Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 21 July 2011

In the Footsteps of St. Finbarre (Part 264)

A Skyscraper to Catch the Eye

“During its history, the city of Cork has enjoyed with great pride some periods when Cork led the way and Dublin followed. We now experience such a moment. The architect, responsible for the new County Hall is Mr. Patrick L. McSweeney, Cork County Council Architect. He has succeeded in providing for the Council a splendid building, one full of character and charm, dynamic, graceful, full of strength, and all on a shoestring. For it cost one third of the cost of Liberty Hall, Dublin (T.F. McNamara on Cork County Hall, Cork Examiner, 16 April 1968).”

In 1960, by the time Michael A. Conlon took up office as County Manager, new reasons were emerging why a new all directorate-encompassing Cork County Council building should be built. One of the most important reasons was the setting up of the Cork Health Authority with jurisdiction over both city and county with its ever growing functions. It needed far more space than the first plans envisaged for the Council’s health services. In August 1963, the council, on the motion of Dan Desmond T.D. sanctioned a building project of a central County Council office and the estimated cost at that stage was £250,000 for a ten-storey building.

Just a year later in August 1964, the tender for the sum of £479,508 from Cork’s largest firm of building contractors, Messrs. P.J. Hegarty and Sons, Leitrim Street, was accepted for the construction of the 16-storey skyscraper. The plans as drafted by County Council architect Patrick L. Mc Sweeney and his colleagues had in the interim gone to Messrs. O’Connell and Harley, Consulting Engineers. Piling began in March 1965 and two methods were used to lay the piles on the bedrock about 50 feet below the surface. By the end of that year the building began to rise above the ground. Peak employment on the site during construction was about 120.

The building was to be the new administrative headquarters for the Cork County Council and for the first time in the history of the Council, all its many departments would now be housed under the same roof. Heretofore the Council was scattered throughout the County. The new Council Chamber was located on the 16^th floor and the remainder of the building was utilised for administrative offices.

In terms of design, Cork County Hall was not only Cork’s first ‘skyscraper’, but was also Ireland’s tallest building. It was to join a long list of tall structures that had been appearing throughout Western Europe. Most early skyscrapers emerged in the land-strapped areas of Chicago, London, and New York toward the end of the 19th century. In the post Wall Street collapse in the early 1930s, American buildings such as the Chrysler Building (1930) and the Empire State Building in New York City spurred Europe to follow suit in building skyscrapers. From the 1930s onwards, skyscrapers also began to appear in Latin America. The rest of Europe slowly permitted skyscrapers to be built, starting with Madrid, during the 1950s. Finally, skyscrapers also began to be constructed in cities of Africa, the Middle East and Oceania (mainly Australia) from the late 1950s.

In his critique on Cork County Hall in the Cork Examiner on 18 April 1968, Tony McNamara on Cork County Hall’s height noted:

“Reflecting on the high rise 16 storey nature of the building, one must realise how slowly architects in this country have adapted themselves to the new factor involved in vertical travel within high buildings by means of lifts and elevators. It is noteworthy that for some years now English corporations have utilised many in city sites for 12 storey flat blocks. More recently 17-storey “towers” or “mansions” and in the last five years, 22 storey blocks of flats. This is logical development when we consider the basic cost of lifts and the marginal extra cost of increasing their height of travel.”

In a commemorative brochure on the opening event on 16 April 1968, the architect, Patrick L. McSweeney noted that: “The principle of High Rise was adopted for reasons of function and architectural character and this was the principle, which was adopted to give unity to the project. It also provided the building team with an opportunity – one which was gladly taken- to do something, which so far had not been attempted in our area. Challenge and opportunity were thus key factors.”

A design feature also made it possible to build higher than ever before without the necessity for scaffolding, which would have cost circa £20,000. The cost cutter was to extend the floors beyond the outer walls- so that each successful floor became the work platform for the laying of the next floor on its supporting 28 columns and beams. The beams were 14 inches thick and the floors were comprised of 6 inches of reinforced concrete. The building rose at the rate of one floor every three weeks until it reached the 16^th floor. Instead of finishing off the upper storeys, a decision was made, arising out of the expectation of the advent of the worst of winter weather, to consolidate the lower floors installing curtain walling, glazing internal partitioned walls and giving the building a chance to dry out.

To be continued…

Captions:

600a. Cork County Hall before its recent revamp, 2006 (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

600b. Patrick L. McSweeney, Architect, Cork County Hall, 1968 (source: Cork County Hall Library)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 14 July 2011

In the Footsteps of St. Finbarre (Part 263)

Planning a Skyscraper

“Cork has recently been described as a city on the move. It is outwards and upwards. It has almost doubled its built-up area during the past decade. Nothing stimulated as much public interest as this new skyscraper in Cork for many years (T.F. McNamara on Cork County Hall, Cork Examiner, 16 April 1968).”

Cork County Hall is big, tall and imposing. It overlooks the weir where the Lee meets the tidal water and dominates the skyline of the city. As a building, it is quite functional. For all its 1960s character and title of one of the tallest buildings in Ireland, the title itself is not perhaps harnessed enough to bring the building beyond its functional uses. The building was built between 1965 and 1968 at the height of an Ireland battling emigration, troubles in Northern Ireland and a country beginning its quest to be part of the European Economic Community (EEC).

Tony McNamara, one time Cork Corporation architect and the author of a great book on Cork’s architecture A Portrait of Cork, penned a praised critique of the new County Hall in the Cork Examiner on 16 April 1968:

“The new County Hall is a building worthy of the highest praise. Architecturally it looks into the future and will dominate the city’s skyline for centuries just as the twin towers of St. Anne’s Shandon and St. Mary’s Cathedral have done for the past 200 years. It is most important that it should continue to enjoy pride of place in the city than it should continue to be the tallest building in the country; it deserves to be rated among the finest works of architecture personifying the jet era in Ireland.”

The architect responsible for the design of County Hall was Mr. Patrick L. McSweeney, Cork County Council Architect. Since the 6 April 1889, the Council had met in the back portion of the top floor of the City Courthouse and prior to the opening of the new building, the members held a fare well ceremony at the Courthouse. The architect in a speech at the opening ceremony of the new building commented of the past: “We do know from the minute books that at the beginning of the present century, the Cork County Council was seriously concerned with the problems of finding adequate accommodation for its meeting and staff. A site was purchased prior to World War II, but with the rapid post-war expansion of the local government services, it was decided that the site located in the city centre was entirely inadequate.”

It was in the City Courthouse as well that the County manager, secretary and accountant had their offices. The County Engineer shared an old house on the North Mall with the architect and planning officer but the assistant engineers were located at Cross Street. Rates were paid at an office over a shop in Liberty Street and Motor Tax was paid at an office over a bank in Washington Street, both being locations that had been considerably improved upon leading up to the 1960s. The County Solicitor shared offices with road engineers at Parnell Place. A former residence at Fr. Mathew Quay housed the South Cork Housing and Sanitary Department. The County Committee of Agriculture’s offices in Liberty Street were too small for meetings, so officers and their files had to move to the courthouse at least once a month. The County Vocational Educational Committee, based on the South Mall, solved a similar problem by moving for an afternoon to the City’s School of Commerce. The self-directed Health Authority had administrative offices apart from those at the City Hall, in four locations.

In 1953, when the idea of a central headquarters for the Council’s officers was first put forward by the first County Manager Joseph F. Wrenne, the times and finances were not considered right for such a project. Owen Callanan who succeeded Joseph Wrenne got the Council’s approval in principle to one big roof for all departments in 1954. This allowed a young architect, only a year installed in a Council office, to start estimating future requirements and sketching plans.

When the first plans were displayed in 1959, they showed a very different approach to that later adopted. Even the orientation was different. The proposed building was to be ten storeys high, 116 feet tall, 118 feet long and only 42 feet wide. Its long frontage was to face the Carrigrohane Road and the cost was to be £137,000. The County Hall as finally designed was 211 feet tall, 131 feet long and 46 feet wide and its main entrance faced the city. The earlier design provided accommodation for health clinics; the adopted one did not.

The site was acquired by the Council from John A. Wood. Long before the first sod was turned, has a history of its own. The greater part of it was once the headquarter grounds of the Munster Football Association (founded in 1922) and it was there that Dan O’Mahony and Charlie Stack had a memorable all-in wrestling match some 30 years previously, an event long remembered by spectators (I’m looking for further information on this as well as County Hall).

More next week…

Captions:

599a. Cork County Hall, 1968 (picture: Cork City Library)

599b. Recent sunset from top of County Hall of Carrigrohane Straight Road and River Lee (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

 The Cork Branch of the Western Front Association recently held an exhibition and a series of talks on the Great War at the Cork Public Museum, Fitzgerald’s Park, Cork (Saturday, July 2nd 2011). Over the last number of years there has been a renewed interest in the Great War of 1914-18 and its impact on Ireland. Recently a number of local historians with an interest in the Great War established a Cork Branch of the Western Front Association. The exhibition will coincide with the 95th Anniversary of the Battle of the Somme. The event was open to all with an interest in the history of the Great War.

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 7 July 2011

In the Footsteps of St. Finbarre (Part 262)

Diving into History

Over the last number of weeks, I have been trying to attain more information on the Lee Baths and what happened to the car racing on the Carrigrohane Straight Road. Pat O’Brien rang me regarding the Lee Baths. He worked there from 1965 to 1969 whilst he was going to college in UCC. Pat’s father was Andy O’Brien, one of the early lifeguards at the baths. Pat noted:

“Andy O’Brien – my father aka the “Brown Bomber” would have been one of the early lifeguards and later head lifeguard at the Lee Baths shortly after it opened. His nickname came after the boxer Joe Lewis, who was known as the ‘brown bomber’ in America. My father’s lifeguard contemporaries would have been Bert Driscoll, Gerry Scanlon, Miles Higgins, Josh O’Brien and Annette Russell – all from Cork. My father as a lifeguard had many River Lee rescues to his name as at the time the River Lee and baths in summer time would have been very crowded with many adults and children. Consequently and unfortunately, there were a number of drownings.

My father ran the Lee Baths with military precision and the place was spotless. He was a well known sporting figure in Cork in the Thirties because of his prowess as a high board diver wining many cups and medals for high board and spring board diving at local and national diving championships in Ireland. Diving as a sport was quite popular in Europe in particular in Germany. My father loved the outdoor life and learned to swim himself. He had a natural ability. Apart from the Eglinton Baths there was a swimming area in the River Lee near the Lee Waterworks weir (just up from Kingsley Hotel)before the 1934 Lee Baths opened . The steps are still there.

My father hailed from Shandon Street where his family had a public house and shop at the bottom of Dominick Street. His diving adversary at the time would have been Eddie Heron form Dublin – these two guys were the Irish diving stars of the time. Andy was also a regular participant in the annual River Lee Swim.

Aside from his swimming, high board diving and water polo prowess he played rugby with Sundays Well and had a Munster Junior Cup medal for rugby (circa 1930’s) where he played as hooker. He was also an excellent gymnast wining prizes at many Feis Mathiú gymnastic displays in Cork. After he married Eileen Cogan (from Illen Villas Mardyke) they lived at Victoria Cross just opposite the Crow’s Nest. The house was originally built in 1879 as a toll house for tolling any farm produce coming into the city. The Superintendent of the English Market lived in the house before us. In the 1940’s my father joined the Ford Motor Company, Cork where he worked until he retired in 1972. He remained actively involved with swimming and diving coaching throughout his lifetime. He died in March 1989.”

Several weeks ago I had a few articles on the International Grand Prix held on the six mile Carrigrohane circuit in 1938. Pat recalls the motorcycle and car racing in the 1950s:

“I remember they put a grand stand in front of our house. I was about 4/5 years of age and my younger brother Andrew was about 2 and I remember the Red Cross nurse telling my mother to put cotton buds in his ears- the noise was too loud for his ear drums! I also remember later circa 1956 / 57 when it comes to racing cars the DKW, the German car, forerunner of the BMW was assembled in Ballincollig (near Lidl now).”

Alan Verso, a promoter, organiser and promoter of motor car racing in the southern region for many decades contacted me regarding the evolution of the motor car and motor cycle racing post the 1930s. Alan has collected a number of old brochures of the Munster Motor Cycle and Car Club. These relate that the World War II years stifled events in the late 1930s and early 1940s. It was only on the 17 July 1954, after a gap of 16 years, which saw the re-introduction of a fifty mile motor car race at the Carrigrohane circuit. On that day also was the handicap event for light weight motor cycles under 200cc (won by J. Fouhy, Cork) and the Handicap Munster “Hundred” (won by P.E. Whelan, Dublin), which incorporated the speed championship of Ireland for 350cc (won by F.M. Fox, Dublin) and 500cc machines (won by Louis Carter, Dublin). The Cork Examiner on Monday 19 July reported that Cork driver, W.L. Hennessy, driving a D.K.W., won the race.

The historic brochures in Alan’s possession also record that racing ceased on the Carrigrohane circuit in the late 1950s due to difficulties in closing the road due to more and more houses being built in the area and the potential for accidents. Subsequently, the motor cycle racing went to Vernon Mount whilst for motor car racing enthusiasts the Cork 20 was rebooted in Munster. The latter was and still is an international non-stop 20 hour race, which was an event rooted in the 1920s and 1930s and set up by the Cork District Motor Cycle and Car Club (now the Munster Car Club).

To be continued….

Captions:

598a. Andy O’Brien, the ‘Brown Bomber’, diving at the Lee Baths, 1934 (picture: O’Brien family)

598b. Motor cycles lining up on the Carrigrohane Circuit, 17 July 1954 (picture: Cork City Library)