Well done to the recent awardees of Cork Royal Lifesaving Club, based in Douglas Swimming Pool, who visited the Lord Mayor’s Office to receive their medals and certificates last Wednesday (26 January 2010). Among them was my own dad, John. Well done to all!
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town
Cork Independent, 27 January 2011
A National Shop Window
It must have been an impressive site. Certainly the daily newspaper reports in the Cork Examiner and Evening Echo for the summer of 1932 record an energetic effort to draw attention to the aims of the Irish Industrial and Agricultural Fair. Adjacent the Straight Road was over 83 acres of ideas promoting Ireland and all its different parts from native industries to highlighting the Irish way of life. All went a long way in trying to define the emerging national spirit of the Irish Free State. Even the grounds were lit up by rows of tiny overhead lights of national colours of green, white and yellow.
It is quite apparent from the newspaper coverage of the time that the fair committee worked hard to get the crowds in and came up with different themes and ideas in that regard. Over 50,000 people in the first two weeks visited in the first two weeks of the six month run. Conscious of the fact that the fair was on the edge of the City, a new wide footpath was built along the Straight Road. The motor car visitor could park in an organised car park, which accommodated upwards of 3,000 cars under the supervision of the Fair authorities. Special exhibition buses, operated by the Irish Omnibus Company, ran from the city centre to and from the grounds. Special trains running from the western road terminus of the Muskerry Light Railway ran in the evenings to the site and back again.
Efforts were made to bring people from as far as possible. In May, an official of the fair went to meet all the liners coming in at Cobh and spoke to the visitors to get them to visit the fair. By early June, wireless messages were sent to all the liners as they entered Cork harbour. On the 11 June, the following message was sent out today to the M.V. Britannic “Executive Council of Ireland’s National Exhibition, at Cork extends a hearty welcome to all visitors, and co-ordially invite them to see Ireland’s greatest industrial enterprise, covering over 83 acres of exhibits.”
Excursions from Irish towns were encouraged. For example on the 7 May 1932, 240 people from Navan visited. For the 29 June 1932, which was a church holiday, a large number of excursions from towns were arranged from Naas, from West Cork taking in people from Bantry, Skibbereen, Clonakilty, from Kerry taking in people from Tralee and Kenmare and from East Cork, taking in people from Midleton and Youghal. The 29 June was also the day that Eamonn DeValera came to Cork to lay the foundation stone of the new City Hall (opened officially in 1936, celebrating 75 years this year). A number of cross-channel trips to the exhibition were arranged as well as day excursions from England. Most of the UK visitors were from London, Bristol and South Wales. On the 15 June, 30 English tourists came over on the Inishfallen in the early morning taking advantage of the cheap day excursions arranged by the City of Cork Steam Packet Company. Information was also recorded that a number of people from South Africa, New Zealand and Australia visited the grounds, took a keen interest in the Irish goods displayed and made arrangements for samples to be sent home for them.
There was a miniature railway that was installed to take children around the grounds of the Fair. However in May at least 75 per cent of its occupants were adults. A children’s nursery or crèche was managed for ‘tired’ children. They could be left in the care of skilled attendants at the crèche. The crèche was administered with the co-operation of the Cork Child Welfare League. Huge efforts were also made to engage school going children in the Fair project. As essay competition on Irish Free State had alot of entries from Cork Schools and presentations were made by the then Minister of Education, Mr. Patrick Ruttledge. He, nine years previously had been appointed as Minister of Home Affairs, or Eamonn DeValera’s substitute when DeValera was arrested in July 1923 (released in 1924).
The 8 June 1932 was a special day for school children. Special arrangements were made with the railway authorities for reduced fares from all stations throughout the country. On the same day, the fair committee organised a sports display with drills taking place in the sports ground attached to the fair. It was led by a Mr. Bygrove. On the 18 June, a national school sports day was held with hundreds of children from most of the city schools taking part. They assembled in the city centre, were accompanied by bands and marched in processional order to the fair grounds. They carried banners with such inscriptions as “Buy Irish”, “Come to the Fair” and “An t-Aonach Abu”. Indeed on the grounds of the dair as well was a kiosk where a fluent Irish speaker answered any questions in Irish. In that kiosk a visitor’s book was kept where the signature of the Irish-speaking visitors were gathered. It aimed to show the extent of influence and earnestness of the supporters of the language movement throughout the country.
To be continued…
Wanted: Any stories of the 1932 Fair, photographs, memorabilia? Thanks
Captions:
575a. Media ad for Irish Industrial and Agricultural Fair, May 1932 (source: Cork City Library)
575b. Ad for Johnson and Perrott Ltd., in the Fair Catalogue, 1932 (Source: Cork Museum)
Planning Unit,
Cork City Council,
Cork City Hall,
Cork.
26 January 2011
Reference Number: TP 1034698, Beamish and Crawford Site
Dear Mr. Terry,
I refer to the proposed Beamish and Crawford development and wish to outline my objections to same.
· As the outset, this is a significant site in Cork’s historic core. – Being in the area where the city began over 1,000 years, the impact of this site and the precedent that this development will set on how the city perceives and harnesses its heritage and history is highly problematic for the future.
· The impact of the proposed development on the underlining archaeology is understated in the planning file. The case could be argued that this site has similar findings as those that were discovered in the Grand Parade City Car Park over the last number of years.
· The visual impact of this proposed development is enormous where it will encroach on views of the river, St. Finbarre’s Cathedral and Elizabeth Fort from southern and eastern perspectives. Even views from the fort will be affected by this enormous development.
· The proposal of student apartments with no provision for car parking will cause enormous car parking problems in the city centre.
· The proposed event centre and its proposed audience capacity will also create enormous traffic problems in this part of town, which cannot carry the volume of traffic that will ultimately travel through and park in the area.
I call for this proposal to be rejected, that the proposal should be scaled back and better thought out so that it integrates in a proper way into the historic core of the city.
yours sincerely,
_______________
Kieran McCarthy,
Cllr Kieran McCarthy
Report, Irish Business Against Litter
I wish to respond to the Irish Business Against Litter Report.
I agree and disagree with the findings. Ultimately this is one person’s opinion and is based on a day trip to Cork. At the outset, this is a weak report and I say this because the report is in the public eye – there is no reference to what the Council is doing or acknowledgement of any economic context or any acknowledgement of work carried out over the last year since the last report. That’s disappointing.
Giving the report an evaluated read, the average grade from looking at the sites they have given us seems to be a grade b and so I am at odds to know how come we’re 52nd out 53 towns surveyed.
The statement “The Council will have to motivate the residents to play their part, not through the usual media channels, but through personal face to face contact.” is a difficult one to say the least.
An aim such as that brings its own problems in terms of staff resources –
There is a general consensus that overall the public relations used to raise awareness of the environment and litter amongst the general Cork citizen is weak. Many in this Chamber have pushed for more public awareness, more action to be taken on aspects such as dog fouling, that the Council needs to be seen more in its public parks, fine people more; last night in the cinema, the litter hotline ad sponsored by Cork City Council was on before the film but compared to other ads, it’s outdated and needs upgrading.
However, on the other extreme, we have an international environment and science centre in terms of the Lifetime Lab, which is influencing positively the hearts and minds of our young people. We have nearly 40 schools in Cork City and County that have the green flag which is nearly better than door to door contact. Reference was not made in the IBAL report to this.
The report does bring up a number of issues that have been raised time and again in this chamber and have been debated. Again no reference has been made to this in the report.
On Approach roads – yep I have stood up on three occasions now to speak about one such approach road, that of Silversprings dual carriage way– past the City boundaries from the Coat of Arms to the Dunkettle roundabout – there is huge overgrowth over the wire safety barrier… litter… rusted frames for signs…. not collected…. it looks terrible. It is those little things that visitors look at – first impressions of this city are so important. And I don’t buy the fact that it is the County Council’s problem – the tax payer doesn’t use different kinds of currency in the city and county to pay for services. Definitely we need more of a partnership approach.
As for the Lee Fields, as a green space, it is kept immaculate by the Council for a space that is over 75 years in Council ownership. I think the carpark that is located halfway up on the Straight Road, visually is a disaster – a dirty concrete wall surrounding a pot holed car park –then you have the concrete wasteland of the Victoria Cross carpark – these sites do no justice to the surrounding context of the beautiful Lee Fields
There is one item which the report mentions that has been discussed at length in the chamber the last couple of months – Dereliction and the surrounding grottiness that comes with that – certainly, this Council needs to look at how to strengthen our hand in terms of enforcing building owners to clean up their properties and even secure them safely as was brought up earlier on in the question section for example in terms of the Southern Road wall.
In terms of this Irish Business Against Litter Report, it needs critiquing and responding to in a proper manner; this City Council from what I can see from the hard work of the environment department is doing very good work against a backlash of funding cutbacks – I think more can be done to bring its work into the public eye alot more. There is a perception in some quarters that no work is being done to look after the city’s environment. I beg to differ with that argument and would like to encourage a more in your face litter and environment awareness campaign.
Kieran’s Motions and Question to the City Manager, Cork City Council Meeting, 24 January 2011
Motions:
That the Council close the laneway behind Inchera Park, Mahon, due to ongoing anti-social behaviour? (Cllr K McCarthy)
To attain from the Planning Directorate a report on the status of activity of CASP (Cllr K McCarthy)
Question to the City Manager:
To ask the manager about the status of repair of the collapsed wall on Southern Road (Cllr K McCarthy)
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town,
Cork Independent,
20 January 2011
The Bantry Band
It is amazing the tangents one is presented with when studying the Irish Industrial and Agricultural Fair 1932 especially its deeper roots in linking to Ireland’s past. Last week, the column talked about the chequered career of William Martin Murphy and the founding of the Irish Independent, which was represented at a stand on the grounds of the fair.
I mentioned in passing William’s interest in politics and his MP role. To flesh that out, Denis Kirby emailed me to highlight that William was one of “The Bantry Band” of young men from Bantry who were all Westminster MPs. Daniel Sullivan, a house painter from Bantry, was the founder the Bantry Temperance band, an actual musical band of about 25 members. They took part in Daniel O’Connell’s famous “monster meeting” in Skibbereen in June 1843. The “monster” meeting comprised many thousands of supporters attending to campaign for the repeal of the Act of Union and for a separate Dublin parliament. However contemporary accounts of the numbers of people present in Skibbereen to hear O’Connell’s case for repeal vary from 75,000 upwards.
Support for Daniel O’Connell’s aspirations was strong in West Cork. The Bantry Band was in time a title given to the group of young men from Bantry who all went on to be MPs in Westminster at around the same time. Amongst those well-known in the Bantry Band and who went on to contribute to the Irish political landscape were Tim Harrington, Thomas Healy, Tim Healy, Alexander Martin Sullivan and his brother Timothy Daniel Sullivan. Tim Harrington (1851-1910) was secretary and chief organiser of the Irish National League (INL), supporter of Charles Stewart Parnell and was largely responsible for planning the agarian plan of campaign in 1886. The campaign was a strategy adopted in Ireland between 1886 and 1891, co-ordinated by Irish politicians to help tenant farmers, stand up against mainly absentee and rack-rent landlords. Bad weather in 1885 and 1886 also caused crop failure, making it difficult to pay rents. The Land War of the early 1880s was rekindled after evictions increased and outrages became widespread.
Thomas Healy (1854–1924) was a solicitor and Member of Parliament (MP) for North Wexford. His younger brother Tim Healy (1855–1931) was a prominent Irish nationalist. Later he became a Home Rule MP in Westminster and led a faction of the party after it split in 1891. He became the first Governor-General of the Irish Free State.
The sons of the founder of the band, Daniel Sullivan, were Alexander Martin Sullivan (1830-1884) and Timothy Daniel Sullivan (1827-1914) both Irish nationalists, journalists and politicians. In time, they owned The Nation newspaper an Irish nationalist weekly newspaper. In 1888 Timothy Daniel Sullivan started The Irish Catholic, not William Martin Murphy as I alluded to last week. In an email to me by Timothy’s great grandson Denis Kirby, he noted also that Timothy (1827-1914) was also well known as a writer, poet and songwriter. His better known songs were “God Save Ireland” and “Deep in Canadian Woods”. “God Save Ireland” was used as an unofficial Irish national anthem for Irish nationalists from the 1870s to the 1910s. During the Parnellite split it was the anthem of the anti-Parnellite Irish National Federation. The song was first published on the 7 December 1867 and was inspired by Edmund O’Meager Condon’s speech from the dock when he stood trial along with Fenian members Michael Larkin, William Phillip Allen, and Michael O’Brien (‘Manchester Martyrs’) for the murder of a British police officer. After the three were executed, the song was adopted as the Fenian movement’s anthem. The song shares its tune with “Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!” (The Prisoner’s Hope)” a song reportedly written in 1864 by George F. Root in response to conditions in the Andersonville Prison, a Confederate prison during the American Civil War. “God Save Ireland” was the unofficial national anthem of the Irish Republic and the Irish Free State from 1919 to 1926, when it was displaced by the official Amhrán na bhFiann.
Interestingly and to go off on another tangent Amhrán na bhFiann was composed by Peadar Kearney and Patrick Heeney, and the original English lyrics were authored (as “A Soldiers’ Song”) by Peadar. It was used as marching song by the Irish Volunteers and was sung by rebels in the General Post Office (GPO) during the Easter Rising of 1916. Its popularity rose among rebels held in Frongoch internment camp after the Rising, and the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in the Irish War of Independence (1919–21). It was translated into Irish in 1923 by Liam Ó Rinn. On 12 July 1926, W.T. Cosgrave, President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State agreed to adopt its as the National Anthem. It was played with prominence at the opening of the 1932 fair in Cork.
As another important tangent, a remarkable number of Timothy Daniel Sullivan’s descendants were people of outstanding distinction: his son Timothy was Chief Justice of Ireland from 1936 to 1946, his grandson Kevin O’Higgins was one of the dominant political figures of the 1920s and his great-grandson Thomas O’Higgins was Chief Justice from 1974 to 1985.
To be continued…
My thanks to Denis Kirby for his insights
Captions:
574a. Timothy Daniel Sullivan (1827-1914), MP, writer, composer of God Save Ireland (picture: Cork City Library)
574b. Tim Healy (1855–1931), First Governor General of Ireland (Library of Congress, Washington D.C.)
Kieran’s Motions and Question to the City Manager and, Cork City Council Meeting, 10 January 2010
Motions:
That an information panel on the monument be placed on the National Monument on the Grand Parade (Cllr K. McCarthy).
In light of the successful 2010 90th Anniversary events commemorating the deaths of Lord Mayors MacCurtain and MacSwiney and in light of the 75th anniversary in 2011 of the opening of City Hall, that facsimile copies of the documents and photographs that were on display in the Millennium Hall and other copies of documents highlighting the development of City Hall be displayed in the corridor outside the Lord Mayor’s office in the spare display cabinets that were made available for the November 2010 Millennium Hall exhibition from the Museum (Cllr K. McCarthy).
Question to the Manager:
To ask the manager to give a breakdown of the income and expenditure for the recent Cork Christmas Celebration on the Grand Parade? (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,
Cork Independent, 6 January 2011
Through the Agricultural Hall
Continuing our imagined walk through the Irish Industrial and Agricultural Fair held on the Straight Road in 1932, the archived fair catalogues reveal much about what was on display but also the aims of the fair. The promotion of Ireland and its ideas, enterprises and manufactures was a priority.
One of the central buildings in the fair was the Agricultural Hall. In 1932 approximately 53% of the working population in the country was employed in the agricultural sector (c.6 % in 2010). Most Irish farmers owned their own land, some 11 million acres having been purchased as a result of the Land Acts of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In addition Ireland had a strong dependence on Britain to export its agricultural produce.
The Agricultural Hall showcased the work of the young State’s Department of Agriculture. Their exhibit encompassed the development of several phases of Irish agriculture such as the improvement in live stock, increased production in poultry, better methods of marketing, the improvement of agricultural seeds, manures and cereals, the increase in forestry plantation areas, the nature of the agricultural education provided for children in the Irish Free State under the Department’s educational schemes as well as illustrations of some of the activities of the agricultural staffs of University Colleges Cork, Dublin and Cork.
As a context, historians such as Diarmuid Ferriter and Joe Lee, through their publications, reveal that ten years previously to 1932 one of the first acts of the new Irish Free State government was to develop Irish agriculture. Sugar beet production was begun and standards were applied to all butter and egg production. An Egg Act was passed in 1925 standardising all egg exports for testing and preservation methods. A Dairy Production Act was passed in 1924 requiring registry and packaging standards for all butter and milk products. A Bull Act was passed requiring licensing and inspection of all bulls, some 18,000 animals, for their suitability for breeding. This act applied to pigs, horses and rams as well.
The exhibit in the poultry section at the Cork fair was designed to indicate the progress that had been made in egg production. That was shown through the results obtained from the different breeds of poultry entered in the egg laying competitions in the nearby Munster Institute on the Model Farm Road from 1913 to 1931. In the marketing section of the fair, a model egg store was displayed, which showed the layout and equipment required for an egg store registered for the testing, grading and packing of eggs for export. During the period of the fair, the Department of Agriculture conducted classes in the section for the purpose of training pupils in the grading, testing and packing of eggs.
In the livestock exhibit, photographs illustrated the different breeds of live stock throughout the Irish Free State and the improvement brought about by the Department’s Live Stock Schemes. Diagrams and graphs showed the annual value of the live stock export trade and the development of the cow testing schemes. Maps and photographs also illustrated the work carried out at the Department of Agriculture’s forestry stations and the development of the various types of forest trees at these and at other centres throughout the country. Initially, the Irish Free State carried out most tree planting to stop Ireland’s deforestation and to decrease Ireland’s timber dependency. Most of the new state forests were grown on mountain land and consisted mainly of ‘exposure-tolerant’, fast-growing conifers.
Four years previous to the Cork fair, a new Forestry Act was introduced to restrict the felling of trees. This was the first time the State took measures to control the felling of trees and empower the Minister of Agriculture to force the replanting of felled areas. The Act also empowered the Minister to provide non-refundable grants to private landowners. The first planting grants were made available in 1931. By this time there were only 220,000 acres of woods in the country and any new forest planting that occurred was undertaken almost exclusively by the State. Perhaps one of the most famous afforestation projects in the Lee Valley was that of the initial 350 acres of forest planted in Gougane Barra in 1938. The plantings were largely of Lodgepole Pine, Sitka Spruce and Japanese Larch, three species that thrive in poorer soils and stand up well to exposure. The Sitka Spruce, native to a narrow coastal belt from Alaska to California is particularly resistant to constant winds and suits a wide range of soils. Lodgepole Pine, is so called because the North American Indians used its stems as poles for their wigwams while the Japanese Larch is quite distinct in its appearance as a soft feathery light-green needle tree.
Almost all of the new afforestation was undertaken by the state up until the Second World War when afforestation rates naturally fell. Once again demand for fuel and timber resulted in large-scale deforestation. The Forestry Act of 1946 introduced a comprehensive legal framework for forestry in Ireland. This was accompanied by a government policy to increase the rate of afforestation to 10,000 acres per annum, again pursued principally by the State.
To be continued…
Captions:
572a. Photograph of Fair grounds on the Straight Road, Cork 1932 (source: Archive of Iona National Airways, Dublin)
572b. Sketch of Agricultural Hall, from the Fair Catalogue 1932 (source: Cork Museum)
Kieran’s critique article,
“Putting Appartments on Site of Cork’s birth is a Travesty”
that appeared in the Evening Echo, Cork,
3 January 2011, p.18
Planning permission was recently lodged with Cork City Council for the redevelopment of the four acre Beamish and Crawford site on South Main Street. The plan encompasses a 6,000 seat event centre, a ‘brewing experience’ visitor centre, 30,000 sq, feet of office space, 250 student beds, a viewing tower, cinemas, shops and restaurants.
I have been open in my concerns about the re-development of the Beamish and Crawford site. This site has enormous cultural and tourism potential. I am not happy with the scale of the proposed development and I am annoyed because this is where Cork began and a developer is going to put apartments and office blocks on the vast majority of it. I have been open and tolerant to many modern developments in our city during the boom years but not with this one. I do not want an office block style development destroying the foundations of the civic memory of the city.
Way back in the early 1980s, Cork Corporation made the great decision to create Beamish Lucey Park – providing a space to showcase the city’s medieval past in terms of the incorporation of the foundations of the town wall and highlighting Cork 800 and the city’s charter in 1185 through John Behan’s sculptured eight swans on the fountain; sculptural pieces by Seamus Murphy were added in as well as the old Cornmarket Gates that once stood in the backyard of Cork City Hall. The Beamish and Crawford site can be a similar cultural project. This is where over 1000 years ago, someone physically ‘broke their back’ whilst sinking their wooden materials into a swamp to start the process of reclamation and what we know as Cork today. Possibly this is where Dún Corcaighe, the Viking fort, which was attacked in 848 AD by an Irish chieftain, once stood. Recent excavations on the Grand Parade City Car Park site revealed that the people living in the 1100s actually moved the river channel that ran through the site to allow for timber housing and thus created the present south channel in the area. In one pit dug by archaeologists they found a wooden quayside dating to 1160 and in another found the remains of four houses, each demolished to make way for the next one over the space of 50 years between 1100-1150 AD.
Cork is the only settlement in Ireland that has experienced every phase of urban growth. Hence I could go and in depth mention the creation of South Main Street in the era of the walled town, the foundation of the Beamish and Crawford brewery in 1792 and the businesses that lined the adjacent street during the centuries. This is a place of tradition, of continuity, change and legacy, of ambition and determination, engineering ingenuity, survival and experimentation. But it is not a place I strongly feel for student accommodation and office blocks.
I’m always very disappointed when the city’s early heritage is discovered and for the most part is covered over. For example Queen’s Castle, the tower shown in the city’s Coat of Arms, was excavated and encased in concrete in 1996 and still lies under Castle Street. One had the Crosses Green apartment complex, the remains of a Dominican Friary were discovered in 1993 but no remains were incorporated. I am reminded at this juncture if you go to places like Galway, they have successfully incorporated the remnants of their town wall into Eyre Square Shopping Centre, they have also incorporated their built heritage into Eyre Square. Or venture further afield to York where they have developed a Viking interpretative centre on the site of their old Viking town or go to Munich city centre where they have an enormous transport and science museum/ centre.
There seems to be a sense to certain developers in this city that heritage is something that cannot be harnessed or that it is not something unique or exciting or maybe that generally people want to live in a place that looks the same as some other cities in the world. I can say the following from giving walking tours of this city for 17 years that people don’t come to Cork or Ireland because it is the same as other places. Tourists want to come here to see something different and to learn something new. Despite having great venues such as the Lifetime Lab or Blackrock Castle, there is no venue in the city centre that tells the story of Cork’s evolution, revealing the city’s sense of place, pride and identity. I also feel that the promotional heritage frameworks that are in place are not good enough for a city that has a European Capital of Culture and a Lonely Planet accolade ‘under its belt’.
I honestly believe we need a new framework for the harnessing of our built, our cultural heritage and our very identity. We need new ideas and not apartment blocks that eradicate the immense cultural legacy that the Beamish and Crawford site possesses. This site provides an enormous opportunity to pull a focus back on South Main Street which dates back 1200 years but in our time is rotting away with filthy laneways and dereliction. The proper redevelopment of this site into a four acre cultural tourism hub would also help in pulling focus on the new Christ Church development, the Meitheal Mara boat project and the new South Parish Local Area Plan. In an age of the recession, there is an opportunity through the Beamish and Crawford site to foster our tourism and cultural sector which I feel has not been adequately opened up. There is an enormous cultural and economic opportunity to be missed if the development of this site is messed up.