Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article, 12 October 2017

Walking Tour of Our Lady’s Hospital Complex

    Etched into the northern skyline overlooking the Lee Fields is Ireland’s longest and one of its most atmospheric buildings. The old Cork Lunatic Asylum was built in Victorian times. As part of the last set of public free historical walking tours for this season and in association with the owners of Atkins Hall, I have a new walking tour telling the story of the old Asylum and what emerged in time as Our Lady’s Hospital complex (Saturday 21 October, 12noon, meet at main gate on Lee Road). The complex closed in the late 1980s and in recent years, parts of the main grey building have now been redeveloped into apartment units.

     The first asylum for what contemporary Cork society deemed “insane” in Cork was founded under the Irish Gaol Act of 1787/8. The Cork Asylum was the second of its kind to be established in Ireland and was to be part of the South Infirmary on Blackrock Road. The Cork Asylum in the late 1840s lacked finance and space to develop a proper institution. A Committee of the Grand Jury of Cork County (leading landlords and magistrates) examined the existing asylum and began a verbal campaign for its replacement. In 1845, a Westminster Act was enacted to create a District Asylum in Cork for the City and County of Cork.

   In April 1846, a Board of Governors of the Asylum at the South Infirmary purchased and commenced work at a new site in Shanakiel. The Board set up a competition of tender for an architectural design. Mr William Atkins was appointed, with Mr Alex Deane as builder. Work commenced in mid-1848.

   The asylum was located on a commanding location on a steep hill, overlooking the River Lee. The building was three floors high and was divided into four distinct blocks. Three blocks were located at the front and were designed to contain the apartments for patients, along with the residences for the physicians, matron and other officials of the Asylum. The building materials were reddish sandstone rubble, obtained near the site, and grey limestone quarried from sites from the opposite site of the River Lee. Internal fittings such as fireplaces were said to be of marble supplied also from the southside of the city. The fourth building block was located at the rear of the central block, and comprised the kitchen, laundry, workshops, bakehouse, boiler house and other rooms of an office nature. Heating was steam generated in a furnace house.

   The new Asylum was named Eglinton Lunatic Asylum after the Earl of Eglington, and was opened in 1852. The principal types of people admitted which made up the highest number comprised housewives, labouring classes, servants, and unemployed. Forty-two forms of “lunacy” were identified from causes such as mental anxiety, grief, epilepsy, death, emigration to “religious insanity”, nervous depression, want of employment and desertion of husband or wife.

   Plans for an extension to Eglington Asylum were put together in the 1870s. The aim was to accommodate over 1,300 patients. The three blocks were connected into a single building. In 1895, the Cork Asylum described as one of the most modern asylums in Western Europe. Conditions in the institution were deemed good by critics. Making up staff, there were 72 men and 56 women. Lectures were given to staff by lecturers of mental illness at Queen’s University College Cork now University College Cork. A Church of Ireland chapel was completed in November 1885 with William Hill as architect. In 1898, a Roman Catholic Church was designed by Hill and St Kevin’s Asylum was also constructed. In 1899, a new committee of management for the Asylum was established under the newly formed Cork County Council. In 1926, the Asylum became known as Cork District Mental Hospital. In 1952, The Hospital’s name was changed to Our Lady’s Psychiatric Hospital.

    Like everyone else on Cork’s Lee Fields last July, I watched with great sadness the burning of the old St Kevin’s Asylum (built c.1895-1899) and had that deep sense of shock and loss, not just at one level but across a number of levels – Yes – St Kevin’s Asylum had a harrowing past but it’s future should not have played out this way.

   Chatting to Corkonians they expressed their sadness and frustration that a part of Cork’s social history was burning and being destroyed; they were sad to see a burnt scar of a landmark emerging on the cityscape in one of the city’s scenic spots, dismayed that it was a potential arson attack out resulting out of someone’s boredom, frustrated that campaigns over the years by resident community groups and public representatives did not gauge muster with the owners of the site, sad that the owners of the site, the HSE, did not get to pursuing a plan for the site (despite having completed some really tasteful renewal works in the old Cork workhouse at St Finbarr’s Hospital), upset for the memory and almost forgotten memory of former patients and former staff members, frustrated that in the national context, there are many other old asylum buildings that are decaying and not being utilised for a myriad of potential uses. The new walking tout is an attempt to re-awaken interest in the heritage of the site and revalorize its importance to the city.

Next historical walking tour with Kieran: From Our Lady’s Hospital to Atkin’s Hall, the story of the Cork Lunatic Asylum (new tour), Saturday 21 October, meet at gates of former Our Lady’s Hospital, Lee Road, 12noon, free.

Captions:

916a. View of Our Lady’s Hospital from top of County Hall, present day (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

916b. Burning of Our Lady’s Hospital, 4 July 2017 (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 28 September 2017

The Wheels of 1917: The Irish Convention in Cork

    In the wake of the Easter Rising, British Prime Minister Lloyd George summoned a convention of representative Irishmen to try to solve the ‘Irish question’. The Convention was first suggested by Lloyd George in May 1917 as a way to break the deadlock around the issue of Home Rule for Ireland. Its membership comprised of the following categories; Government nominees (15 members), Irish episcopate (7), Irish Party (5), Ulster Party (5), Irish peers (2), Southern Unionists (5), Lord Mayors and Mayors (6), County Council delegates (32), Urban district councils (8), Chambers of Commerce (3) and Labour delegates (7) Sinn Fein (members did not attend). From the outset, intentions, reservations and expectations differed considerably. The Nationalist MPs T P O’Connor and Stephen Gwynn came to the conclusion that a Conference might be the Irish Party’s only hope of salvation.

    The Irish Convention was invited to Cork by the Lord Mayor, Thomas C Butterfield. The Cork meeting, the first to be held outside Dublin, was held on Tuesday 24, Wednesday 25 and Thursday 26 September 1917. The debate was held at the Crawford Technical Institute at Sharman Crawford Street. The majority of the delegates reached the city on the evening of 24 September by a special train which left Kingsbridge, Dublin at 2 o’clock, and completed the journey in three hours. Between Dublin and Cork one stop was made – it was at Thurles, where Bishop Harty, Archbishop of Cashel, joined the train. At the Glanmire terminus in Cork the delegates were received by the Lord Mayor and members of the Cork Reception Committee, and escorted to motor cars in waiting outside the main building of the railway station. The delegates were motored to their lodgings during their stay in Cork.

    MPs John Redmond and J Devlin did not travel by the special train but reached Cork by motor car shortly after six o’clock. Though no public announcement had been made regarding the delegates’ arrival in the city, a large crowd assembled inside and outside of the station, and extended to the distinguished visitors a very cordial welcome. Three days were allotted to the Cork Convention, and hopes ran high that the visit would help delegates acquire a grasp of political leanings and its challenges in the south of Ireland.

    Every effort was made by the public boards of the city to impress the visitors. Indeed, one of the recreational activities was heading down the harbour and viewing the Lord Mayor engage in the Throwing of the Dart ceremony. One hundred years ago, the ceremony was performed every three years, and was always regarded with interest by Corkonians. A distinguished company always joined the Lord Mayor in asserting the ancient rights of the Mayor as admiral over the port.

   The City of Cork Steam Packet Company’s fine steamer, SS Inniscarra left the Custom House quay about l pm. The Inniscarra, which had a gross tonnage of 1,412, was built at Newcastle by Wigham Richardson, and Co. in 1903. In making the journey down the river the visitors admired the scenery of the river and the buildings and histories on each river bank each with their own narrative of the ancient past, change, struggle and opportunity within the Cork region.

   Spectators noted with interest the preparation work ongoing for the Ford Factory, passed through the sweeping spaciousness of Lough Mahon, admired the big houses and woodlands at Glanmire on the one side and Rochestown on the other. They were inspired by the dockyards at Passage, Rushbrook, and Haulbowline. It was 2pm when the steamer, decked with flags, passed by Queenstown, and the visitor enjoyed the beautiful peal of bells in St Colman’s Cathedral. American and English destroyers, and various other craft moored in the harbour, were also objects of discussion.

    As the ship journeyed out past Roche’s Point, the civic procession made its way to the bow of the ship. There the Lord Mayor, in his robes of office, and wearing the Mayoral Chain, took the Dart in his hand, and saying: “In assertion of the ancient rights of the Lord Mayor and citizens of Cork over all places in and to which the sea ebbs and flows between Cork Head and the Western part of the Port of Cork, and Poer Head on the Eastern part of the, same port, and as far as the Castle of Carrigrohane on the western side of the City of Cork. I now cast this Dart,” he threw the javelin into the sea.

    Ironically eight months later, on 28 May 1918, news broke that the SS Inniscarra bound from Fishguard to Cork had been sunk by a German submarine. All on board were lost except the captain the chief engineer and three seamen who were landed at Queenstown. The captain was injured. The remaining 37 men who were on board went missing. The vessel sank within a very short time after being torpedoed and some of the ropes attached to one of the boats got entangled and the occupants were thrown into the water. One of the survivors succeeded in getting into a boat and was taken on board the submarine. Another reached a raft.

Captions:

914a. SS Inniscarra berthed at Penrose Quay, c.1915 (source: Cork City Library)

914b. Participants of the Irish Convention on board the SS Inniscarra, 1917 (source: Irish Life, 1917)

Upcoming Walking Tour: Saturday 30 September 2017, Blackrock Village, historical walking tour with Kieran, meet at Blackrock Castle, 12noon (free, duration: two hours, ends near the village)