the council to the first Plantation President of the province of Munster. The marriage brought to her husband an estate worth £500 a year, which he continued to receive until at least 1632. Boyle was living in Mallow when his 21-year-old wife Joan died in childbirth shortly before Christmas 1599. She was buried with her still-born son in Buttevant church.
Subsequently Richard became acquainted with Catherine Fenton (1582-1629), daughter of Sir Geoffrey Fenton. Her uncle Edward was a friend of Sir Francis Drake, politician and sailor. On 25 July 1603, Sir George Carew knighted Richard Boyle at St Mary’s Abbey, Dublin. That same afternoon, Richard and Catherine Fenton were married. Catherine went on to bear her husband six sons and eight daughters. Many of the
First in the Boyle-Fenton line was Roger Boyle (1606-1615) who died quite young. Next up was Lady Alice Countess Barrymore Barry (1607-1667). In 1631 Alice married David Barry (1604-1642) and succeeded to the Barrymore estates on 10 April 1617 on the death of his grandfather. He was created Earl of Barrymore on 28 February 1628. During the 1641 rebellion, he sided with the Crown upon whom his title and lands depended. On 10 May 1642 he stormed the Castle of Ballymacpatrick (now Careysville), near Fermoy, which was held by his grand-aunt, and hanged forty of the rebel leaders in the early morning. He led a regiment at the Battle of Liscarroll in September 1642. He died two weeks later of a fever on the 29 September 1642 at his house in Castlelyons.
Sarah Boyle (1609-1633), married Sir Thomas Moore. He was the son of Garret Moore, 1st Viscount Moore of Drogheda. Garret was Privy Counsellor of Ireland in 1604 and held the office of Member of Parliament (M.P.) for Dungannon in 1613. He held the office of President of Munster in 1615. After Thomas’s death, he married Robert Digby, 1st Baron Digby of King’s County in 1620. He was invested as a Privy Counsellor in 1641.
Lettice Boyle (1610-1657) married George Goring, Lord Goring, son of George Goring, 1st Earl of Norwich. He gained the rank of Colonel in 1633 in the service of the Regiment of mixed foot and horse in the Low Countries. He held the office of Governor of Portsmouth from January 1638/39 to September 1642. He held the office of Member of Parliament for Portsmouth between 1640 and 1642. He gained the rank of Lieutenant-General in 1641.
Joan Boyle (1611-1655) married George Fitzgerald, 16th Earl of Kildare. They had three sons and six daughters. One of the sons (Robert, the eldest) and two of the daughters died young. One more of the daughters, Catherine, did not marry. One of the daughters Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald (1642 – died c. 1697/98) married Callaghan MacCarty, 3rd Earl of Clancarty, and subsequently married Sir William Davys, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland.
Richard Boyle (1612-1698), 1st Earl of Burlington, 2nd Earl of Cork was knighted at his father’s house in Youghal, by Lord Falkland, the Lord Deputy of Ireland. As Sir Richard Boyle, he then went on his travels abroad with an annual allowance of £1500. In 1639, the young Sir Richard undertook to raise, arms, and provide 100 horse to attend upon King Charles I of England in his expedition into the North of England against the Scots. For this and other occasions, his father, Lord Cork, supplied him with £5553 sterling. Sir Richard Boyle was returned as Member of Parliament for Appleby in the Parliament of 1640, and appointed a member of the Privy Council of England, but was subsequently excluded for his Royalist sympathies after the outbreak of the English Civil War. At the age of 22 he married the 21-year-old Lady Elizabeth Clifford, daughter of Henry Clifford 5th Earl of Cumberland, on 5 July 1635 in Skipton Castle. They had six children. Following the Restoration, Richard was appointed a Privy Counsellor and Lord Treasurer of Ireland on 16 November 1660.
Catherine Boyle (1614-1691) was the seventh child of Richard Boyle and Catherine Fenton. When Catherine Boyle was nine and a half years old, she moved in with the Beaumont family because she was to be wed to one of their sons, Sapcott Beaumont. When she was thirteen, Thomas Beaumont, father of Sapcott Beaumont died. This event caused the marriage arrangements between Katherine and Sapcott to dissolve. She moved back home and two years later married Arthur Jones, heir to Viscount Ranelagh at the age of 15 and she became known as Katherine Jones. In the 1650s her brother Robert Boyle had a laboratory in her London house, as well as in Oxford, and they experimented together. She was also prominent in the Hartlib Circle of correspondents. The Hartlib Circle was the correspondence network set up in Western and Central Europe by Samuel Hartlib, an intelligencer based in London, and his associates. She commissioned Robert Hooke in 1676, to modify her house to include a laboratory for her brother Robert Boyle.
To be continued…
Captions:
821a. Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Burlington and 2nd Earl of Cork by Sir Anthony Van Dyck (source: Cork City Library)
820b. Richard and Catherine Boyle depicted on their memorial in St Patrick’s Church Cathedral Dublin (source: Archive, St Patrick’s Church Cathedral)
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 26 November, Kieran’s New Book, Ring of Kerry Postcard Collection
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,
Cork Independent, 26 November 2015
Kieran’s New Book – Ring of Kerry Postcard Collection
The third of three books I have been compiling and penning this year is entitled Ring of Kerry, The Postcard Collection. Vibrancy, a wild vibrancy, is perhaps the best way to describe the Ring of Kerry. Exposed by raw elements, the landscape is windswept and awe inspiring. This book follows on from my previous work of exploring the nature of postcards in the south west region and how they helped to place–make and construct local, regional and national identity. The book explores the fascination of landscapes around the Ring of Kerry or the Grand Atlantic Tour as it was known a century ago and comprises what could be genuinely described as stunning images. Many could be printed in large sizes and hung on walls and I have no doubt many have over the decades. They are beautiful images made to entice the viewer to remember, to visit and not forget.
These postcards were the preferred souvenirs for connoisseurs of the landscape. They framed a world for people to view, consume, keep a part of, send to other people and mass produce. The mass production of such images helped advance the narrative in promoting the south west Iveragh peninsula. The communication of the message behind these postcards in the early twentieth century was important and the messages were and still are numerous and strong. They showcase extraordinary and geologically ancient but desperate spaces in an artistic narrative – our countryside, a sense of adventure, ideas of self-discovery, true, honest and valuable experiences, the 40–shades–of–green package, concepts of Irish culture and identity, and ultimately the collective memory of a country and what it stands for.
The postcards contain representations of an Ireland to draw people to the country and into the country’s regions. The images are collective representations and visual metaphors of the power of landscape in the culture of the time they were produced – they all spin a political narrative of sorts on the selection of memories, stories, legends and their meanings, the role of natural and built landscape in shaping the Irish psyche – what should be remembered more so than forgotten, what images are deemed important in the construction of local and national belonging in the early twentieth century. The postcards are all romantic and poetic odes to landscape – by photographers and artists – their awe and respect can be viewed as well as their devotion to nature and the quest for a vision of the idyllic.
Many of the images within this book are also of familiar landscapes, landscapes that many Irish people learned about in school or on holidays (like my own situation!) whilst bottled up in a car travelling from one set piece to another. They are Ireland’s public and private playgrounds of sorts – places to get lost in – to feel dwarfed by the mountains, the lakes and the coastline. The images are exaggerated with the addition of reflections and shadows and oil painting type colours – colours that heighten and aid in the construction of place. Even a single image can make a huge impression. Memorials and ruins are shown with ivy and crumbling stone – to show the contribution of nostalgia, how it creeps into a sense of place to ignite a present and to question a future.
Accumulating a large cross section of these early twentieth century images together provides a wider snap shot of perspectives and perceptions of landscape, the stories within the landscape and Irish identity, and how they interweave. The postcards are framed narratives – perceived as symbolising Irish landscapes, identity within those landscapes, that the peaks, troughs, rivers, lakes, cottages symbolise an idyll. The Ring of Kerry is all about travel. There are tourist reports of visits to Killarney since the late eighteenth century, accounts of Grand Tours of Kerry in the nineteenth century, and narratives about Irish Free State tourism products in the county in the twentieth century. All reflect a pilgrimage of the self – of silent conversations with yourself and nature and your place in the world – chasing reflections of the world in south Kerry’s crystalline lakes or bending to the might of the landscape on its coastal roads, seeking the Atlantic view point.
Now scattered to the four corners of the virtual eBay world and institutions like Kerry County Libraries and postcard fairs and shops, these postcards in their day influenced the modern photographic and text based narrative in marketing the Ring of Kerry today. Of course not every place was photographed and the editing of this book has also been difficult in choosing which postcards to include. The book is divided into four sections, Kenmare and its surroundings, Killarney and its tourism heart, the lake district, and a spin around the c.180km Ring of Kerry. Scattered across the publication as well, I have put in my own artistic responses to the landscape in the form of poems. The postcards and landscapes opened up further creativity in my own writing and new ways to research, decode and describe the Irish countryside. The postcards offer much to the student of cultural landscapes and how our heritage is constructed and ultimately how it can be appreciated, understood, interpreted, re–interpreted, negotiated, protected and advanced – and above all cherished.
Ring of Kerry, The Postcard Collection by Kieran McCarthy is published by Amberley Press and is available in all good bookshops.
Captions:
820a. Front cover of Ring of Kerry, The Postcard Collection by Kieran McCarthy
820b. Postcard of the Gap of Dunloe, c.1900
Kieran’s Question to the City Manager/ CE, Cork City Council Meeting, 23 November 2015
To ask the CE about the future of the Camden Palace Arts building. Since the building is sold, what does the future hold for the Arts practices within the building? (Cllr Kieran McCarthy).
Cork City Council Budget meeting, 16 November 2015
Cork City Council Budget meeting, 16 November 2015
Comments by Cllr Kieran McCarthy
Introduction:
Can I compliment the CE on producing a balanced budget for next year. It is a very difficult task to achieve what you and your team have compiled and proposed here.
I have no doubt there was alot of questioning and debating the way forward. It seems like you have had quite a baptism of fire in the various ways this Council moves forward – development plan, boundary extension, funding issues – they are all about vast changes of mindset in terms of delivering local government for Cork.
CE, you speak about a “considered and reasonable balance” between the desirability of maintaining services and our ability to fund them, yes I agree there has been consideration and balance on your behalf – on the behalf of the city and the people we represent, the budget papers over huge cracks in the future but not by your hand. Your hand has revealed the vast number of difficulties in getting funding in place for the raft of Council services.
It seems like the Council is just hanging in there, if the Council was a tree, it is bent over in the wind. It is strong but needs supports to stabilise it. Its tree has been stripped bare by the economic storm that swept through here. The fruits of our revenue reserve are almost exhausted. The branches of our property tax don’t extend far enough to create a strong tree capable of bearing anywhere near how the Council used to be funded by government.
We seem to be caught in the same season for four years – a barren place where the City will need further financial help as the years go on – we are dependent on the rates of the 6,500 rate payers, development charges and so on. Everyone the Council engages with is calling out for help to move development and I think in fairness you and your team have accommodating the listening process as least to people’s concerns.
Different perspectives and listening:
I agree with your perspectives about not increasing the rates base and to sustain it at its current levels. Business activity has returned to the city but only just.
I think the ring fencing of the one per cent of the rates fund for economic development has brought increase entrepreneurial activity in the city. I think it is incumbent on us a city to maximize as much as possible levels of enterprise – that we are a city of start-ups and indigenous industry – I see our local enterprise office provided training to 190 owners/ managers in areas such as Finance, Cloud computing, and start your own business. Despite our great local enterprise office and their work, stronger signals need to be sent out highlighting the significant role of enterprise and SME’s in our city.
On the matter of car-parking, I note the drop in income. It is incumbent on us to market the two car-parks, Paul Street and Kyrl’s Quay. I think both need decent marketing plans to get more people to use them – perhaps use this time of loss to incentivise their use – I think the city centre strategy needs to move now to get more people into the city centre
I note as well the need to retain our investment into the Council’s vibrant Arts, Cultural and Festivals. This city earns millions of euros in the roll-out of the 24 festivals – our bars, restaurants, shops and hotels all benefit – and we need to keep investing in our tourism projects like Elizabeth Fort and keep pushing the National Diaspora project, which is a must for the city.
The ring-fencing of money for community projects is also great – so much good work goes on in our communities – and the Council direct sometimes we take for granted how much money is invested in making sure a men’s club is looked after, or a community association or a sports club – and all look not for big money generally but small monies to keep their operation in order.
These latter aspects and more are all positive items, which the Council must continue to invest in. There are alot of very positive threads in building and bridging communities in this budget document.
I don’t welcome the ongoing financial problems and emailing the people I represent noting I can’t help you in terms of social housing or roads or footpath maintenance. However, going forward, the city keeps evolving and further financial means will have to be secured.
Thanks Lord Mayor.
Ends.
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 19 November 2015
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,
Cork Independent, 19 November 2015
Cork Harbour Memories (Part 38)
A Defender of Church and Town
The vast estates of the Fitzgeralds, the Earl of Desmond dynasty (see last week), were confiscated in the reign of Elizabeth I, and granted to various English settlers (called planters or undertakers). The names of the new settlers in Ireland who obtained grants of the Desmond estates in Cork and Waterford, were Sir Walter Raleigh, Arthur Robins, Fane Beecher, Hugh Worth, Arthur Hyde, Sir Warham St. Leger, Hugh Cuffe, Sir Thomas Norris, Sir Arthur Hyde, Thomas Say, Sir Richard Beacon and (the poet) Edmond Spencer.
Walter Raleigh (c.1554-1618) had taken part in the suppression of the Desmond rebellion in 1579 and profited from the subsequent distribution of land. He received 40,000 acres or 162 km2 which included the important towns of Youghal and Lismore. This allowed him to become one of the principal landowners in Munster, but nevertheless had only some degree of success in convincing English tenants to settle on his estates. Youghal was the home of Sir Walter Raleigh for brief periods during the seventeen years in which he held land in Ireland. The decade of the 1590s coincided with difficulties on Raleigh’s Irish plantations at a time when his own fortunes were in decline. He sold his Irish estates in 1602 to Richard Boyle, thus ending his involvement with the plantation of Munster.
Richard Boyle (1566-1643) is closely associated with the history of Youghal, purchasing the town as part of his acquisition of the Munster estate of Sir Walter Raleigh. On the rich array of heritage information panels in Youghal, the story of Richard Boyle’s influence is related. Boyle occupied the office of Sheriff from 1625 to 1626. He had a substantial residence, known today as The College, close to St. Mary’s Collegiate Church. Boyle recognised the suitability of Youghal area for the production of pig iron, for which there was great demand in England. A plentiful supply of timber for charcoal, rich iron ore deposits, water power and a great port area all combined to generate an active iron industry in the early seventeenth century. The yew woods from which Youghal derived its name (Irish: Eochaill) were used to supply the ironworks of Richard Boyle.
Amongst the other legacies of Boyle’s influence in Youghal are the Almshouses, which he endowed to house six old soldiers, who were to receive a pension of £5 per annum. This service was later broadened to include widows. The six houses were constructed in 1610 and continued in use in their original form until the mid-nineteenth century, when some alterations took place. They are now owned by Youghal Urban District Council and still serve a similar generous purpose.
In 1606 Richard Boyle paid for the south transept of St Mary’s Church to be rebuilt, as a mortuary chapel for his family. Boyle’s journals record that the south-transept was the place ‘wherein the townsmen in time of rebellion kept their cows’. In subsequent years he spent thousands of pounds on the restoration of the church, including rebuilding the chancel. Historian Dr Clodagh Tait in an article in the Royal Irish Academy has an article entitled Colonising memory: manipulations of death, burial and commemoration in the career of Richard Boyle, first earl of Cork. Dr Tait describes the Earl of Cork’s “energetic tomb-building”, which cost him well over £1000, was a means of demonstrating that “he had arrived, and had created a fortune and a dynasty”. Boyle symbolically presented himself as the “spiritual successor of Youghal’s ancient inhabitants”, and as the “defender of the town and its church”. Viewing the relaxed sculpture on his tomb of a smiling Boyle lying on his side with his family around him shows how he did manipulate the meanings around how he was to be commemorated in history.
Architect Alexander Hillis of London erected Boyle’s tomb in the south transept in 1620. The monument, heavily influenced by renaissance architecture, was the height of fashion when it was built. The work is still surrounded by its original protective wrought-iron railings displaying further pieces of family heraldry. The swords shown at the bottom are a symbol of Boyle’s power, justice and the armour of God. It shows Boyle himself reclining, with his first and second wives, Joan Apsley and Katherine Fenton respectively, to either side, his mother Joan Naylor over, and a few of 16 children, kneeling in a row in front of him. His first wife died in childbirth and she is represented with a baby at her feet. The skulls portray someone already dead at the time the monument was carved.
Boyle himself died in 1643 and was buried here in his monument with his mother – but not his wives. Incidentally, a further elaborate monument by Boyle can be found in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin. It was erected to Katherine Fenton, his second wife (died 1630) and finished in 1632. Boyle’s second wife Catherine Fenton bore him fifteen children before she expired at the age of 42. Of the eight daughters, seven were married to noblemen. Of the seven sons, four were ennobled in the lifetime of their father. The most notable of this extensive offspring was Robert Boyle, the natural philosopher and author or Boyle’s Law.
To be continued…
Captions:
819a. Richard Boyle’s tomb, St Mary’s Church, Youghal (pictures: Kieran McCarthy)
819b. Detail of Richard’s face, Richard Boyle’s tomb, St Mary’s Church, Youghal
819c. Richard’s children in sculpture, Richard Boyle’s tomb, St Mary’s Church, Youghal
