My first public walking tour for 2017 returns to the Victorian Quarter – Sunday 9 April 2017, Historical Walking Tour of the Victorian Quarter, From Fever Hospital to Street Grandeur, meet at the green (Bell’s Field) at the top of St Patrick’s Hill, 2.30pm, free, 2 hours. The tour is part of the Lifelong Learning Festival.
In a world where globalisation reigns, more than ever place matters. The Victorian Quarter is a new branding by traders within MacCurtain Street environs and Cork City Council to describe a historic corner of Cork, which was built up during the time of Queen Victoria and espouses the good, the bad and the ugly of Cork History. One is dealing with immense scenic perspectives – book ended by the epic St Patrick’s Hill view to the west, Kent Station to the east and river and port frontage to the south. There is something to be said about how the street and buildings are carefully balanced and placed on a steep carved out sandstone ridge to the north – an important story of strategic engineering, which appears in earnest behind the waterfall feature behind Greene’s Restaurant.
The area comprises gorgeous, original and well invested architecture with rich stories. Its historical DNA is rooted in old Cork but this was the Cork that emerged in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries where the city was branding itself as one of the Venices of the North and the Athens of Ireland in terms of cultural output. When the Corporation of the time invested in planning St Patrick’s Bridge in 1787, it opened up this quarter for development – this was also the decade that brought us the first south docklands plan and the chain the Lord Mayor wears. The 1790s coincided the creation of St Patrick’s Hill – a hill-up avenue from Bridge Street, which aligned with an old windmill now incorporated into Audley House. The decade also coincided with an early MacCurtain Street– back then known as Strand Street and later King Street.
One by one, some of Cork’s greatest stories and architectural structures were added. The tragic Fever Hospital was constructed in 1802 with all that is left today being the Fever Hospital steps. Built between 1801 and 1806 and designed initially by John Gibson, Collins Barracks was once called Royal or Cork Barracks with the largest parade ground in western Europe. Summerhill Road was laid out between 1801 and 1832 as well as a myriad of new residences; these provided the catalyst for the creation of St Patrick’s Church and the first of three St Luke’s Church – St Patrick’s and St Luke’s witnessed their foundation stone laid in the 1830s. St Luke’s Church’s was consecrated in 1837 whilst St Patrick’s Church opened in 1848 – the portico of St Patrick’s echoing the Greek and Roman temples of Central European urban civilization.
The Cork Dublin Terminus & tunnel opened in 1856 – the tunnel was part of an elaborate railway system from Dublin to Cork – in its day one of the major features of engineering in western Europe.
Trinity Presbyterian Church was opened at the foot of Summerhill in 1861 – but Cork’s Presbyterian cultural heritage is 300 years old this year.
The building that Cork’s 96FM occupies first opened its doors in 1888. In the mid nineteenth century, the Vincentian Fathers maintained a seminary at Saint Patrick’s Place in Cork, known as the Cork Diocesan Seminary. In 1888 a new seminary with residential accommodation was completed at Farranferris, and the Vincentian ecclesiastical students transferred there. The then Bishop of Cork, Dr O’Callaghan, invited the Christian Brothers to take charge of the St. Patrick’s Place establishment. The Christian Brothers and Scoil Mhuire or St Angela’s are all part of the educational heritage of the quarter.
The elaborate twelve-bay five-storey structure building, which hosted Thompson’s Bakery was erected about 1890 as well as the seven bay three storey Victoria Buildings. In the 1970s Thompsons output tops 20,000,000 products per annum. The company employed 250 men and women. It distributed Thompsons famous bread throughout Munster and the confectionery was sold throughout Ireland, with depots in Waterford, Dublin, Athlone, Galway, Westport and Limerick. Thompsons vans were a very familiar sight throughout 40 routes Munster and 10 national routes, and numbered in the region of 60.
Thompson’s was soon followed by the Baptist Church building in 1892, the Great Southern and Western Railway Cork Terminus in 1892 and the Metropole Hotel in 1897 financed by the Musgrave Brothers.
In 1897 Dan Lowry opened the building as a luxurious new theatre called The Cork Palace of Varieties, the 120th anniversary of which the Everyman will celebrate this year in their annual programming. Then there is the story of famous Hadji Bey sweet shop post the Cork International Exhibition 1903. The Colliseum cinema, which opened in September 1913 began a social revolution – and the eventual construction of a necklace of cinemas, which were to blossom over the ensuing twenty years.
And the list goes on and on; and as I’m saying these there are possible readers screaming– what about that topic, what about this one; but that is what the public walking tours are trying to bring to the surface – lost stories within familiar places, we all call home.
Captions:
889b. 889a. King Street, now MacCurtain Street, c.1910 (source: Cork City Library)
889b. Map of St Patrick’s Hill 1801 (source: Cork City Library)
This week, one hundred years ago at Cork City Hall, the distribution of 100 certificates to the successful pupils of the Cork Municipal School of Music for the Session 1915-1916 took place. Lord Mayor Butterfield and the Lady Mayoress presided over a large attendance. Locally there was great pride in the School. Over the previous years, students at the school had won many distinctions at various examinations and the school frequently published celebratory public notices in newspapers like the Cork Examiner. All of them were attempts to keep music as a key subject on the agenda of national technical education as well as keeping funding streams in place and helping with fundraising for a new school building. In March 1917, the chairman of the School Committee, Mr P Curtis noted that through publicity he was attempting to showcase the “true value of the school and the talent of the pupils produced” through tuition in pianoforte, violin, cello, organ, voice, elocution, theory of music, harmony, orchestration and choral work.
The Cork School of Music was established in 1878 at 51 Grand Parade with four rooms catering for an initial enrolment of 161 students and a staff of five. In the year 1900, the Committee of the School decided to seek more suitable premises, and a move was made to 8 Morrison’s Island. Three years later during the in winter of 1903 operations were transferred to a large house at 13 Union Quay (being replaced by two new buildings in time, one opening in 1956 and the other in 2007).
Union Quay in Guy’s Directory of Cork for 1903 lists a variety of different trades. It had a number of vintners – Edmond Heaphy (no.1), Mary Fleming (no.2), John O’Connor (no.3) and William Drinan (no.4) – as well as businesses such as the Cork Co-operative Creamery Federation Ltd (no.5), D Williams’ Union Quay Carriage Works (no.s 6-7), T E Jacob & Co Ltd, flour and meal store (no.8), Newsom & Sons Ltd sugar store (no.9), Constabulary Barrack (no.9a), Thomas O’Brien auctioneer and valuer, horse, cattle, and sheep repository (no.s 10-11), W Dalton’s Cork Electric Bakery (no.12), Richardson Bros, manure Depot and Johnson & Co Ltd, cement manufacture (no.14), John Fitzgerald’s corn stores (no.s 16-17), Madden Michael, vintner (no.19), and J O’Connor’s City Saw mills (no.20).
In the 1903-1904 annual report on technical education in the city, only a portion of no.13 Union Quay was used as a school of music – the remainder being allotted to a kitchen equipped for twenty students, a plumber’s workshop, a painter’s and decorator’s room. A beginning was made in the formation of a small botanical garden in the grounds attached to the buildings.
By 1917 the teachers at the school were internationally known – Cambridge scholar William Henry Hannaford taught pianoforte and theory with Wilberforce Franklin of voice production, Signor Ferrouccio Grossi of violin, viola, and conductor of orchestra, Theo Gmür, of the organ, sight-singing, and conductor of choral clans; Michael O’Grady taught Irish National Music and traditional Irish singing with E Rawlinson of violoncello, P Minton of the clarinet, Mrs W Franklin of elocution, Miss Swaffield of pianoforte and Miss Anna O’Donoghue. The superintendent was Miss Mary Barker.
Some background can be gleamed on the background of the above teachers. For example, the organ teacher Theo Gmür was Swiss born. His obituary for 1929 reveals he came to Cork City as a young man, and rapidly gained a reputation as organist and choirmaster. His first appointment was at SS Peter and Paul Church, where he remained as director of the choir up to the time of his death. He became prominent by his active work at the Cork Young Ireland Society’s concerts, City Hall concerts, the Cork Municipal School of Music Choral Society, the Cork Musical Club and Cork Operatic Society. Gmür was musical director of the Cork International Exhibition of 1902 and 1903 and was an Honorary Academician of Trinity College, London, was one of the members of the preliminary committee of the Feis Ceoil, Dublin and was an examiner for many famous colleges.
The March presentation of certificates in 1917 coincided with the hosting of a public concert of orchestral selections, piano duets, violin soles and solo singers. At the interval in the concert, Mr P Curtis, Chairman of the committee of the School, addressed the audience. He was glad to report, that for the year 1914-15 the number of students increased to 439 from 312. He read from the examination report by Dr Annie Patterson (organist with St Anne’s Church, Shandon), which praised the practical musical education on offer to students. He referred to special distinctions gained by students of the School during the past session. Mr T J Collins, tenor, was singled out. During the concert, he received an ovation for his singing of the Prologue from Pagliacci. He had during the year won the O’Mara cup and gold medal in singing at the Feis Ceoil in Dublin.
Mr J L Fawsitt committee member, noted that the School deserved the support of the citizens, and had the committee more money, much more could be done. He appealed to the citizens with financial means; “Rise to the occasion and give the School a building, which would be a credit to Cork and ample space to accommodate all the young Cork artists, who would throne their halls in the near future”.
Cork 1916, A Year Examined (2016) by Kieran McCarthy & Suzanne Kirwan is now available in Cork bookshops.
Cork City History Tour (2016) by Kieran McCarthy is also available in Cork bookshops.
Captions:
888a. Union Quay, c.1910 (source: Cork City Library)
888b. Union Quay, c.1917 from Goad’s Insurance Map (source: Cork City Library)
Cork Independent, 23 March 2017 The Wheels of 1917: The Question of Reform
This week, one hundred years ago, coincided with the release of the Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Reformatory and Industrial Schools in Ireland for the year 1915. Summarised in the Cork Examiner, some insights were given into the structure of such schools. The full report is also digitised as part of the online archive project on British Parliamentary Papers on Ireland, 1801-1922. Some 14,000 items have been digitised by the University of Southampton. In recent years the stories and realities of these schools are also well documented by the report (2009) of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse or the Ryan Report, which is online at www.childabusecommission.ie. These offer a comprehensive voice to the structure of processes carried out. However, from a family tracking perspective, archives are scattered between religious orders and the HSE making it difficult to track relatives from past archives even when personal sensitivity are considered.
Industrial and Reformatory institutions were run by religious orders and funded by the public. From the Industrial Schools Act of 1868 to the eventual decline of industrial schools in 1969, over 105,000 children were placed in this state care system. By the 1915 report, there were five reformatories and 66 industrial schools in Ireland. Eight of the latter were for boys under ten years of age, who were then transferred to senior schools. The number of committals to the boys’ and girls’ reformatories increased during the 1915 year, and was in excess of the number committed during the previous two years. The Chief Inspector describes the process for committal for juvenile offenders; “offenders were often only committed when they appear several times before a court, and when unfortunately, they had become fit cases for committal to a reformatory. It would naturally be better that when children are in danger of being led into criminal courses that they were at once taken away from their surroundings and sent to an industrial school”.
In his report, the inspector stressed that being sent to such institutions was not implying committees were guilty of a crime; “Committing a child in one of the former does not imply in any way that he or she is guilty of any criminal offence, or has any tendency towards crime. Amongst children liable to be sent to an industrial school are those under fourteen years of age who may be found begging or receiving alms in any street or premises, whether or not there is any pretence of singing, performing or offering anything for sale; those found wandering and not having any home or settled place any of abode or visible means of subsistence; those not being orphans, found destitute; children under the care of parents or guardians of drunken or criminal habits, and orphans found destitute”. The inspector outlined his perspective that such institutions were to protect destitute children in society; “children will be seen from the foregoing that the purpose of the industrial schools is to provide protection for children who may be destitute or on the way, owing to their surroundings, of lapsing into criminal habits. The reformatories are intended to reclaim young persons who have been found guilty of offences against the law, and to enable them to learn to be useful members of the community”.
An account was given by the inspector of a section for training in domestic science and economy, which were located at four of the industrial schools for girls of the age of sixteen years, and upwards. The Inspector writes about such courses as being set up to provide training to young women who wish to earn a livelihood as household servants. There was he noted; “a desire to undergo a course of sound training in housekeeping, after the expiration of their ordinary period of residence at these schools”.
One hundred years ago, the two industrial schools in Cork were the Greenmount Industrial School for boys and the girl’s industrial school of St Finbarr’s, which was based within the Good Shepherd Convent complex at Sunday’s Well adjacent its Magdalen Asylum and Laundry. Information on the St Finbarr’s school is difficult to source. There is a report of the “Inter-Departmental Committee to establish the facts of State Involvement with the Magdalen Laundries (2013)”, which mentions St Finbarr’s Industrial School but nothing substantial. There is work to be pursued on its history and realities.
The Ryan Report outlines a detailed historical timeline of Greenmount Industrial School. By the turn of the twentieth century, it was certified to take in 200 boys and work was progressing at the grounds so that it would become a farm proficient of giving the boys training in farm work, and at the same time provide food for the School and additional income from the sale of farm produce. The School was constructed on eight acres of land, and the staff and boys in the School began cultivating the surrounding land. The Presentation Brothers continued to develop the farm. They purchased much of the surrounding land at the turn of the century, and the adjacent farm comprised approximately 39 acres by the early twentieth century.
Greenmount also had two further farms located at Lehenagh, on the outskirts of the city. It is recorded in the School annals that the Management decided to sell these farms because of difficulties arising in the day-to-day management of them. The Department of Education records described the farm: “The farm attached to this school has an area of 39 acres. It is used to supply milk and potatoes to the institution. Fifteen cows are kept and the feeding for these is grown on the farm”.
For more information on the Irish Industrial Schools and sources for families, see www.childabusecommission.ie.
Captions:
887a. Map of Greenmount Industrial School and surrounds, 1949 (source: Cork City Library)
887b. Ruin of Good Shepherd Convent, present day (picture: Kieran McCarthy)
Cork’s young people are invited to participate in the ninth year of Cllr Kieran’s McCarthy’s Community Talent Competition’. The auditions will take place on Sunday 23 April 2017 between 10am-5pm in the Lifetime Lab, Lee Road. There are no entry fees and all talents are valid for consideration. The final will be held on Sunday 7 May. There are two categories, one for primary school children and one for secondary school students. Winners will be awarded a perpetual trophy and prize money of €150 (two by €150). The project is being organised and funded by Cllr Kieran McCarthy in association with Red Sandstone Varied Productions (RSVP).
Cllr. McCarthy noted: “The talent competition is a community initiative. It encourages all young people to develop their talents and creative skills, to push forward with their lives and to embrace their community positively”. Further details can be got from the talent show producer (RSVP), Yvonne Coughlan, email: rsvpireland@gmail.com.
Independent Cllr Kieran McCarthy views the Cork 2050 plan, which is part of the National Planning Strategy, as an opportunity to create a new vision for the city’s future; “business as usual is not an option for Cork for its future; it is a chance to scale up Cork to be a Southern capital and not to be just a small regional city. We need to rebrand the city and region. We are a former European Capital of Culture, one of Europe’s foremost ports, and is a Unesco City of Learning. We need to carve a space for this city and region in north west Europe and pitch ourselves an Atlantic Region of Innovation. The gaze cannot always be towards Dublin.
“Ambition, imagination and funding is needed thinking ahead. We need to construct faster communication networks such as new motorways to Limerick, faster rail routes between Cork and Dublin – we should be able to reduce the travel times between Cork and Dublin – from 2 ¾ hours to 1 ½ hours with advanced rail and rolling stock. Higher broadband specs are crucial. Currently in rural County Cork those with broadband have on average 3mbs per second. Our schools in County Cork can’t even skype. This isn’t good enough going forward”.
Continuing Cllr McCarthy commented; “New growth areas need to be pursued such as the Digital Single Market, Maritime energy clusters; rural enterprise programmes need to be further invested in to curb depopulation”.
“We also need to create new regional indicators of growth – more social indicators than economic indicators. GDP cannot be just the key indicators. We need to provide affordable housing for the region; we need to future proof against austerity. We need to implement our Age Action Plans, Healthy Cities plan, and informal and formal educational programmes”.
The question of Home Rule for Ireland reverberated throughout the press in 1917. This week, one hundred years ago, coincided with another fall by a motion in the House of Commons in Westminster calling for its implementation. The motion was proposed by MP T P O’Connor who was a journalist, an Irish nationalist political figure, and MP for almost fifty years.
Mr O’Connor’s colleague John Redmond MP was leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party from 1900 until his death in 1918. Redmond achieved the two main objectives of his political life: party unity and, in September 1914, the passing of the Irish Home Rule Act. The Act granted limited self-government to Ireland, within the United Kingdom. However, the application of Home Rule was deferred by the advent of World War I. Redmond called on the National Volunteers to enlist in Irish regiments in the British Army and support the British and Allied war effort.
To condemn the fall of T P O’Connor’s motion, a special meeting of the Cork City Executive of the United Irish League (UIL) was held on 12 March 1917 at Cork City Hall. Mr William Murphy, Coroner, presided; the Lord Mayor Thomas Butterfield was also in attendance. The United Irish League was co-founded by William O’Brien and Michael Davitt in 1898 as an attempt to inject new synergies into the Home Rule movement. The League was focused on agrarian reform and it was hoped that this policy would provide the foundation for reuniting the national political movement. It became very popular with tenant farmers and branches of the organisation were established all over the country. The UIL peaked in the first decade of the early twentieth century. By 1902 O’Brien’s UIL was by far the largest organisation in the country, comprising 1150 branches and 84,355 members.
As it entered the 1910s, the United Irish League, became largely diluted by members of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the rise of a breakaway group the All For Ireland League (by William O’Brien), and the rise of Sinn Féin post 1916. From 1918, the UIL was restricted to Northern Ireland, and was defunct by the mid-1920s. The fact that it survived in Cork in the late 1910s is testament to the local executive who promoted it and kept it going. The Cork President of the UIL, William Murphy had been a personal friend of Charles Stewart Parnell and an active member for over four decades of the Parnellite and later the Redmondite organisations in Cork. His obituary in 1936 reveals that he even stood unsuccessfully for Parliament as a United Irish League candidate in 1909. He was also for many years one of the leading solicitors and coroners in the county and was law adviser to the Harbour Commissioners and Cattle Traders’ and Licensed Vintners Associations.
The 12 March 1917 City Hall event was written up in the Cork Examiner. The meeting was heated and highly political. The Chairman William Murphy noted of his disgust and anger to the conclusion of the Westminster debate; “the result of the debate proved conclusively to the world that Ireland had now, as before, the gravest doubt of honourable treatment being accorded to Ireland as distinct from any part of the world”. Mr Murphy outlined in the narrative of his speech that for the previous ten years, majorities had been returned to pledged to support Home Rule. Before the war, Home Rule went through all the stages of the House of Commons and was placed in the statute book. It was however according to him “not to be enforced until the minority of the people who opposed it agreed to it”. The chairman denoted his frustration at the political system; “the principle that minorities should acquiesce before any enactments were put into force was never before applied, and he believed it would never be applied again”.
The Chairman criticised the elite for not progressing the Home Rule Act; “The Irish struggle was an old one, and they could tell these gentlemen in England that the Irish Nationalists never despaired, even though at times they had reason of despondency. Irishmen had pluck and pride in their race, and believed in the future of it, and will never cease the struggle until the full accomplishment of National Self Government is realised”.
Arising out of William Murphy’s debate, the Lord Mayor proposed a motion for the room to adopt; “that having regard to the treacherous and dishonourable conduct of Mr Lloyd George’s Government in refusing to enforce the Home Rule Act for all Ireland either now or after the war unless Sir Edward Carson and his followers, which is tantamount to a complete repudiation of the treaty arrived at between England and Ireland, and embodied in the Home Rule Act, we endorse the action of the Irish Party in leaving the House of Commons, and deciding immediately to oppose the Government; and we hope they will take vigorous action both in the House of Commons and the country. We further desire to point out that the principle of freedom for small nationalities, which involves the right of the majority in any nation, cannot be applied with justice to Belgium, Poland and Serbia, unless it is also applied to Ireland”. The resolution was unanimously adopted by all those present.
Cork 1916, A Year Examined (2016) by Kieran McCarthy & Suzanne Kirwan is now available in Cork bookshops.
Cork City History Tour (2016) by Kieran McCarthy is also available in Cork bookshops.
Captions:
886a. City Hall & environs showing a busy district of dock, engineering and City Markets, c.1900 (source: Cork City Through Time by Kieran McCarthy and Daniel Breen)
886b. T P O’Connor, MP, 1917 (source: public domain, Library of Congress, USA)
Independent Cllr Kieran McCarthy was recently part of a five-person delegation from the European Committee of the Regions to the UK’s Local Government Association and to the Mayor’s Office London to explore the impact Brexit will have on UK towns, cities and regions. The delegation also met British Secretary of State, David Jones, and stressed that it will continue to cooperate with the UK’s local and regional government throughout the Brexit negotiations and beyond. The meeting was also attended by political representatives of the UK’s devolved administrations and local authorities from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Cllr Kieran McCarthy at the meeting commented: “Brexit will have a huge impact on local and regional governments in both the UK and the EU, which is why we will continue to work closely together to understand the local economic, political and social consequences. There is much historic goodwill on both sides, the UK’s and the EU’s. Positive diplomacy is required and not the ‘taking pot shots’ mentality, which has prevailed in certain camps around the Brexit debate todate”. Cllr McCarthy also expressed the impact of a hard Brexit on Ireland and has called for the Committee of the Regions that Ireland’s case to be a priority in the Brexit negotiations.
The delegation visit follows a meeting between the Committee’s leaders and its UK delegation in mid-January with Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, who confirmed his wish to open a channel of dialogue and communication to allow local and regional stakeholders to be informed and heard throughout the process.
The European Committee of the Regions, the EU’s assembly for democratically elected local and regional politicians, has a consultative role in EU policymaking. Of its 700 members and alternates, 48 come from the United Kingdom. President Markkula and the Committee’s delegation which was composed of leaders from its political groups namely: Markus Töns (DE/PES) Member of the North Rhine-Westphalia Regional Parliament; Kieran McCarthy (IE/EA), Member of Cork City Council; Kate Feeney (IE/ALDE), Member of Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council; and Rob Jonkman (NL/ECR), Member of the Executive Council of Opsterland.
Independent Cllr Kieran McCarthy has welcomed the Cork City Council’s plan to replace trees in the Marina tree line as part of the upcoming Marina Park plan starting later this year. Raising the issue at a recent Council meeting, Cllr McCarthy noted; “The Marina treeline is one of the most significant in the city and is a vital resource which enhances the visual character of Cork City and its natural heritage. I have had numerous emails by local people concerned about the several gaps in the treeline, which have not been replaced over many years now. Cutbacks to the Council’s environment services have greatly reduced its ability to keep up with its urban forestry programme”.
Commenting further, Cllr McCarthy highlighted that a number of substantial trees have also fallen on the perimeter of the Atlantic pond in the last 2-3 years; “Some of these are manifest in the form of a few stumps; some are as a result of a fall during storms of recent years – especially several big trees. Concreting over fallen trees roots is a poor policy. I would urge that the fine Marina tree line is maintained and protected as part of the finances required for future Marina Park Plans”.
To ask the CE on an update on the Penrose Quay hoarding? Whilst acknowledging, the recent creation of a smaller hoarding space, it is now eight years since my initial asking of when this remnant of the Cork Main Drainage Project will be completed and the site levelled off (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)
Motions:
That the City Council create a new historic city centre action plan for North Main Street?
