Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 16 May 2024

Cork History, Kieran's Council Work, Lord Mayor's Work

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 16 May 2024

Making an Irish Free State City – Daniel Corkery’s The Hidden Ireland

In recent weeks a conference on the life and work of Cork-born writer Daniel Corkery took place. His book, The Hidden Ireland, which was published one hundred years ago in 1924 at its heart was about rejuvenating a discussion on national identity and the place of the Irish language. Daniel was a frequent presenter giving public talks on aspect of the Irish language in Cork in the 1920s. He certainly added to the mix of debates on the culture of the emerging Irish Free State.

A great book by Patrick Maume, entitled Life that is Exile: Daniel Corkery and the Search for Irish Ireland (1993) outlines Daniel’s life. Daniel was born in Cork on 14 February 1878 and was one of five children. His father, William Corkery, represented the fifth generation of Corkery carpenters in Cork. Daniel’s early years were spent at the Presentation Brothers’ South Monastery where he became a scholarship and became a monitor. He was a senior pupil helping to supervise classes as an apprentice teacher. Daniel also suffered from a bone deformity, which left one leg shorter than the other and a stutter, which he cured by self-discipline.

Daniel’s cultural nationalism was deeply influenced by the works of John Ruskin (1819-1900) and Robert Blatchford (1851-1943). John Ruskin was one of the greatest figures of the Victorian age, poet, artist, critic, social revolutionary and conservationist. It was Robert Blatchford’s journalistic experience of working-class life that turned Blatchford into a socialist.

Daniel became a social radical and was always more interested in cultural revival, consistently noting that social regeneration would follow. It was at this point that Corkery moved from a supporter of socialism and joined the Gaelic League in 1901. His view that the Irish language, which he associated with days of poverty and ignorance, began to change.  Daniel began to teach himself Irish initially to fulfil his romantic antiquarianism side and also discovered that the language survived in ways that he did not suspect.

By 1908, Daniel was now a fully-fledged national teacher. At this time, the Gaelic League struggled to survive with members dropping out. Daniel also feared that the League would transform into an active political mass movement and further financial resources would be drained. Hence Daniel, like many other members of the Gaelic League, gave up his spare time to teach classes two evenings a week without pay while knowing almost as little Irish. In 1907 he taught candidates for the first part of the five stage Fleming Companionship in learning the Irish Language. He was studying for the second stage and begun reading many books in Irish.

In the autumn of 1913 Daniel transferred to St Patrick’s National School in Montenotte. He taught the boys drawing, training them to use their eyes by getting them to describe what they had seen on the way to school. He organised a school hurling club, buying red and green jerseys. He taught the boys Irish after school hours. One of his pupils, Michael O’Donovan, who became the writer Frank O’Connor, saw him as a substitute father. Another, Seamus Murphy, the future Cork sculptor, got some sheets of paper and followed Corkery when he went off sketching while the boys played hurling. Daniel Corkery took an interest in him and later helped to get him into the school the Cork School of Art.

Patrick Maume’s book highlights that A Munster Twilight was Daniel’s first collection of short stories. The book was well received on its appearance in December 1916 because of its quiet, evocative style and its reverent handling of patriotic and religious themes. The publication of the Threshold of Quiet in 1917 confirmed his reputation amongst his literary peers.

Before the Easter rising Daniel supported the Volunteers, but he saw no alternative to Sinn Féin’s political leadership and was surprised with many others with the advent of the Easter 1916 rising. After the rising the Gaelic League became a focus for separatist activity; language classes were full, and many league activists became prominent in Sinn Féin. At first Daniel feared the rise of Sinn Féin might swamp the cultural movement. His friend Terence MacSwiney urged him to write only in Irish. Daniel continued to write his stories in English, since he could not handle Irish idiom well enough to write them in Irish. He did begin writing occasional articles in Irish.

Daniel related his concerns to the new situation by the belief that the Gaelic League had prepared the way for Sinn Féin; his stories of the period present the War of Independence as a struggle to recover the Gaelic tradition. His beliefs were further reinforced by the presence of his friends and fellow Gaelic Leaguers such as Tomás MacCurtain and Terence MacSwiney in Sinn Féin and the IRA. Their deaths Tomás shot in his home by a death squad, Terence dying on hunger strike in Brixton Prison affected Daniel deeply.

In 1918 Daniel resigned his teaching post after being passed over for the headmastership because of his political views. He became a travelling instructor in Irish and Woodwork for the Cork County Technical Instruction Committee. His literary reputation led to the offer of a Sinn Féin candidacy in the 1918 General Election. Daniel felt that he was not suited to political life and he declined the nomination.

During the War of Independence Daniel was disqualified from fighting by his lameness. He remained in Cork writing to the papers in support of the Republicans and continuing to work as a travelling teacher while he wrote The Hidden Ireland. The book, written in 1924, laments the destruction of Gaelic civilisation, where the poet had a recognised place in society.

Kieran’s Upcoming Walking Tour:

Saturday, 18 May, Ballinlough – Standing Stones, Quarries and Suburban Growth; meet at Ballintemple Graveyard, Temple Hill, 11am (free, two hours, no booking required).

Caption:

1253a. Portrait of Daniel Corkery, c.1920 (picture: Cork City Library).

Lord Mayor Cllr McCarthy Goes Poster Free, 11 May 2024

Climate Action, Cork City Events, Improve Your Life, Kieran's Council Work, Landscapes, Lord Mayor's Work, S.E. Ward Local History, Ward Events

Ahead of the upcoming Local Elections on 7 June Lord Mayor of Cork Cllr Kieran McCarthy has gone poster free on poles across the south east local electoral area. Kieran noted; “I have been particularly inspired by the work of Douglas Tidy Towns who have advocated the non-postering of posters in Douglas Village. I also have a very keen and active interest and participation in promoting the environment and heritage in the city”. 

“To those asking about if I am still running because they don’t see my poster – As an independent candidate I am very much in the race in this local election in the south east local electoral area of Cork City – I have been canvassing for several weeks at this moment in time. I won’t get to each of the over 15,000 houses in the electoral area, but certainly and against the backdrop of a very busy Mayoralty post, I am daily trying to knock on doors in the various districts of my local electoral area. My manifesto is online at www.kieranmccarthy.ie, which champions such aspects such as public parks, environmental programmes, city centre and village regeneration, and the curation of personal community projects such as my historical walking tours, concluded Kieran”.

Read my manifesto here: 2. Kieran’s Manifesto, Local Elections 2024 | Lord Mayor of Cork Cllr. Kieran McCarthy

Kieran continues his suburban historical walking tour series next Saturday 18 May, 11am with a walking tour of Ballinlough. The meeting point is at Ballintemple Graveyard, Temple Hill, 11am. The tour is free, two hours and no booking is required. Kieran noted of the rich history in Ballinlough; “With 360 acres, Ballinlough is the second largest of the seven townlands forming the Mahon Peninsula. The area has a deeper history dating back to Bronze Age Ireland. In fact it is one of very few urban areas in the country to still have a standing stone still standing in it for over 5,000 years. My walk will highlight this heritage along with tales of big houses such as Beaumont and the associated quarry, rural life in nineteenth century Ballinlough and the development of Ballinlough’s twentieth century suburban history”.

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 18 January 2024

Cork City Events, Cork History, Improve Your Life, Kieran's Council Work, Landscapes, Lord Mayor's Work
1236a. Daly's Bridge aka Shaky Bridge, present day, which is one of the featured bridges in Kieran's audio heritage trail of the Bridges of Cork (picture: Kieran McCarthy).
1236a. Daly’s Bridge aka Shaky Bridge, present day, which is one of the featured bridges in Kieran’s audio heritage trail of the Bridges of Cork (picture: Kieran McCarthy).

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 18 January 2024

Kieran’s Audio Heritage Trails

January generally coincides with some fine and cold cold days where walking the city is lit up by wintry Atlantic light. As someone who enjoys photographing the city, it is a good time of year to capture some of the city’s nuanced layers of its past. I hope to launch my physical walking tours again in April but in the meantime, check out my audio heritage trails, which have been developed with Meitheal Mara – on the Bridges of Cork and The Marina respectively.

Both audio trails are hosted on my website www.corkheritage.ie under the history trails section. All you need is your smartphone and some headphones. The first audio trail provides insights into the histories of the Cork city centre’s bridges, their place in Cork and some of their surrounding histories. The walk around the bridges is just over two hours in duration. The trail is clockwise from South Gate Bridge up the south channel and down the north channel to cross back to the south channel. It ends at Nano Nagle Bridge.

They say the best way to get to know a place is to walk it. Through many centuries Cork has experienced every phase of Irish urban development. It is a city you can get lost in narrow streets, marvel at old cobbled lane ways, photograph old street corners, gaze at clues from the past, engage in the forgotten and the remembered, search and connect for something of oneself, and thirst in the sense of story-telling – in essence feel the DNA of the place. With so many layers of history in Cork, there is much to see on any walk around Cork City and its respective neighbourhoods. The River Lee has had and continues to have a key role in the city’s evolution.  Many Corkonians and visitors have crossed over the River Lee’s bridges and have appreciated the river’s tranquil and hypnotic flow.

The audio trail begins at the oldest of the city’s bridges – that of South Gate Bridge. In the time of the Anglo Normans establishing a fortified walled settlement and a trading centre in Cork around 1200 AD, South Gate Drawbridge formed one of the three entrances – North Gate Bridge and Watergate being the others. A document for the year 1620 stated that the mayor, Sheriff and commonality of Cork, commissioned Alderman Dominic Roche to erect two new drawbridges in the city over the river where timber bridges existed at the South Gate Bridge and the other at North Gate.

In May 1711, agreement was reached by the Council of Cork Corporation that North Gate Bridge would be rebuilt in stone in 1712 while in 1713, South Gate Bridge would be replaced with a stone arched structure. South Gate Bridge still stands today in its past form as it did over 300 years ago apart from a small bit of restructuring and strengthening in early 1994.

The second of the new audio trails is on The Marina. A stroll down The Marina is popular by many people. The area is particularly characterized by its location on the River Lee and the start of Cork Harbour. Here scenery, historical monuments and living heritage merge to create a historical tapestry of questions of who developed such a place of ideas. Where not all the answers have survived, The Marina is lucky, that archives, newspaper accounts, census records and old maps and other insights have survived to showcase how the area and the wider area has developed. These give an insight into ways of life and ambitions in the past, some of which can help the researcher in the present day in understanding The Marina’s evolution and sense of place going forward.

Cork’s Marina was originally called the Navigation Wall or in essence it was a guidance or tracking wall to bring ships into Cork City’s South Docks area. It was completed in 1761.

Following the constitution of the Cork Harbour Commissioners in 1814 and their introduction of steam dredging, a vigorous programme of river and berth deepening, quay and wharf building commenced. The dredger of the Cork Harbour Commissioners deposited the silt from the river into wooden barges, which were then towed ashore. The silt was re-deposited behind the Navigation Wall.

During the Great Famine, the deepening of the river created jobs for 1,000 men who worked on widening the physical dock of the Navigation Wall. In essence a fine road was constructed, which linked into Cork’s South Docks. To give an aesthetic to the new road, a fine row of elm trees was planted c.1856 by Prof. Edmund Murphy of Queen’s College Cork (now UCC). The elm trees were part of a crop and tree growing experiment.

In 1870, the Gaelic poet and scholar Donncha Ó Floinn put forward to the Improvements Committee of Cork Corporation that the new road of the Navigation wall be named Slí na hAbhann, which means the ‘pathway by the river’. Ó Floinn’s proposal was not accepted. The matter came before the Improvements Committee again in 1872. This time Ó Floinn suggested that the promenade be named ‘The Marina’. He outlined that ‘The Marina’ was the name allocated to a recently reclaimed piece of land near Palermo in Sicily. In July 1872, Cork Corporation formally adopted ‘The Marina’ as the name of the new road or promenade.

Listen to Kieran’s audio heritage trails under history trails at www.corkheritage.ie

Captions:

1236a. Daly’s Bridge aka Shaky Bridge, present day, which is one of the featured bridges in Kieran’s audio heritage trail of the Bridges of Cork (picture: Kieran McCarthy).

The Cork City Revolution Trail, 12 August 2023

Cork City Events, Cork History, Kieran's Council Work, Lord Mayor's Work

The Lord Mayor, Cllr. Kieran McCarthy has launched The Cork City Revolution Trail, in the company of historian Gerry White and members of Cork City Council’s Commemorations team. An online story map, the Revolution Trail features 30 historical sites located around Cork City. The areas carry stories of huge significance in relation to the Irish Revolutionary Period. 

The trail, written by Gerry White and designed by Serena O’Connor (Cork City Council) is accessible from anywhere in the world. 

Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr. Kieran McCarthy said: “I strongly encourage locals and visitors to Cork alike to walk the route and witness the appeal and mystery of the 30 (and counting) sites for themselves. The trail is still very much a work in progress and it is anticipated that up to 50 sites could feature along the route.”

Those present at the launch were treated to a fascinating discussion between the Lord Mayor and Gerry White. Both local historians, they spoke of the history of Cork’s streets and the revolutionary tales associated with them. The group took in historic sites such as the National Monument on Grand Parade, the site of an assassination on South Mall and the centre of Patrick Street, which bore witness to large-scale destruction during the Burning of Cork in 1920.

The lesser-known site along St. Augustine Street, which was home to the Wallace sisters, Nora and Sheila, was also visited by those walking the route on launch day. The former site of the shop belonging to the Wallace’s, it served as a secret communications centre and headquarters for the IRA’s Cork No. 1 Brigade.   

Journey back in time and learn about more revolutionary tales at Cork sites such as Broad Street, Dillon’s Cross and UCC. Check out the Cork City Revolution Trail by visiting: 

https://www.corkcity.ie/en/a-city-remembers-cork-1920-to-1923/

Lord Mayor Cllr Kieran McCarthy’s Historical Walking Tours, July 2023:

Cork City Events, Cork History, Kieran's Council Work, Lord Mayor's Work

Wednesday evenings, 12 & 19 July 2023, Cork and the River Lee, An Introduction to the Historical Development of Cork City; meet at the National Monument, Grand Parade, 6.30pm (two hours, free, no booking).

Thursday evening 13 July 2023, From Canals to a Mayoralty Chain, The Making of Eighteenth Century Cork, meet at the National Monument, Grand Parade, 6.30pm (two hours, free, no booking).

Friday evening, 21 July 2023, Shandon & its History; meet at North Main Street/ Adelaide Street Square, opp Cork Volunteer Centre, 6.30pm (Two hours, free, no booking).

Saturday afternoon, 29 July 2023, Views from a Park – The Black Ash and Tramore Valley Park & Surrounds, meet at Halfmoon Lane gate to Tramore Valley Park, 2pm (two hours, free, no booking).