Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 10 November 2011

In the Footsteps of St. Finbarre (Part 274)

Memories of Afforestation

There are many well worn spots in Gougane Barra where people stop to photograph the lake, the mountains and the forestry. Indeed, apart from the work of the Irish Tourism Association, another important state supported project in Gougane Barra was that of the Irish Free State Forestry Programme in the late 1930s. Subsequently the forest area became Ireland’s first national park in 1966.

The minutes of Dáil Éireann for the 27 April 1937 record a speech by Gerald Boland Minister of Lands (brother of Harry Boland & a founder member and first chief whip of Fianna Fáil), who noted that “Ireland had been denuded of trees to a greater extent than any other country”. The policy of his Department was to remedy the situation and secure an adequate timber supply for the country at a future date. The programme aimed to be carried out over a number of years and the plan was to plant 10,000 acres yearly.

Prior to 1937, the total area of the new plantations formed by the State was approximately 55,000 acres. The balance of 109,000 acres comprised old woodlands in existence at the time of acquisition, scrub lands not yet cleared for planting, bare land ready for planting, unplantable lands and a number of small areas let in grazing. The total number of Free State forests centres in 1937 was 81, nearly double the number of centres in existence four or five years previously.

About 7,200 acres of forestry were planted in the years 1935-36. However, the Dáil Éireann minutes and an article in the Irish Press on 28 April 1937 highlight that there were a number of factors which had slowed down progress. There was the difficulty of obtaining suitable land in sufficiently large areas and the shortage of skilled forestry officials. Arrangements had been made with the Land Commission for the allotment for forestry purposes of about 6,000 acres and negotiations were pending with private owners for the purchase of 10,500 acres.

Notwithstanding difficulties it was intended to create new centres where possible, and particularly to extend forestry operation in the west and south of the country. The possibility of starting forestry operations in the Gaeltacht received much attention and very considerable areas were inspected. Much of that land obtainable had to be rejected as unsuitable either owing to exposure or to poor soil conditions or to a combination of bother reasons. The search did yield lands suitable for a plantation at Coomroe besides Gougane Barra. It was gradually planted over the ensuing four years. Plantings were largely of Sitka spruce, Lodgepole pine, Japanese larch and some Scots pine. Having reached maturity some of these areas were in time harvested and restocked with a wider variety of species. However, one of the finest stands of Sitka spruce in the country still exists in the valley bottom with trees reaching 38 meters high and carrying a volume of up to 3 cubic meters each.

At the new Free State centres, one of the issues was the length of time to train staff. The majority of the supervisory officers were trained by the State and this was pursued at the Forestry School at Avondale, Co. Wicklow. Provision was also made for further increases to the staff of foresters and foremen, as the work was still hampered by the lack of trained men. The Department had already tried to get suitable men from outside, and the Civil Service Commissioners held open competitions for the purpose. However a sufficient number of qualified candidates were not available. The Department had to, therefore, wait until it had trained its own apprentices.

With the aim to plant 10,000 acres of forestry annually, the State nurseries were enlarged. Hence, in 1937, the amount required for seeds, seedlings and transplants had been reduced from E.125,000 to £6,500 as the State nurseries had been more than doubled in area between 1935 and 1937. The purchases in 1937 were about 325,00 transplants and 515,000 seedlings from Irish Free State nurserymen, 150,000 transplants and 345,000 seedlings from Great Britain, and 995,000 transplants and 475,000 seedlings from the European continent. The number of men employed on national forestry schemes during March 1938 was about 1,900. There was also a scheme of free grants available for private owners.

Another interesting anecdote on the forestry in Gougane Barra appeared in the Irish Independent on 2 January 1968. It notes: “when GAA field activities are resumed the task of umpires at Croke Park games will be considerably easier than in the past, when it was often difficult to determine if a ball, particularly in hurling had gone wide or was within the posts. They replaced the 25 feet high uprights with 35 feet high posts, which were erected when the Croke Park pitch was re-sited in 1959, consequent to the construction of the Hogan Stand.” The GAA General Secretary Seán Ó Siocháin first got the idea of the new posts when on holidays during the summer in Gougane Barra during the summer of 1968. There he saw spruce trees standing 60 feet high and considered that their height would make ideal goal post height.

To be continued…

Captions:

616a. View of Gougane Barra, c.1910 (picture: National Photographic Archive, Dublin)

616b. View of forestry in Gougane Barra, October 2011 (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town,

Cork Independent, 

3 November 2011

In the Footsteps of St. Finbarre (Part 273)

A Stronghold of Ireland

 “The silver lake between the high stony mountains seems always in motion, as befits the source of the River Lee…Gougane Barra is associated with the sound of soft, lapping water, the only sound, which, instead of breaking, rather accentuates the silence round where Finbarr’s cell stood…the island itself is one grand bouquet of light green foliage rustled by the wind, with few fir trees here and along the shore. Reeds sway near the water’s edge, in utter silence and simple loveliness, as befits a hallowed spot where the memory of a great and saintly man is still real and near” (writer called Spectator, Irish Independent, 25 September, 1940, p.4)

Continuing to explore tourism growth in Gougane Barra, the summer of 1936 coincided with the Irish Tourist Association stepping up their work to get more American parties to travel to Ireland. The Munster Express for 5 June 1936 (p.3) notes: “This year a large number of organised parties from the United States are to visit Ireland. Among the firms who are organising parties are the American travel Exchange, Frank O’Brien Travel Bureau, Maher Travel Bureau, P.J. Grimes Tourist Agency, McGovern, Synnott and Kiely Travel Bureau, and Peter Donoghue Travel Bureau. From advices received it is learned that as many as 15 parties are being organised to travel by the popular liners of the North German Llyol Co., which are regular callers at the ports of Cobh and Galway. In addition several parties are travelling on the Cunard White Star Service.”

During this period of building tourism mass, Gougane Barra was going through its own transformations. In the 1920s and 1930s, it went through another phase of clean-up of overgrowth and got a new hotel. Again the William Lawrence collection as well as the press at the time echo these changes. For example, a journalist with the Southern Star on 19 September 1925, remarking on the protection of Irish pilgrimage sites in the 1920s, notes (p.6): “Unfortunately in Ireland, however, much we may venerate our shrines, we seldom expend much trouble in their upkeep. A broken wall, rank grass, weeds seem not to matter, and even the necessary repairs to buildings are neglected so that all combine to add to a general appearance of decay. Our places of pilgrimage, therefore, compare ill with those of continental countries, where every care is taken to preserve and embellish them. Gougane Barra, though far more complete than other Irish shrines, cannot be said to have escaped from the usual neglect of our holy places…large forest trees are growing through the walls of St. Finbarr’s Hermitage; should these be uprooted by a storm, part of the ancient structure would be destroyed. The Stations of the Cross are badly damaged; many of the figures are broken and also are their handsome frames; around the cross are other missing elements. As for the little Hiberno-Romanesque chapel that gives to Gougane Barra so much of its character, it badly needs the hand of the craftsman”.

A report in the Southern Star on 24 April 1937 (p.6) reveals the increasing trade requirements of Cronin’s Hotel due to increasing tourism numbers. Cornelius Cronin, the hotel proprietor, appeared before Macroom Court applying for a new licence to trade in intoxicating liquors in the hotel premises erected by him at Gougane Barra. Judge T. Donnell, presiding, considered Gougane Barra to be a “stronghold of everything Gaelic”. The hotel was designed by Cornelius and built by direct labour under his supervision.  It was noted that the traffic in the locality was increasing. There was fishing and shooting to be had there to attract visitors. Cornelius in evidence stated that he was a son of the late James Cronin. By a family arrangement in 1935, Cornelius got a portion of the holding owned by his late father. On that portion the applicant built the hotel of fourteen rooms at a cost of £2,000. On the old holding there was a hotel already and it had been there for over forty years [c.1897].

The new hotel premises were built two hundred yards away.  The applicant’s brother Denis Cronin occupied the old hotel. It had come into his possession two months previous to the case. The accommodation there was not sufficient to meet the requirements of the increasing traffic and hence the reason why a new hotel was built. The brothers found they were unable to cater for all the visitors who sought accommodation. Cornelius outlined that they had regular visitors from Dublin and Cork, and visitors had begun to travel from England. Even with the two hotels they found that at times they had not enough accommodation to meet requirements. There was a course of instruction held there the previous year under the Vocational Education Scheme, which was attended by 60 teachers. Some of them stayed in the old hotel and some in the new, and some stayed in Ballingeary. The fishing and shooting rights were jointly owned by himself and his brother under an agreement. The season for visitors was about four month’s duration. For the remainder of the year, Cornelius argued there “would be very little doing in respect of licensed trade”. The application was granted.

To be continued…

Captions:

615a. Cronin’s Hotel, c.1920 (pictures: National Library, Dublin)

615b. Pilgrims and overgrowth amongst the pilgrimage cells, c.1920

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 27 October 2011

In the Footsteps of St. Finbarre (Part 272)

Tracking Tourism

During my time with my historical exhibition on the pilgrimage island in Gougane Barra, I watched many cars coming and going into the space. Indeed, there was always at least one car parked in front of the gates to the island and always at least one person on the island exploring it. For those I met not from Ireland, many spoke about how they heard of the place. The responses ranged from word of mouth to seeing a picture of St. Finbarr’s Oratory.

Last week the column spoke about the work of Fr. Patrick Hurley, the parish priest of Uibh Laoghaire, who in the first decade of the 1900s, pursued work on opening the region up to more tourists. Indeed it strikes me how difficult a journey it must have been to get to a place such as Gougane Barra before the age of cars. Certainly in the age when tourism became an element in Gougane Barra’s story the Lawrence photographs from the National Library show the slow journey through the landscape on a coach drawn by horses. On these the tourist was not protected from the elements and was also exposed to twisting trackways and untarred roads.

Gougane Barra’s tourism potential was subsequently fuelled by the growth of horse drawn coaches, motor cars, and rail to Macroom. With the growth in automobile traffic, subsequent accounts of the Gougane Sunday ceremonies in particular record large numbers of cars. The Southern Star records on 3 October 1925 (p.2): The fringe of the lake, on which a fine embankment has been built on the near side since last year, was lined with hundreds of motor cars, lorries and charabanes, many hailing from long distances…in the old days the toilsome journey was accomplished by taking the train from Cork to Macroom and thence to Gougane on outside cars, wagonetts etc…on Sunday last the train was a neglible factor in the arrangements and probably not one dozen of the passengers were destined for Gougane. Most of the visitors came in motor cars, and it may be remarked that the celerity with which these conveyances accomplish their journeys has had the effect of tremendously increasing the patrons of the public on the occasion of the celebration of St. Finbarr’s Feast.”

An article in the Southern Star on 3 September 1938 (p.8) gives an insight into the journey of traffic at that time: “It is probably one of the few roads in Ireland where turns are banked on the right-hand side. Accordingly drivers must slow when rounding corners. It is rumoured in responsible quarters that an additional grant from government funds has been allocated for continuation of the work as far as Gougane Barra, such a grant to include cutting of turns, etc. If this proves correct, there will then remain only about six miles of untarred road connecting Cork with Glengarriff on this route.”

The opening of areas such as Gougane Barra for more tourism was also driven by the Irish Free State’s Irish Tourist Association. This was established in 1925 to market the young Irish Free State as a tourist destination internationally. This body had some of their work on display at the 1932 Irish Industrial and Agricultural Fair on the Carrigrohane Straight Road in Cork (see previous columns). An article under Irish Tourist Notes in the Munster Express on 5 June 1936 highlights Irish scenic films being made for the tourist market in Great Britain, then in Ireland and subsequently in British Dominions and Colonies and the USA. In late May 1936, it is recorded that a camera unit of the Gaumont British Film Corporation under the direction of the Irish Tourist Association travelled through certain districts in Ireland for the purposes of making a reel of scenic and general interest. Gaumont-British Picture Corporation was the British arm of the French film company Gaumont. The company became independent of its French parent in 1922, when Isidore Ostrer acquired control of Gaumont-British. The company’s Lime Grove Studios produced films such as Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 version of The 39 Steps, and his 1938 film The Lady Vanishes. In the United States, Gaumont-British had its own distribution operation for its films until December 1938, when it folded that operation and outsourced distribution to 20th Century-Fox.

 The Gaumont unit in Ireland was accompanied and directed by Mr. David Barry, Assistant Secretary of the Irish Tourist Association. Features of outstanding interest were shot in different parts of the country. The unit took several shots of Holy Cross Abbey, Co. Tipperary, the Blackwater valley between Fermoy and Youghal, Blarney Castle, Inchigeela, Gougane Barra, Glengarriff, Killarney, Limerick, Clare, Galway, Connemara, Achill and also Sligo and Donegal.

Articles in the Irish Independent reveal another method of tourist expansion in the region. Gougane Barra became part of the tour itinerary of tourists heading to Glengarriff. For example the Irish Independent ran a story on the 14 July 1936 recalling the previous day’s visit of 460 people who were on board the French liner, Lafayette, which arrived in Glenagarriff. The tourists left to explore the region for a day trip on Great Southern Railway buses bound for Gougane Barra, Killarney, Healy’s Pass and Bantry.

To be continued…

Captions:

614a. Photograph of tourists on a horse drawn coach at Cronin’s Hotel, Gougane Barra, early 1900s

614b. Glengarriff Harbour, Co. Cork, early 1900s (pictures: National Photographic Archive, Dublin)

Next Tuesday, 25th October, at 8pm, Kieran McCarthy will give a lecture to Blackpool Historical Society at 8pm in Blackpool Community Centre behind Blackpool church; the title of the talk is “Creating an Irish Free State City: Cork in the 1920s and 1930s”; if you ever wondered how places like Turners Cross and Gurranabraher came into being and want to see Cork in the early twentieth century, this talk will attempt to cover some of those aspects.