Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 12 March 2020

Remembering 1920: Outcomes of a Bye-Election

    It was a tale of democracy in action versus the continuation of the violence between opposing sides within the second week of March 1920. On the 10 and 11 March 1920 Sinn Féin candidates Donal O’Callaghan and Barry Egan emerged as victors in the first bye-election post the January 1920 local elections for Cork Corporation. The Cork Examiner reports that Donal had no competition on the ballot paper in the South Ward No.1 Barry Egan fought off just one other candidate Independent Jeremiah Lane – 2,385 first preference votes versus 846 for Jeremiah in the City Centre ward.

   Both Donal O’Callaghan or Donal Óg Ó Ceallacháin and Barry Egan are worthy Corkonians to remark upon in terms of their contribution to promoting Cork in 1920. With a little-known background bar his involvement as a young person in Sinn Féin, Donal within months of the bye-election, would become the third Lord Mayor of Cork in 1920 after Terence MacSwiney’s death from hunger strike. Donal’s life and times will be published upon in a book by UCC’s Dr Aodh Quinlivan later this year.

    Barry Egan’s obituary on his death in 1954 in the Cork Examiner reveals much on his life and times. Born in 1879 Barry Egan was a grandson of the late William Egan, who founded the Egan jewellery firm in 1820. As a young man Barry went to France to learn his trade, and he returned to Cork to improve the standards of church furniture and vestments as manager of the family business in Cork. He revived the ancient and historic craft of the silversmith to the city that was once famous for that art. He loved to show visitors the workshops in his premises on St Patrick’s Street, where vestments and jewellery were made by highly skilled craftsmen and women, whose training he had done to improve. Barry was one of the pioneers of the Irish industrial revival in the early twentieth century.

   Barry Egan was an active member of the Cork Chamber of Commerce with interests as well in tourism promotion. He was a founder also, and a former president, of the Irish Tourist Association, which in the present day has become Fáilte Ireland. Within months of his bye election win, Barry would also become the acting Lord Mayor after Terence MacSwiney’s death on 25 October 1920, become a target of the auxiliaries, flee to Paris for his life and be one of the key champions of rebuilding St Patrick’s Street after the Burning of Cork in December 1920.

   On Thursday morning 11 March 1920, the result of Donal O’Callaghan’s municipal bye-election was announced by a poster from the window of the Sinn Féin Club on the Grand Parade, and there was also hung out an invitation to the public to step inside and see the results of an overnight RIC raid. The announcement bore the words: “Admission Free”.

   Following on the shooting of District Inspector MacDonagh on Wednesday night 10 March 1920, large forces of police and military raided two Sinn Féin clubs mid a number of private houses in Cork. The headquarters of the Sinn Féin organisation in the city was the club at 56 Grand Parade, and this was entered at 2am on Thursday morning, 11 March 1920. The street door was not forced. The police had in some way provided themselves with a key. About fifteen police and soldiers were said to have entered, whilst a larger number awaited developments outside. There was nobody, in the club at the time. The Cork Examiner reporting on it wrote that not a picture remained unbroken, nor a chair nor a table. Five chairs were in the front room, and these appeared to have been broken and swung against the table or floor. Two tables also were broken, and the whole floor was strewn with broken glass. The photo near the door was of Mr J J Walsh, MP, for Cork City, and the glass and frame of this were broken whilst the photo itself bore a mark similar to what might be made by a blow of the butt end of a rifle.

   A picture representing the shooting of Fenian Peter O’Neill Crowley at Kilclooney Wood, East Cork was pulled flown, and the glass and frame were broken; the picture itself was not damaged. The glass and frame of the picture showing a group of the leading spirits of the 1916 Rising were also broken. A similar fate befell the glass frame of a photograph of Madame Maud Gonne McBride. A frame in the front room of the club contained grass and leaves from the grave of Charles Stewart Parnell, Fenian Leader Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa and Easter Rising Director of Arms Michael Joseph O’Rahilly and this was torn down and its contents strewn about.

   Two families lived over the club, and they became alarmed at the noise downstairs. When they heard the crashing of tables, chairs and pictures they thought that a fire had broken out in the building, and that the Fire Brigade were trying to force the door. One of the women rushed on to the stairs with her children, but only to see a policeman with a lighted paper in his hand, and a soldier by his side with a rifle, on the landing below. The policeman shouted up at her and asked if that part of the house was private property and, on her saying that it was they did not come any further. But she and her family, and another woman who lived in the house dressed and sat up for the remaining of the night for fear of another raid on the premises.

Captions:

1039a. Advertisement for Egan’s Silversmiths, St Patrick’s Street, from Cork: Its Trade and Commerce, 1919 (source: Cork City Library).

1039b. Former site of central Sinn Fein Club on the Grand Parade, Cork, present day (picture: Kieran McCarthy).

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 5 March 2020

Remembering 1920: A Home for Sailors

    The annual meeting of the supporters of the Cork Sailor’s Home was held on 2 March 1920 at noon in the Boardroom of the institution at 12 Merchants Quay, Cork. Mr D J Lucy, Chairman of the Cork Harbour Board, presided.

    The report, published in the Cork Examiner, presents another slice of life in the city plus places on the historical record the large value of the Home to sailors and seamen. Since its foundation in 1852, the principal mission of the Home was to lobby the British Admiralty for accommodation for sailors of the Royal Navy, and also of the mercantile community. Seventy-year old Sir John Scott had a long connection over several decades with the Cork Sailor’s Home. He noted that the home had gone through a very trying time during the World War with the high number of wrecks and casualties. The Home was also an asylum for poor sailors whose ships had been torpedoed, and who perhaps had spent days and nights in small boats in the seas. He had seen men who could get clothes in the coast towns coming there in blankets, being taken in, and their comfort provided for. He gave special thanks to the Cork Steam Packet Company who facilitated sailors to get across the Irish Sea to their homes, and to the Ship Wrecked Mariner’s Society, who worked with the Committee in providing for the immediate wants of shipwrecked sailors or those who were in distress.

    Sir John Scott noted that individual championing of stories was important to the Cork Sailor’s Home. An example was given of a sailor, who after a very long foreign voyage, came to the Cork Sailor’s Home and received a welcome. He had nearly £50 the balance of his hard-earned wages with him, which he deposited with the House Steward for safe keep, with the exception of £5 which he kept. He left the Home one evening, as he said, to take a walk round, and two days after he returned without a penny in his pocket und without an overcoat. He was unable to tell what happened his money or his coat, but on leaving he recorded his grateful thanks to the House Steward for the shelter and protection which he had given him.

   Sir John Scott had a long connection with the shipping industry and all aspects maritime. His obituary in the Cork Examiner in 1931 reveals that his grandfather was Edward Scott, a member of an old Cork family who founded Scott Harley and Company in the early nineteenth century and who pursued business in the shipping and ship-building industry. John was knighted in 1892, was Mayor of Cork in 1896 and was successful Commercial candidate in the Local Elections of January 1920.  He was High Sheriff of Cork from 1920 to 1926. For over forty years, he was a member of the General Synod of the Church of Ireland, and during the same period was a trustee and honorary secretary of Cork Fever Hospital. He was a past president of Cork Incorporated Chamber of Commerce and Shipping and was chairman for Cork Unionist Association. He also was a member of the Poor Law Guardians, the Eglinton Lunatic Asylum and a secretary of the Cork Musical Society staging many Gilbert and Sullivan Light Operas at Cork Opera House.

  Sir John Scott urged the governing committee of the Home to make a strong claim on the Admiralty for an increased grant and thanked the public subscribers. Public subscription was important to keep the Cork Sailor’s Home going. The annual report records subscriptions of £67 18s 5d for 1919 with additional grants of Admiralty grants of £45, a bequest fund of £5, and interest in investments totaling £23 11s 5d. At the beginning of the war there was a debt of £13 4s 10d due to the Provincial Bank. The Committee recommended that a special appeal be made to the public to clear £200 to clear off the present debt on the institution and to provide sundry urgent requisites such as bedding, which needed to be replaced after the exceptional strain put upon the Home during the time of the war.

    The duration of the First World War and its end in late 1918 led to thousands of seamen returning home seeking a home, financial support and social support. During 1919 the Cork Sailor’s Home was visited by 2,956 seamen. Of this number 1,855 belonged to the Royal Navy, as against 1,656 in 1918 and 1,356 in 1917. A total of 986 were sailors of the British Mercantile Marine, as against 2,364 in 1918, and 866 in 1917. Individuals numbering 105 belonged to other nationalities, as against 104 in 1917 and 675 for 1918.

   The report regretted to have to record the death of Mr Michael Mullins, who was for 15 years was the faithful House Steward of the Home, and who took a very great personal interest in forwarding its advancement in every possible way. Mr Robert O’Donoghue, Chief Petty Officer, had been appointed House Steward in Michael’s stead. Reference was also made to Dr Philip G Lee, who owing to pressure of his professional work has retired from the position of Honorary Secretary, which he filled for a quarter of a century. Dr Lee was a surgeon for many years at the Victoria Hospital and was assistant surgeon at the Clinic of the Cork Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital. He was also honorary secretary of the local branch of the British Medical Association, physician to Lapp’s Charity. Within the cultural side of the city Dr Lee was one of the original founders of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society, was a member of the Royal Irish Academy and also a member of the Royal Society of Antiquarians. In addition, he gave regular lectures with the Cork Literary and Scientific Society.

Captions:

1038a. Merchant’s Quay, Cork, c.1900 (source: Cork City Library).

1038b. Insurance map of Merchant’s Quay, c.1915 showing Cork Sailor’s Home at no 12 (source: Cork City Library).

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 27 February 2020

Remembering 1920: The Return of the Chaplaincy

    On 13 February 1920 a meeting of the Cork Corporation was held at 3pm. It was the first meeting since the election of Lord Mayor Tomás MacCurtain and its agenda was to fill councillor positions on a variety of City Hall positions. Considerable public interest was taken in the proceedings, and the gallery was crowded long before the business was started. The congestion around the doors became so great that Alderman Daly complained to the Lord Mayor that some of the members were unable to gain admission. Three interesting elements arose in the meeting – the use of the Irish Language, insights into the deportation of IRA prisoners and the re-creation of a Mayoralty Chaplain position.

   The minutes having been read, Cllr Terence MacSwiney said that the resolution on allegiance to Dáil Éireann passed at the previous meeting had not been accurately recorded on the minutes. Alderman Liam de Róiste, who proposed the resolution referred to, spoke in Irish proposing to fix the record of what he proposed at the previous meeting. The minutes and resolution were corrected. Arising out of the debate was the questioning by Councillor Sir John Scott on the use of Irish as he could not understand the language. Lord Mayor MacCurtain noted that the members were quite within their right in addressing the Chamber in Irish.

   The Lord Mayor said that he wished to bring up a matter which he thought the Council should deal with or pass an opinion upon, and that was the manner in which up to eighty men were removed from Cork Prison and deported to somewhere in England, under cover of darkness, and with tanks and aeroplanes and armoured cars for an escort. He thought the Council should express its opinion on that action of a Government that called itself a constitutional Government. He asked some members to deal with the matter.

    Alderman Professor Stockley said that even English papers came out with very strong pro expressions with regard to the deportation of the Lord Mayor of Dublin and before others had been deported. The answer to these English papers, Stockley noted that the Irish people were in his opinion “not living under any law that claimed respect”. He highlighted that the ex-Crown Prince of Germany was to go on trial for deporting Belgians during the war. The act of taking people out of Ireland was according to him was simply making a “mockery of justice and was striking at the root of all respect for law”. He finished with the statement; “as long as Governments are the enemies of the people, the people will he the enemies of the law”.

   The Lord Mayor on the next point noted that about 34 years previously the Cork Corporation had the prerogative of appointing a Chaplain, but for some, reason or other it was allowed to drop into disuse. He had decided to bring it onto use again, and with the consent of His Lordship the Bishop he had appointed Capuchin Fr Dominic O’Connor, OSFC.

   Fr Dominic’s lay name was John Francis O’Connor. He was born on 13 February 1883 in Cork City and was the son of John O’Connor, a teacher, and Mary Ann O’Connor (née Sheehan). The young John was one of six sons and six daughters. Both parents held membership of the Franciscan third (lay) order, and eleven of their children bore the name ‘Francis’ or a variant thereof. Three of the sons became catholic priests, and three of the daughters became nuns. A maternal uncle of young John was a Capuchin priest, Father Luke Sheehan, and was among the order’s first missionaries the early 1900s sent to a newly established diocese in the US state of Oregon.

    John attended Christian Brothers on Sullivan’s Quay, and pursued his secondary education in the Seraphic College, the Capuchin feeder school, in Rochestown. On entering the Capuchin novitiate in Kilkenny town in 1899, John took the name in religion of Dominic. At the Roman Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, he undertook a bachelor’s degree in sacred theology and wrote a study of Francis Nugent, seventeenth-century founder of the Irish Capuchin mission. John or Fr Dominic was ordained a priest at the Kilkenny friary in 1906. He preached in various houses of the Order and undertook missions, and conducted historical research in Ireland, north-east France and Belgium for the papal commission on the beatification of the Irish martyrs of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries such as Oliver Plunkett.

    During the First World War Fr Dominic became a volunteer within the chaplaincy service in the British military. For nearly two years, 1916 to 1917 was part of the 10th (Irish) Division in Macedonia as chaplain to several regiments. On his resignation and coming home to Ireland, he was allotted to the Capuchin’s Holy Trinity friary in Cork city. In 1918 he played an active in organising a counter movement to the proposal of enforced military conscription in Ireland. From 1919 onwards he ministered to local IRA volunteers in the war of independence, becoming the effective chaplain to the Cork No. 1 Brigade, focussed on the city and commanded by Tomás MacCurtain. In late February 1920 he became a chaplain to Tomás MacCurtain’s mayoralty.

Captions:

1037a. Picture of Fr Dominic O’Connor, Chaplain to Lord Mayor Tomás MacCurtain, 1920 (source: (source: Irish Capuchin Provincial Archive).

1037b. Fr Dominic O’Connor (right) with Fr Albert Biddy (left) c.1922, Cork (source: Irish Capuchin Provincial Archive).

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 20 February 2020

Remembering 1920: Calls to Fund Public Health System

   Mid-February 1920 coincided with the annual general meeting of the Committee of Management of the South Infirmary, which was held in the Boardroom of the institution. The annual report was submitted by Mr J C McNamara and gives a further insight into the health care conditions of the time and the calls for investment to support the work of doctors and nurses. The number of patients-treated during the previous year was as follows – external attendances, 8,492; intern patients, 1,190 and the daily average of beds occupied stood at 71 per cent.

    Special attention was made at the meeting of the great services rendered by the hospital during the epidemic of influenza, which swept over the country in February and March 1919. A considerable number of those struck down, Mr McNamara detailed, had not the accommodation or the means for treatment in their own homes. Their only choice in many cases was to flock to their immediate hospital for treatment. Under normal conditions it was not usual or desirable to admit highly infectious diseases into general wards, but in the circumstances, the Committee of the hospital felt that it was the duty of the hospital to render all help possible. Mr McNamara records that the Committee had much pleasure in recording their admiration of the conduct of the nurses on duty in the medical wards during the epidemic. They gave what he described as “an exhibition of courage and self-sacrifice for which no praise can be too high”.

    The annual report, highlights of which were published in the Cork Examiner, praised the work of Dr W P Lehane, House Surgeon, who received much valued assistance from the senior resident students, Mr D Healy and Mr A Buckley. Thanks were also given to the hard-working Matron Sister Mary Albous Fogarty.

   The principal concern of the Hospital Committee was that the expenditure was greater than the income. Public hospital care was free to people. Only for local philanthropists, costs over the previous decades would not have been met or the growth of services within the South Infirmary would not have occurred. The number of free beds available could not have been maintained, nor necessary additions to the buildings carried out. It was even hoped that that the new timber boards with inscribed names on it might inspire more people to donate. Indeed owing to the serious financial position at the beginning of 1919, when £1,395 was due to the bank, the Hospital Committee decided that a special appeal should be made for funds to pay off this very heavy debt. Within a short time £1,143 was received, most of this sum being sent-by the annual subscribers.

   In the annual report, the Hospital Committee made grateful reference to the financial help received from the employees of one of the city’s inns and appealed for a far more generous support from the various staffs of the numerous large establishments in the city and county.

   The students of the hospital organised an open-air Fete and Bazaar and inaugurated a fund for building the Children’s Wards. The good attendance each evening resulted in £1,656 being raised. The report also acknowledged a munificent donation of £100 2s 8d (which is included in the amount, £1,656, already mentioned) from the people of Mallow for the latter fund. The collection was organised by Miss Wallace, a constant and generous friend of the hospital. Architect, Mr J F McMullen had already drawn up plans for the new children’s building, which was also to include two new x-ray rooms. A new porters lodge house was also planned to be built out of the fund.

   Towards the end of 1919 a few members of the Committees of the North and South Infirmaries held a conference or discussion with the Cork United Trades and Labour Council. There, it was pointed out that owing to the enormous rise in fixed cost of maintaining the hospitals, it was necessary, if the full number of beds were to be kept available, that the income must be considerably increased. A call was made that the different societies should arrange regular collections amongst their members, for the benefit of the Infirmaries. A discussion also took place that one penny be given by every worker through the unions towards the maintenance of the North and South Infirmaries. No agreement was reached at that meeting to accept the one penny subscription.

   Rev Dean Babington, in seconding the report, said he had attended two hospital meetings on the previous day and the same problem presented itself as the one which came up there. The problem was not one of want of doctors, nurses, or patients, but of money to keep the institutions going. They were in a period of transition, and he hoped that when prices began to come down, they would be better off than they were before the war. According to the Reverend “the working classes with higher and better standard of living, would be anxious and willing when they took their new place in society, to do their part in supporting the institutions of the country and becoming a subscriber”.

Captions:

1036a. Postcard of former entrance to South Infirmary, c.1910; this main block has now been replaced by the modern hospital (source: Cork City Through Time by Kieran McCarthy & Dan Breen).

1036b. Map of the grounds of South Infirmary, c.1910 (source: Cork City Library)