Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 6 April 2023

Recasting Cork: A New Customs Regime

At midnight on Saturday 31 March 1923, a new customs regime was inaugurated at all Irish southern ports and approved outlets for ship traffic in the Irish Free State. At the appointed time, customs officers, accompanied by searchers, became active. The officers were attired in blue uniforms, embroidered with gold braiding and with peaked caps to match.

  The first vessel to come into Ireland to be examined was the SS Bandon. The ship arrived at Cork’s quaysides before 7am and having berthed, the vessel was at once boarded by customs officers. Luggage, passengers and crew and ships papers were checked. One hour later the SS Olive of the Laird Line, from Heysham, UK, with twenty passengers and cargo arrived. Altogether nine vessels came into Cork’s quaysides on the first day of inspections.

After an interval of 106 years, Irish customs were separated from British customs (into which they were merged in 1817). The Irish Free State assumed full independent control of its fiscal policy – a privilege that had not been enjoyed even under Henry Grattan’s Parliament in the late eighteenth century.

The Irish Free State government under William T Cosgrave took its time to think about a fiscal policy on its own. Many aspects had to be considered so that Ireland could efficiently collect its customs duties. Heretofore customs duties on tea, tobacco, sugar or champagne were collected at London, Bristol and Liverpool. Duties on a small proportion of dutiable goods were also collected at Cork, Waterford and Dublin.

Before April 1923 for British manufacturers the Safe guarding of Industries Act was a key piece of legislation. This measure gave a big preference to British manufacturers as against foreign trade. A tax was applied to Canadian, Australian and South African manufacturers. Ireland lost rather than gained through the operation of that act – for the British manufacturer of articles, which Ireland bought but did not produce had a big preference.

The new customs duties would give Irish manufacturers of goods a certain preference at home. Of course, these goods, if exported, to Great Britain, would have to pay tariffs at the other side. A Cork Examiner editorial on 2 April writes about “loose scare talk” and that thought of economic reprisals should be dismissed; “England is not likely to put a tariff on butter, eggs, beef or bacon; to do so may place the English farmer in a favourite position but the English working man would have to pay the piper. Moreover a British government could not very logically propose reprisals against Ireland for giving trial to a British act of parliament until such time as experience shows how far it ought to be modified… It is highly probable that both the British and Irish governments will find it necessary to alter the existing law. The free trade idea is not dead across the channel, and there are many convinced free traders on this side”.

The following was a list of the principle dutiable articles under the new regulations; tobacco, cigars, cigarettes, spirits, liqueurs, perfumery, beer, coffee, chicory, tea, dried fruit, cocoa, chocolates, sugar and confectionery, molasses and glucose, saccharine, wine, playing cards, musical instruments including gramophones cinematograph films, clocks and watches, gramophone records, wireless, vacuum tubes colour metallic tungsten, compounds of thorium, synthetic organic chemicals, optical instruments, optical glass, scientific glassware, scientific instruments, gauges, matches, table waters on cider, motor cars and accessories, motorcycles, fine chemicals, and laboratory porcelain.

The principle imported articles, which were prohibited were restricted, were extracts of tea, coffee, chicory, and tobacco, foreign reprints of registered copyright works including music come on dogs, arms, ammunition and explosives, prepared opium, cocaine, morphine, diamorphine, heroine and raw and ministerial opium.

In the case of motor cars, every car entering the Irish Free State market that was to be brought via a port or over the boundary of the six counties of Northern Ireland, they would be dutiable to the extent of 33 ½ %. if imported from outside the British Empire, and 22.2% if the place of origin was within the British Empire.

  From the date of the announcement of the new customs duties regulations in late February 1923 there was an intense rush on the part of motor dealers to land the greatest possible number of cars in the Irish Free State before the customs duties were enforced. Urgent appeals for immediate delivery were sent from Ireland to British traders. For many days the quays in Irish ports such as Cork and Dublin were congested by abnormal consignments of cars rushed into the country in an attempt to get ahead of the tariffs barrier.

In practical terms, the importing and exporting of merchandise across the Northern Ireland border was banned apart from through select routes and at select times. Construction began on customs huts and stations along the border. Between 9am and 5pm daily, except on Sundays, railway stations were open for the authorisation of merchandise. Farm produce was exempt, as was the exclusion of household furniture and small domestic supplies of non-dutiable goods.

As a result of the Common Travel Area agreed between the British and Irish Free State governments earlier in 1923, there was free movement of people. However, those who crossed the border had their person and personal effects checked to stop smuggling.

Kieran’s April Tours (free, no booking required):

Saturday 15 April 2023, The Friar’s Walk; Discover Red Abbey, Elizabeth Fort, Barrack Street, Callanan’s Tower & Greenmount area; Meet at Red Abbey tower, off Douglas Street, 2pm.

Caption:

1196a. St Patrick’s Quay, Cork, c.1900 by Cork Camera Club (source: Cork Public Museum).

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 30 March 2023

Recasting Cork: Public Health and the Cost of Living

February and March 1923 coincided with a number of important reports published in the Cork Examiner on daily life in Cork. In late February, at a Cork Corporation Public Health Committee, Dr D Donovan reported that 71 case of diphtheria had been notified as against 29 cases the previous year. Dr Donovan commented that the Corporation was partly responsible for its spread through improper dumping of refuse in suburban locations. Cork Corporation was heavily dependent upon heavy rain to clean the streets and wash the sewers.

Conditions of sites such as the Mardyke stream were commented on by the Public Health Committee. A sum of £2,000 had been spent on improving it but the bed of the stream was in a poor state. At a late March 1923 meeting, the Corporation’s City Water Analyst, Mr D J O’Mahony, reported on the analysis of water supplied to him. One sample taken at 5 Anderson’s Quay came back as being of the lowest drinking quality. The principal problem was that the river water was being contaminated upstream by the growing number of houses in the River Lee valley and its tributaries.

On 22 March 1923, a committee of the Commission on Prices appointed by Dáil Éireann sat at Cork Courthouse to inquire into the current cost and profits of foodstuffs, including meat, bread and flour, milk and potatoes, vegetables, fruit, porter and stout.  There was a general concern that the cost of living was higher in Cork that in any city in the Irish Free State or in Great Britain. The Commission wished to interview interested citizens so that the exact facts could be brought to the fore.

The members of the committee present were Messrs C K Murphy (chairman), George Murphy, and Miss E Lyndon. A number of volunteer witnesses were called. Many noted that prices varied across the city especially vegetables. Some of the findings, which emerged, found that that the price of local food commodities were not fixed, but were dependent a good deal on locality and the state of mind of the vendor. Two housekeepers, who gave evidence before the Committee noted that in their experience prices varied very much, and especially the prices for meat in the Grand Parade Market. One witness noted that she sought a piece of mutton and she was asked 1s 8d at one stall, 1s. 10d at another, but eventually she bought mutton at a third stall for 1s 6d.

One of the witnesses said she found that some articles of food were always much cheaper in St Patrick’s Street than in some other parts of the city, her opinion being that shopkeepers elsewhere put on a few pence per pound for conveying food stuffs to her suburban district.

In the same week as the sittings of the food commission, the annual public meeting of the Cork Child Welfare League was held at the Victoria Hotel. Established in 1918, it was funded by public subscription with the main bulk of funding coming from Cork Corporation, Roman Catholic Bishop Daniel Cohalan and a fundraising committee within Ford tractor works.

For over five years the League had been working closely with families in Cork districts where the mortality rates amongst children was high and where the purchase of foodstuffs was limited. The chairman Mr J M White commented that the League had been very useful over its time. For seven years previous to the formation of the League the annual child death rate was 12 per cent, but five years after the formation of the League that rate had been reduced to 9 per cent. A total of 59 deaths were commented upon in the report with pneumonia and influenza being prominent causes.

The report detailed that overcrowding in housing was constantly increasing. Many houses were unfit for habitation and some really unfit. The report noted the need for a children’s care home – “a home for feeble-minded children is urgently needed in the city, where these little sufferers can get rest, quiet and sympathetic care”.

Unemployment was also commented on. It had caused much hardship and distress especially amongst women and children; “The women and children bear the brunt of the suffering, and the staple diet of many of them is bread and tea, and hardly enough of that. This is extremely bad for growing children, both mentally and physically, and it is important to expect a strong, healthy race when the youth of the nation, in addition to having its nerves shattered by the troublous times, is improperly nourished”.

A total of 1,108 babies and 213 ante-natal cases were added to the books of the League over the previous year. Over 7,659 infants were treated in three centres in the city over the 1922-1923 period, and over 2,000 mothers received advice. No less than over 7,247 visits were paid to the homes of mothers.

Many children who were left weak after influenza or measles were kept on milk by the League until they were restored to health. That was despite that over 93 per cent of the babies visited by the League were breast fed. Many parents were unable to afford the necessary quantity of milk and bread. A total of 404 families received 32, 926 quarts of milk and 1,744 pairs of bread at a cost of over £568.

Kieran’s April Tours (free, no booking required):

Saturday 1 April 2023, Shandon Historical Walking Tour,meet at North Main Street/ Adelaide Street Square, opp Cork Volunteer Centre, 2pm, in association with the Cork Lifelong Learning Festival.  

Sunday 2 April 2023, The Cork City Workhouse; meet just inside the gates of St Finbarr’s Hospital, Douglas Road, 2pm, with the Cork Lifelong Learning Festival.

Saturday 15 April 2023, The Friar’s Walk; Discover Red Abbey, Elizabeth Fort, Barrack Street, Callanan’s Tower & Greenmount area; Meet at Red Abbey tower, off Douglas Street, 2pm.

Caption:

1195a. The Mardyke, Cork, c.1900 (source: Cork Public Museum).

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 23 March 2023

Recasting Cork: Spring Skirmishes in Cork City

Robbery, sniping and arson were all part of the Anti-Treaty IRA movement in Cork City in March 1923. From late February 1923, several postal pillar boxes in Cork were closed off. Of the ninety odd pillar boxes and wall boxes in the city, about forty were not in use. They were closed by the postal authorities in order to safeguard public property and correspondence. During hold-ups the keys of those boxes were taken from the postmen and consequently there was no alternative but to close those boxes until new locks could be fitted.

The Cork Examiner records that on 5 March 1923 at 9pm members of the National Army at the Cork terminus of the Cork Bandon Railway were sniped at, and one soldier was rather seriously wounded. The shots – seven or eight in all – were fired from the ruins of the City Hall, the fire being directed chiefly at the sentries on duty at the gates of the railway. None of the sentries were hit, but Michael Sullivan, a married man, employed as engine-driver on an armoured train, who was returning to the station and was near the gates when the shots were fired was wounded. A bullet struck him in the thigh, passing clean through and fracturing the bone. He was removed to the Mercy Hospital for treatment.

With the exception of a few panes of glass being broken, no other damage was caused by the snipers, who ceased to fire when the troops opened fire in their direction. A few minutes after the attack matters were again quiet. One arrest was made.

On 8 March shortly after 8pm, the Cork Examiner records that Commandant Scott of the National Army was seriously wounded at Blarney Street. He had just arrived at the residence of Mrs Powell, a sister of Michael Collins, when an attempt by Anti-Treaty IRA volunteers to burn the house down, was initiated. The house was saturated with petrol and oil and those involved were ready to set the house alight. Even the children, who had been in bed, had been ordered out by the raiders. When the Commandant knocked at the door, the door was opened by one of the raiders, a youth of less than twenty years of age. The lad, recognising that a miliary officer was standing at the door, immediately whipped out a revolver and fired point blank at Scott, hitting him in the right arm.

Several shots followed, the disturbance being the signal for the raiding party to get away as speedily at possible. They exited the house and got away under fire from Commandant Scott’s escort. One of the raiders that was captured was in possession of a Webley revolver and six rounds of ammunition, two of which had just been fired. Commandant Scott was operated at in the Mercy Hospital. One of his bones in his right arm was fractured.

On 12 March, a raid on a sweet shop on Penrose Quay in a disused loft – the property of the Cork Steam Packet Company – four canvas life-belts were discovered. The cork was removed from the life-belts and Thompson ammunition was found inside. The four belts contained 2,108 rounds. In another nearby raid, 1,000 rounds of Thompson gun ammunition were found concealed.

Elsewhere telegram wires were cut at Glasheen Road. Troops were at once on the scene and fired a few shots after the raiders who got away across the adjacent countryside. In the same day in the course of a search in Donoughmore, a six cylinder Buick car was discovered covered with Furze bushes. An empty dug-out was also found.

On 13 March in a raid in a sweet shop near Parnell Bridge, fourteen rounds of ammunition were found and some anti-treaty literature. A Miss Nolan was arrested. On the same day an ammunition dump complete with revolvers and two bombs was discovered near the wall of Mayfield Chapel. The intention was to use them in a night attack on troops passing Dillon’s Cross.

On 14 March, William Healy, 52 Dublin Street, was executed. He was arrested under arms during a raid on a house on Blarney Street. He was court-martialled on a charge of possession of arms and was executed by firing squad at Cork County Gaol on Western Road. On 16 March, Mr William G Beale, aged 52, and unmarried, residing at Elm Grove, Ballyvolane Road, and a member of the well-known form of Harris and Beale, Grand Parade, was shot and seriously wounded near his residence by men who stated that the act was a reprisal for William’s execution.

On 20 March 1923 the Cork Examiner records that an extensive raid was carried out on the Cork Lunatic Asylum. In the course of an extensive search a number of revolvers and several rounds of ammunition were discovered behind the fireplace in a room occupied by Warden Fitzgerald. In a room a large quantity of field dressing was captured as well as a bundle of seditious literature in one of the wardresses’ rooms. An empty Mills bomb case was found in another room. The warder Jerry Fitzgerald with four of his male staff George Wycherly, Charles Hyde and John Murphy were arrested. Three wardresses were arrested, who were all prominent members of the Anti-Treaty Cumann na mBan. They were Kathleen O’Sullivan, Miss N Connolly and Miss H Clery.

In addition, on 20 March 1923, an attempt was made to destroy the residence of Maurice Healy, solicitor, Ballintemple, by fire by a number of men, some of whom were armed. Petrol was freely sprinkled in the upper storey and set alight. The incendiaries, apparently fearing being surprised while on their work of destruction, retired rather hastily. A member of the household, with the aid of chemicals, soon had the fire quenched. Little damage was done beyond two rooms and the corridor being slightly scorched by the flames.

Kieran’s April Tours (free, no booking required):

Saturday 1 April 2023, Shandon Historical Walking Tour,meet at North Main Street/ Adelaide Street Square, opp Cork Volunteer Centre, 2pm, in association with the Cork Lifelong Learning Festival.  

Sunday 2 April 2023, The Cork City Workhouse; meet just inside the gates of St Finbarr’s Hospital, Douglas Road, 2pm, with the Cork Lifelong Learning Festival.

Saturday 15 April 2023, The Friar’s Walk; Discover Red Abbey, Elizabeth Fort, Barrack Street, Callanan’s Tower & Greenmount area; Meet at Red Abbey tower, off Douglas Street, 2pm.

Caption:

1194a. Liam Healy executed on 13 March 1923 (picture: Cork City Library).