On behalf of the Lord Mayor, many thanks for the invitation to come and chat to you this afternoon for the launch of Volvo Week.
In the last few days our localities looked different – the familiar became the foreign – for many of us our homes, our neighbourhoods, our locales, our city, our town, our region felt different. It’s as if someone flipped a switch and turned the focus on our view to a different one – we admired different contours, we could not drive, we walked differently, we were excited, we remembered past times, we worried about missed work deadlines – in a sense we were stranded physically and perhaps mentally in a different looking world. Our surrounding snow-laiden landscape carved and sped up the creation of new perceptions.
But on any given day the landscape has the power to stop, impress, make one question, create an openness, wonder, dream, remember, be disturbed, explore and not forget – a whole series of emotions – acupuncture pins of an emotional sorts, which evolve who we are, our place in our world, our sense of place, our story, our culture, our identity.
The Land of Cork Harbour:
If landscape has these emotional acupunctural powers, a landscape such as Cork Harbour, of which we are just in one of its most historic quadrants, is a rich haven to try to understand our sense of place, our story, our culture, our identity.
Being the setting for Volvo Week, the second largest natural harbour in the world brings a focus and energy with which Cork Harbour has always been open to. The ebb and flow of the tide through the ages has carved a unique landscape of cliffs, sand and gravel beaches exposing an underlining geology of limestone and sandstone. Invigorating this landscape are a multitude of archaeological monuments inscribing it from different ages.
Colourful villages provide different textures and cultural landscapes in a sort of cul-de-sac environment where roads end at harbours, at car parks near coastal cliff faces, and quaysides – where signs warn the visitor of the edge. The villages are scattered around the edges of the harbour, each with their own unique history, all connect and add in someway to the greatness of this harbour.
In many areas, one can get the feeling you are at the ‘edge of memory’. There are the ruins of old structures, which the tide erodes away at. One can sense that a memory is about to physically and culturally get carried away by the sea and the fluidity of places-making shifts again. And that’s just the land part. Not everyone gets to view the harbour in a more holistic way from the water.
The Watery Landscape:
Through boating and sailing, we get to feel the harbour’s watery landscape – a more shift-shaping entity with a wide ranging juxtaposition of qualities – calm to rough, clear to foggy, playful light to darkness, dreamlike to fantasy – where stories almost stray between the ripples of the deep waters beyond – that if you stare long enough your mind creates its own scenes of place or re-imagines one’s life from days of yore.
The power of place and memory are ever present – the setting, the water, the past, the present, all colliding, at any one time knocking our sense of place.
And with all these emotional acupuncture pins- this box of ideas about place and memory, it is perhaps that today we return here to Haulbowline – to the first home of the Royal Cork Yacht Club (RCYC), which has successfully over near three hundred years played with the land and water element of the harbour, and defines joined up thinking on the holistic cultural use of the harbour.
The Historic Royal Cork Yacht Club:
The Royal Cork Yacht Club traces its origins back to 1720, a time when the City of Cork was taking down the limitations of being a walled town, and a time when iconic structures such as St Anne’s Shandon was being constructed in 1722 as well as aspects such as the Mardyke being laid out in 1719. Its story is richly laid out in Alicia’s St Ledger’s thick book of histories, illustrations and pictures. It began with the establishment, by six worthies of the time, of the Water Club of the Harbour of Cork, headquartered in the castle of Haulbowline Island – headed up by the 24-year-old William O’Brien, the 4th Earl of Inchiquin, and probably the first Admiral of the club. Membership was limited to 25 and strict protocol governed all the club’s activities, both afloat and ashore.
Racing proper did not begin until 1787 and, in the years prior to that, the club’s members contented themselves with sailing in a rather leisurely fashion around the harbour once a month from April to September on the spring tide.
Fast forward almost a hundred years from 1720 to circa 1813, a barracks to accommodate three officers and sixty men, two storehouses, a gun carriage yard, smithy and carpenters’ workshop and other installations were constructed.
Circa 1820, on the naval side of the island (i.e. the eastern side), a large victualling yard containing six large storehouses, living quarters for the supply staff and medical officers, houses for the Chief Surgeon, the coopers and other workshops were erected. The island was extended by 4.5 acres of reclaimed land in order to construct the flat wharfage area. The building contractor was Mrs Deane of Cork, who shortly afterwards was involved in building Cork City Gaol.
All followed by the creation of Rocky Island as an ammunition store and Spike Island as a convict prison.
Towards EU Maritime Day:
These stories and a multitude of others such as in Camden Fort Meagher, we are telling a lot more. Focus in the harbour in the last few years has been more and more on the power of the story of the harbour. That such a story is a jewel that we should try to understand and promote more. The RCYC is central to the story. Our harbour heritage sites capture a piece of life. And both Cork City Council and Cork County Council are parts of the pieces in helping that process. Cork City Council looks forward to hosting EU Maritime Day in 2020.
Volvo Week also creates new ways of seeing places, create ways of expressing ideas about the idea of place and create new ways of place making.
Perhaps for us the participant, the week presents a set of lenses or tools perhaps to decode, discover, recognise, reveal, synthesise, communicate, move forward and explore our cultural heritage, the environment, society and the very essence of identity-making.
Today’s Society also needs all of those traits and emotional acupunctural pins in abundance.
I wish everyone involved in this week well; I would like to thank Volvo and all the sponsors, the RCYC, the people of the harbour region well in hosting this enormous event.
I look forward to engaging with different aspects of the week and I look forward to the commemorative events of 2020.
Today’s uphill climb on Cork’s hill of hills in the snow – St Patrick’s Hill – here for a few hours there were snowball fights, snowmen making, sledding on bags and cardboard – set against the backdrop of Shandon, North Cathedral, steps, steeples, lanes, curving avenues, railings, inclines, red brick, sandstone ridges, and young and old, neighbours, friends, visitors, strangers – all enjoying themselves 🙂
There is something about snow that always bring out more the colours and shapes of historic buildings and urban spaces in Cork 🙂 the pictures below are from a walk into the city centre from Douglas Road this morning through some of the South Parish and onto the Grand Parade. Stay safe and warm everyone during the incoming blizzard and storm.
Three of Cork’s most important heritage bridges are to undergo either restoration or significant maintenance works this year.
St Patrick’s Bridge:
Cork City Council, in conjunction with Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII), is to begin preliminary works on the repair and rehabilitation of the iconic St. Patrick’s Bridge next week.
This bridge is representative of 19th century design and construction and its restoration will be sympathetic to these values as well as to its unique heritage and historical importance. It is expected that the €1.2 million works will have minimal impact on pedestrian and traffic movement and will be undertaken in two phases.
SSE Airtricity Utility Solutions Ltd. has been selected by Cork City Council to undertake phase 1 preliminary works and they have appointed renowned Italian lighting restoration specialists, Neri to complete the project. Neri has worked extensively in Dublin including on lighting restoration at O’Connell Bridge. The existing four heritage standards (lamp columns) on St Patrick’s Bridge will be removed during the week commencing February 5th and an additional four standards, currently in storage, will be sent to Italy for repair and restoration.
This will involve returning the columns to their original unpainted bare metal state, repairing weather damage, protecting and repainting the standards. As part of this process, moulds will also be created to make additional duplicates columns. Upon completion, the 12 restored/replicated standards will be returned to the bridge in September complete with new lantern heads with LED fittings where they will be remounted just as when the bridge was first built. In the interim period, six standard temporary lighting columns will be put in place to help illuminate the footpaths during darkness.
Cork City Council is in the process of issuing a tender for phase two of the works which it expects will begin in early May. This phase of the works involves the removal of all vegetation and algae from the bridge, the cleaning and repair of all stonework and the re-pointing of missing or defective masonry joints. Proposed works also include the replacement of the footpath and carriageway surfacing together and new road markings. Existing traffic lights, elevation and architectural lighting and directional signage will also be upgraded.
It is expected that all works to St. Patrick’s Bridge will be completed by mid October.
St Vincent’s Bridge: A tender is also due to be launched next month for critical maintenance work on St Vincent’s Bridge which connects the North Mall and Sunday’s Well to the junction of Bachelor’s Quay and Grenville Place. Detailed design to assure the continued usage of this bridge is being progressed. As part of these works, lighting on the bridge will also be improved.
Daly’s Bridge: Refurbishment works will also begin on the iconic Daly’s Bridge in September this year to repair extensive corrosion and damage.
A tender has been launched seeking consultants to undertake design and civil works preparation. It is intended to award this contract by the end of next month. A contract for the civil works will be tendered in the coming months with a programme of works likely to start on site in September. The Department for Transport, Tourism and Sport is funding the project.
The meeting last week between Cork City councillors and Fáilte Ireland was a productive wake-up call to the competitive nature of tourism, and what type of product is invested in nationally according to Independent Cllr Kieran McCarthy.
Cork City’s tourism needs a vision for its future, a realistic plan, pressure for change and actions to be executed according to Fáilte Ireland Executive Jenny De Saulles of Ireland’s Ancient East (IAE) programme.
Ms De Saulles made the calls to Members of Cork City Council who recently received a presentation by her on challenges for Cork City within the IAE. Whereas the tourism industry in general is in a good place – growth and jobs- can be see, there are challenges with the Impending Brexit and making sure that tourism creates sustainable jobs and business.
Cllr McCarthy noted “Fáilte Ireland has an ambitious growth target of 3.4 % by 2028. The ambitions places pressure on future potential tourism sites to be of a high quality, unique and a signature experience; this has a knock-on effect on what the city should aspire to for the future in its tourism product”.
Ms De Saulles outlined that Cork is well positioned between the Wild Atlantic Way and Ireland’s Ancient East, international access is good and Irish Hotel Federation works hard in the region. The City has good festivals and a range of visitor experiences. The City’s tourism has vast potential for growth and must consider where that growth should be, and what role Cork City Council as a local authority should be.
Cllr McCarthy noted; “the questions we received revolved around key questions, does Cork City need an international signature tourism site? what does the visitor want? should we develop the city’s extant tourism products? What is the role of a local authority in tourism in supporting a tourism product? I found the meeting very productive to discuss the future of Elizabeth Fort and the Old Shandon Butter Exchange building. Small scale funding is available for both and should be moved upon quickly. It was clear from the discussion that the city needs a strong joined up thinking tourism strategy for the future”.
To ask the CE on progress made on drawing down government funding to replace fallen and damaged trees in the city after Storm Ophelia? (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)
Missed one of Kieran McCarthy’s 50 columns of Our City, Our Town in the weekly Cork Independent in 2017 – all exploring the topical issues and challenges within Cork in 1917 – check them all out and more images at http://corkheritage.ie/?page_id=4649
Evening Echo is sited on old gasometer land gifted by Cork Gas Company to Cork City Council in the late 1980s, and subsequently dedicated as Shalom Park in 1989. The park sits in the centre of an old Cork neighbourhood known locally as ‘Jewtown.’ This neighbourhood is also home to the National Sculpture Factory. Not a specific commission, nor working to a curatorial brief, Evening Echo is a project generated as an artist’s response to the particularities of a place and has quietly gathered support from Cork Hebrew Congregation, Cork City Council, Bord Gáis and a local Cork newspaper, the Evening Echo.
References to the slow subsidence of the Jewish community in Cork have been present for years, but there is now a palpable sense of disappearance. Within the Cork Hebrew Congregation there are practical preparations underway for this, as yet unknown, future moment of cessation. Evening Echo moves through a series of thoughts and questions about what it might mean to be at this kind of cusp, both for the Jewish community and for other communities in Cork.
Evening Echo is manifested in a sequence of custom-built lamps, remote timing systems operated from Paris, a highly controlled sense of duration, a list of future dates, an annual announcement in Cork’s Evening Echo newspaper and a promissory agreement. Fleetingly activated on an annual cycle, and intended to exist in perpetuity, the project maintains a delicate position between optimism for its future existence and the possibility of its own discontinuance.
Maddie Leach’s work is largely project-based, site responsive and conceptually driven and addresses new thinking on art, sociality and place-based practices. She seeks viable ways of making artworks in order to interpret and respond to unique place-determined content and she is recognised for innovatively investigating ideas of audience spectatorship, expectation and participation in relation to art works. Leach’s projects include commissions for Iteration: Again (Tasmania, 2011), Close Encounters (Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, 2010), One Day Sculpture (2008), the New Zealand publication Speculation for the Venice Biennale 2007 and Trans Versa (The South Project, Chile, 2006).
