One hundred years ago, in early May 1918 the upper portion of No.1 Barrack Street showed physical signs of serious deterioration and a portion of it was ordered by the engineering department of Cork Corporation to be taken down. Today, the gap in the building line is clearly visible in front of Fordes Pub, at the intersection of Sullivan’s Quay and South Gate Bridge. The Barrack Street Band started in the upper part of the premises. The premises was a focal point for the band took part in various political or social incidents. For nearly 80 years it was the rallying place for large sections of the people of the city’s south ward whose interests were identical with those of the band.
Founded in 1838 and inpired by the work of Fr Theobald Mathew, the band room and its associated temperance hall recruitment space was one of the first Cork recruiting quarter for the temperance cause. By the end of 1838, it is argued that 6,000 people were recorded on the temperance pledge register in the Cork region through the springing up of other local recruitment spaces and band spaces. The lead organisers on Fr Mathew’s campaign in the early months were James McKenna and William Martin. John Hockings, a leading teetotaller campaigner in Birmingham was also invited over to lecture to teetotallers in Cork.
By 1839, the temperance movement began to gain popular support in rest of the country. Branches were organised in surrounding towns. These included Passage, Cobh, Aghada, Whitegate, Blarney, Cloyne, Midelton, Carrigtwohill, Glanmire, Fermoy, Rathcormac, Riverstown, Ladysbridge and Carrigaline. John O’Connell was primarily involved in visiting these branches. Large numbers also began to flock to Cork from the surrounding countryside to take the pledge. By the end of 1839, the reputation of the Cork Temperance Society began to spread further into north Munster into areas like Limerick.
Within four years of the founding of the Cork Total Abstinence Society, the movement had found its way into every corner of the country. It was not a political movement; indeed Fr Mathew’s principal concern was to keep it clear of politics, but it had, nevertheless, a deep political effect. With their new-found dignity, the converts became more acutely conscious of the weaknesses that surrounded their social state and thinking inevitably led to more constant support for the national cause. The temperance movement brought an immediate accession of strength to Daniel O’Connell, his successors benefited from it, and the foundations were laid for the better things that were to follow.
Scholars John Borgonovo and Jack Santino in a book entitled Public Performances: Studies in the Carnivalesque and Ritualesque (2017) note that Fr Mathew encouraged the formation of temperance brass bands at the local level to gather crowds for pledge meetings and to offer non-alcoholic entertainment to working classes. Band practice kept men out of the public house, while Sunday band processions and concerts served as a wholesome nonalcoholic family events that spread the temperance message. bands were locality based and had numerous followers who would accompany them on excursions through the city. At the movement’s height the city of Cork maintained thirty-three temperance bands, with uniforms financed by Father Mathew. The instructors of the Barrack Street Temperance Band at this time and up to the 1870s were non-existent; but according to tradition the military bands had a great influence on them Brass bands often developed alongside reading rooms. Working class self-improvement was a key point.
At the Annual Temperance Rally in late March 1842, the Cork Examiner notes the location of the event was at the new Corn Market (now Cork City Hall site). It was densely crowded with countless societies, each headed by its band of 20 or even 30 musicians. According to the media, there was much pomp and ceremony; “members dressed with blue, or pink, or green scarfs of Irish Manufacture, and holding a long white wand decorated with colored ribbons or laurel. Before the several societies was borne a flag or banner, generally with either the name of the particular room to which they belonged, some having painted on them an appropriate device, or allegorical representation, and, in many at least 23 city bands, each containing 20 to 30 musicians, participated in a huge temperance procession through the centre of Cork. Many came from poor localities such as Fair Lane, Blarney Street, Blackpool and the Barrack Street area. cases, a full-length figure of the Apostle himself”. In further newspaper articles across the Cork Examiner in the ensuing two years, it is revealed that up to 55 bands became operational.
Local historian, Richard T Cooke in his book Cork’s Barrack Stret Silver and Reed Band (1992) recorded from the band’s annals that the No 1 Barrack Street building comprised three storeys and was constructed at the end of the eighteenth century. The society occupied the first and second floors of the building. On the first floor was the society’s reading and recreation room and the second floor housed the bandroom where instruments and banners weres tored. Its rooms were quite spaciousand well-lit with the main entrance on Sullivan‘s Quay, No. 37. The building had no water supply, drains or backyard; and, therefore no outhouse forpublic convenience. The opening hours of the society were from 7pm to 11pm each evening and remained open all day Sunday.When the building was condemned in 1918, the Barrack Street Band moved to Tuckey Street for a time.
Captions:
945a. South Gate Bridge c.1900 (picture: Cork City Library)
945b. Portrait of Fr Theobald Mathew from Frank J Mathew’s (1890) Fr Mathew’s Life and Times (source: Cork City Library)
945c. Site of No. 1 Barrack Street, present day (picture: Kieran McCarthy)
This year’s National Famine Commemoration will take place on Saturday May 12 at University College Cork (UCC). The event will be hosted by UCC in collaboration with Cork City Council.
President Michael D. Higgins and Tánaiste Simon Coveney will attend the State Ceremony on Saturday week as will ambassadors. The President will unveil a plague to commemorate local famine victims. There will also be a wreath laying the following day, Sunday May 13 at St Joseph’s cemetery in Ballyphehane.
As part of the 2018 commemoration The Great Irish Famine Online will be launched. This is a world class free digital resource which will provide detailed information on how the famine impacted upon each of the 3,000 parishes and 1600 towns on either side of the border.
Cork City Council have also organised a programme of surrounding events through Cork City Libraries, Cork Public Museum and Cork City Councils Heritage office.
Lord Mayor Cllr Tony Fitzgerald said: “We are honoured that this year’s National Famine Commemoration will be held in Cork as in recent years the National Famine Commemoration has been held in such historic sites as Glasnevin Cemetery. Cork City Council has organised a strong programme of surrounding events and I am certain that the City will come together to produce a fitting tribute to those who suffered during the Famine”.
Cork City Council Programme of Events:
May 1–Monday May 14 –“Famine in Cork” an online exhibition available on www.corkpastandpresent.ie May 1 – Monday May 14 – Famine Exhibition in the Cork City Library featuring extracts from Cork Constitution, Cork Examiner and Illustrated London News from 1845 to 1850 with supporting exhibitions at all of the city’s six local libraries.
May 1 – Monday, May 14 – Famine Exhibition at the Cork Public Museum
Sunday May 6 @ 2pm – Walking Tour of St Finbarr’s Hospital by Cllr Kieran McCarthy.
Monday May 7 @ 7pm – Walking Tour of St Joseph’s Cemetery by Ronnie Herlihy.
Tuesday May 8 @ 7pm – Talk on the Famine in Cork by Pat Gunn at the Central Library
Sunday 6 May 2018 with Cllr Kieran McCarthy, The City Workhouse; learn about the workhouse created for 2,000 impoverished people in 1841; meet at the gates of St Finbarr’s Hospital, Douglas Road, 2.30pm (free, duration: two hours, on site tour), in association with the National Famine Commemoration, 2018, Cork.
Cllr Kieran McCarthy invites all Cork young people to participate in the ninth year of McCarthy’s Make a Model Boat Project. All interested must make a model boat at home from recycled materials and bring it along for judging to The Lough on Thursday 24 May 2018, 6.30pm. The event is being run in association with Meitheal Mara and the Cork Harbour Festival. There are three categories, two for primary and one for secondary students. The theme is ‘Cork’s Future Boats’, which is open to interpretation. There are prizes for best models and the event is free to enter. Cllr McCarthy, who is heading up the event, noted “I am encouraging creation, innovation and imagination amongst our young people, which are important traits for all of us to develop”. In addition, Cllr McCarthy emphasises that places like The Lough are an important part of Cork’s natural and amenity heritage. For further information and to take part, please sign up at www.corkharbourfestival.com.
Meitheal Mara’s Cork Harbour Festival will bring together the City, County and Harbour agencies and authorities. It connects our city and coastal communities. Combining the Ocean to City Race and Cork Harbour Open Day, there are over 50 different events in the festival for people to enjoy – both on land and on water. The festival begins on Saturday, 2 June with the flagship race Ocean to City – An Rás Mór and then runs till Sunday 10 June. Join thousands of other visitors and watch the hundreds of participants race from Crosshaven to Blackrock to Cork City in a spectacular flotilla. Cllr McCarthy noted: “During the festival week embark on a journey to explore the beautiful Cork Harbour – from Mahon Estuary to Roches Point – and enjoy free harbour tours, sailing tasters, open days at heritage sites, and lots more; we need to link the city and areas like Blackrock and the Marina and the harbour more through branding and tourism. The geography and history of the second largest natural harbour in the world creates an enormous treasure trove, which we need to harness, celebrate and mind. On 9 June I am hosting a new historical walking tour on the bridges of Cork. More details can be found on my walking tour section at www.kieranmccarthy.ie”.
Saturday 21 April, Stories from Blackrock, tour of Blackrock Village, from Blackrock Castle to Nineteenth Century Houses and Fishing; meet at Blackrock Castle, 12noon (free, 2 hours, finishes near railway line walk, Blackrock Road)
Saturday 28 April, The Victorian Quarter; tour of the area around St Patrick’s Hill – Wellington Road and MacCurtain Street; meet on the Green at Audley Place, top of St Patrick’s Hill, 12noon (free, duration: two hours, finishes by St Patrick’s Church, Lower Road)
Sunday 6 May 2018, The City Workhouse; learn about the workhouse created for 2,000 impoverished people in 1841; meet at the gates of St Finbarr’s Hospital, Douglas Road, 2.30pm (free, duration: two hours, on site tour), in association with the National Famine Commemoration, 2018, Cork.
Saturday, 24 March 2018,The Friar’s Walk, with Cllr Kieran McCarthy; discover Red Abbey, Elizabeth Fort, Callanan’s Tower and Greenmount area; meet at Red Abbey tower, off Douglas Street, 12noon (free, duration: two hours) in association with Cork Lifelong Learning Festival 2018.
Stories from 1918: Tales from the Victoria Hospital
This week, one hundred years ago, Cork Church of Ireland Bishop Charles Dowse presided at the annual general meeting of the Victoria Hospital, which was held at the institution. The Victoria Hospital was originally founded as “The County and City of Cork Hospital for the Diseases of Women and Children” which was opened on Union Quay on 4 September 1874. It moved to 46 Pope’s Quay on 31 October 1876 and to its present site on Infirmary Road on 16 September 1885. In 1901 its name was changed to “The Victoria Hospital for Women and Children”. Male patients were first admitted in 1914.
On 17 August 1914 the Hospital was registered under the Companies Acts, 1908 and 1913 under the name of “The Victoria Hospital, Cork (Incorporated)”. Reading the memorandum of association, the objects of the hospital were to provide a house or hospital for the reception, maintenance, medical and surgical treatment of Women and Children during sickness, and to furnish advice, and where possible medicine, to those who could not be admitted into Hospital. The Council or overseers of the Hospital comprised members of the Protestant faith. They could set apart rooms in the Hospital for the reception of private and semi-private patients, as well as wards for the reception of ordinary patients. They could make changes for the use and treatment as the Council wished and oversaw the payment in whole or in part from or on behalf of any patient.
Soon into the first couple of months of World War I, October 1914, ward spaces were assembled for the treatment of wounded soldiers. They were brought to Cork by the 562-bed hospital ship HMS Oxfordshire, which was overflowing with wounded by the heart of the war years. Recent work by UCD’s Centre for the History of Medicine in Ireland discovered that during World War I some 20,000 soldiers, principally from Ireland in the first place, were transported home and distributed between several military hospitals in Dublin, Cork and Belfast. They were housed also in wards in 40 civilian hospitals in Belfast, Cork and Dublin to provide accommodation and medical treatment for soldiers Patient beds were financed through a subvention from the War Office and, after the war and into the 1920s, the Ministry of Pensions.
The Victoria Hospital received fifty-five pounds from the War Department for treating the wounded soldiers. Compared to ordinary paying patients, this was not huge. The Council of the hospital gave an undertaking that they would at any time take in 30 soldiers and six officers. By 1916, the figure had risen to 130 cases.
Some 3,300 Irish doctors and medical students were involved in the war, of whom 243 died. The Victoria Hospital was deprived of the services of Dr C B Pearson and Dr R C Cummins, both of whom were serving in the Royal Army Medical Corps.
Lady Barrymore or Dorothy Elizabeth Bell of Fota House, funded the provision of a Rontgen Ray apparatus or an x-ray machine, which was greatly needed to assess bone damage. The year 1914 coincided with Polish born chemist Marie Curie developing radiological cars to support soldiers injured in World War I. The cars would allow for rapid X-ray imaging of wounded soldiers, so battlefield surgeons could quickly and more accurately operate.
At the annual general meeting for 1918, and as outlined in the Cork Examiner on 25 March 1918 the Honorary Secretary’s report stated that the wounded men were not being sent direct from France to Ireland. The secretary regretted that so little use has been made during 1917 of the military wards; “it was the keen desire of all connected with the hospital to do everything possible in caring for as great a number of these men as space would permit; but during the past year very few convoys have come to Cork, and there does not appear to be any probable increase as wounded men are no longer”. The soldiers’ ward, which was opened in October 1914, was closed in September of 1917.
In March 1918, the Cork Examiner outlined that the annual report stating that the hospital made a slight loss over the year. An increase over the year of £92 in the cost of provisions was not deemed what was described as a “very heavy item” but the cost of maintenance per patient had increased. In 1913 the maintenance cost was £78 per patient, rose in 1916 to £85, and in 1917 jumped up to the alarming figure of £106. The number of patients treated during the year was – 2,728 extern and 367 intern of whom 45 were soldiers and 76 free cases.
During the year the Victoria Hospital received notification of a generous legacy which had been left to the hospital by the late Mr Gumbleton, consisting of £1,000 in cash, and some valuable china, which had since been sold for between £300 and £400. Votes of thanks were passed to the committee of the Cork Hospital Saturday Society and Cork Hospital Aid Society for grants received, to the ladies and gentlemen who contributed to the hospital funds by personal subscription to all those who assisted in organising entertainments for the benefit of the hospital, and to Lady Carbery and the ladies of the Tabitha Guild, who devoted so much time to make clothing for the young patients.
Historical walking tour: Saturday, 24 March 2018,The Friar’s Walk, with Kieran; discover Red Abbey, Elizabeth Fort, Callanan’s Tower and Greenmount area; meet at Red Abbey tower, of Douglas Street, 12noon (free, duration: two hours) in association with Cork Lifelong Learning Festival 2018.
Captions:
938a. Victoria Hospital present day (picture: Kieran McCarthy)
938b. Map of the grounds of the Victoria Hospital and South Infirmary, c.1910 (source: Cork City Library)
Great afternoon for a bank holiday walk on Cork’s Marina and around the Atlantic Pond 🙂
Cork’s Marina, originally called the Navigation Wall, was completed in 1761. In 1820, Cork Harbour Commissioners formed and purchased a locally built dredger. The dredger deposited the silt from the river into wooden barges, which were then towed ashore. The silt was re-deposited behind the Navigation Wall. During the Great Famine, deepening of the river created jobs for 1,000 men who worked on creating the Navigation Wall’s road – The Marina. The environs is also home to three rowing clubs – the Lee Rowing Club founded in 1850, which is the second oldest club in the country; Shandon Boat Club, founded in 1875, and Cork Boat Club founded in 1899 by members of Dolphin Swimming Club – all of which ply the waters of the river regularly and who have annual regattas.
To ask the CE for an update on planning applications for the old Odlums building in Cork Docklands, and have any approaches been made to the owner regarding considering the future use of this historic building? (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)
Saturday, 24 March 2018,The Friar’s Walk, with Cllr Kieran McCarthy; discover Red Abbey, Elizabeth Fort, Callanan’s Tower and Greenmount area; meet at Red Abbey tower, of Douglas Street, 12noon (free, duration: two hours) in association with Cork Lifelong Learning Festival 2018.
