Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article, 1 December 2016
Remembering 1916: From Racecourse to Factory
The 22 November 1916 brought the members of Cork Corporation to debate the proposed agreement with the Trafford Engineering Company on behalf of the Ford Company (see last week). The attachment of the name Fords was played down in the press especially as the deal with the Corporation was being negotiated. The Cork Examiner and the minutes of the meeting reveal a palpable excitement to the topic of debate. Chairing the Corporation meeting was Lord Mayor Thomas Butterfield. The Town Clerk of the day read the correspondence, which included: (1) a letter from the meeting of Transport Workers held in the City Hall on Tuesday night, calling on the Corporation and other public bodies to facilitate the scheme; and (2) from Mr Maguire, secretary of the University College Engineering Society, also asking the Corporation to facilitate the scheme and thereby provide much-needed employment for students of the College, very many of whom had to emigrate their native city.
The Lord Mayor Butterfield rose to propose a resolution which stood in his name to sell the park to the Trafford Engineering Company. He considered that Cork was extremely fortunate in having this offer made to it. He highlighted it as an epoch-making offer, and called upon his colleagues not to give any excuse to anybody for withdrawing these proposals. He articulated that in the hands of the Corporation’s solicitor the interest of the citizens of Cork would be safeguarded by Mr Barry Galvin. He would now move that the standing orders be suspended.
Debate ensued and by the end the resolution was agreed to unanimously. The Town Clerk read the heads of agreement to be made between the Cork County Borough Council and Richard Woodhead of No 91 Lord Street, the other (dated 17 November 1916). Below are some of the conditions. It was proposed to sell to the buyer the freehold of the City Park Racecourse. The development was also subject to the British Parliament granting permission – hence within a few ensuing weeks, the Cork Improvement Bill was passed. The buyer was given the right to construct an access route into the factory but it was to be their job to maintain it. The lands were to be used for the purpose of creating commercial, shipping and manufacturing premises and offices and generally in connection with industry or the housing of industrial workers. The price to be paid by the purchaser to the vendors for the transfer of the lands was agreed at £10,000.
Payment of £250 was to paid within seven days after the agreement had been approved by the vendors and £1,750 upon signing of formal contract. The estimated cost of such buildings to be erected on the lands were computed at £400,000, and the Corporation asked that at least £200,000 be spent within a period on construction within the first three years from the completion of the transfer. It was stipulated that at least 2,000 adult males be employed with a minimum wage of one shilling (1s) per hour to be paid to all such employees. A fair wage clause in the terms and conditions had to be inserted by the purchaser in any contracts.
As for the Racecourse, it had been for a period of 47 one of the most notable and popular race tracks between Britain and Ireland. Prior to its construction of what was known as the Navigation Wall, a part of which is now The Marina, the place was overrun by tidal waters. It was many years before the reclaimed mud back became coverered with grass. When the first race meeting was held, the mud was ever present that the pedestrians were told to exert caution. There was no systematic drainage of the Park till many years after its initiation. Reports of race meeting in the early races of 1869 report that there was no barrier to prevent people from wandering all over the running tracks. The clearing of the tracks before each race was undertaken by stewards, who were mounted and dressed in hunting kit and they were assisted by mounted police. Fixtures could attract up to 30,000 people. Every hotel and lodging house was crammed. The stakes in the early days were very generous, reaching a total at times of £1,600 a fixture. The best horses were attracted from all parts of Ireland, and many from England.
It was on 22 March 1869 that Cork Corporation leased the city’s swampy park to Sir John Arnott for the purpose of establishing a race-course for the recreation and amusement of the public, for the term of five years. As the years progressed the lease was renewed from time to time. On Arnott’s death in the 1890s, the management of the races passed to the Arnott Family. In 1902 a company was incorporated called the Cork Racecourse Ltd, of which the Arnott family retained the controlling influence and the lease terms were for 25 years. However due to multiple complaints by the public the Race Company surrendered their lease in 1913. A new lease was struck with William Green for a period of 31 years at a yearly rent of £175. This lease contained a provision that if the centre of the Park was required for the purpose of a factory it could be taken by the Corporation, without compensation giving three months’ notice to the Race Company.
Cork 1916, A Year Examined (2016) by Kieran McCarthy & Suzanne Kirwan is now available in Cork bookshops.
Cork City History Tour (2016) by Kieran McCarthy is also available in Cork bookshops.
Caption:
872a. Map of site of Ford Plant 1917 (source: Cork City Library)
As a contribution to marking the restoration of the tram lines as a heritage feature in Blackrock Cllr Kieran McCarthy will conduct a historical walking tour of Blackrock Village on Sunday 27 November, 2.30pm (starts at Blackrock Castle, two hours, free). Cllr McCarthy notes: “A stroll in Blackrock is popular by many people, local and Cork people. The area is particularly characterised by beautiful architecture, historic landscapes and imposing late Georgian and early twentieth century country cottages to the impressive St Michael’s Church; every structure points to a key era in Cork’s development. Blackrock is also lucky that many of its former residents have left archives, census records, diaries, old maps and insights into how the area developed, giving an insight into ways of life, ideas and ambitions in the past, some of which can help us in the present day in understanding Blackrock’s identity going forward”.
One hundred years ago, the Corporation of Cork had to foresight to connect the city’s suburbs with the city centre through a tram network. The story of how the trams connected the old fishing village of Blackrock with the city is a worthy one to tell- connected in terms of the wealth of history in this corner of the city and connected in terms of experimenting with the provision of new transport networks. The trams were developed in connection with the Corporation’s roll-out of electricity in the city in 1898. The tram lines themselves were electricity cables. The Corporation of Cork established a large electricity generating plant on Albert Road (now the site of the National Sculpture Factory). The Electric Tramways and Lighting Company Ltd was registered in London and had a close working relationship with eminent electrical contractors, the British Thomson-Houston Company. Cllr McCarthy highlights: “By 1900, 35 electric tram cars operated throughout the city and suburbs. They were manufactured in Loughborough, UK and all were double deck in nature, open upstairs with a single-truck design”. Cllr McCarthy’s walk will finish at Natural Foods Bakery at 4.30pm in time for tea, coffee and poetry to mark the restoration of the old tram lines with Douglas Writers club.
The opening event of the Honan Chapel on 5 November 1916 was marked with great speeches and insights into the work involved in its construction from the funders to the craftsmen. There are so many beautiful features of the Honan Chapel and UCC over the years have published articles, online resources and a book edited by Virginia Teehan and Elizabeth Wincott Heckett, and held conferences on the beautiful building. Indeed, the next conference is on this Saturday 19 November in UCC (details at end of column).
The Honan Chapel is a national icon of Irish craftsmanship, some features of which I relate below and all warrant articles and multiple column inches in years to come. The erection of the chapel was entrusted to the well-known building firm of Messrs John Sisk and Son. The work was carried out under the superintendence of Mr Peter O’Flynn as Clerk of Works. John Sisk set up his construction business in 1859 and by the early twentieth century had an impressive record of work around the province of Munster, building schools, hotels, banks and 30 churches.
An open letter on 30 May 1916 in the Cork Examiner by the members of the Cork branch of Stonecutters’ Union of Ireland, recorded their appreciation to Sir John O’Connell for providing much needed employment to their members for close on two years and a much-needed stimulus to the stone cutting industry. They noted their pride in the distinctive national style of architecture and its construction in Cork limestone and marble, which meant the circulation of such a large sum of money in Cork at a time of difficult economic conditions.
Cork Examiner reviews of the building on the 6 November point to the beauty of the interior and that it may strike the visitor as very simple but to execute the ornamentation “required painstaking care and skill and possession of the artistic faculty as well”. The carving was carried out by workmen under Henry Emery, an architectural sculptor and decorator. Liverpool born Henry Emery was active across the country from the 1870s until the 1930s and had his practice in Dublin. He was apprenticed initially to the stone and marble works of Alfred P Sharp of 17 Great Brunswick Street, Dublin. Sharp was also a builder. Circa 1877 Henry Emery was placed in charge of the stone and wood-carving side of the business. He was taken into partnership by Sharp in the late 1890s.
The Honan Chapel interior adopted the most decorative features in Cormac’s famous Chapel at Cashel in the arcading. Hence the walls were painted in a simple white with grey tints by artificial colouring. In each of the capitals of the pillars nearest to each stained glass window, on which a coat of arms of one of the diocese of Munster is displayed, part of the same coat of arms is carved. The most effective use of the arcading was to use it as a framework to a beautiful series of Stations of the Cross made of the inlaid art technique opus sectile. The altar was built of the same white limestone of which the rest of the fabric was built. The tabernacle was also of limestone modelled in the form of an early Celtic reliquary. The door bears a beautiful enamel by Mr Oswald Reeves.
The series of stained glass windows of the Munster Saints from the eminent studios of Harry Clarke and Sarah Purser begin on the north wall of the nave near the chancel with the window in honour of the Patron Saint of the Diocese – St Finbarr. Then it runs to St Albert, the Patron Saint of Cashel, St Declan of Ardmore, St Ailbe of Emly, St Fachtna of Ross and St Munchin of Limerick. The first window on the south side is devoted to St Ita of Killeedy, St Colman of Cloyne, St Brendan the Navigator, St Gobnait of Ballyvourney, St Carthage of Lismore and St Flannan of Killaloe. The east window over the Altar shows the Redeemer, while the three lights over the west entrance bear the three great Irish saints, Patrick, Brigid and Columcille.
The altar-plate, the vestments, altar coverings, everything down to the seating accommodation is not only Irish in design, but Irish in workmanship. As far as possible local craftsmanship were employed. The vestments for use in the chapel was made at Messrs William Egan and Son’s factory in Cork. The same firm made the chalice and ciborium, both exceptionally fine specimens of silver and gilt. As an interesting aside, on 21 January 1916 Mr Barry M Egan principal of the firm of William Egan and Sons passed away at his residence, Carrig House, Tivoli. Born in Cork seventy-three years previously, Mr Egan came from a family that for generations had been connected with the trade and art of working with metals. At the early age of 12 years he entered upon his apprenticeship as a watchmaker, jeweller, and silversmith in his father’s workshop. From his earliest years his ambition was to revive the manufacture of silver plate for which Cork was so noted in the eighteenth century.
Honan Chapel Symposium, Saturday 19 November, Aula Maxima, UCC, 9.15am-6pm, programme and registration at niamh.mundow@ucc.ie
Cork 1916, A Year Examined by Kieran McCarthy & Suzanne Kirwan is now available in Cork bookshops.
Captions:
870a. Honan Chapel, UCC, present day (picture: Kieran McCarthy)
870b. Section of mosaic of floor of chapel, entitled the River of Life (picture: Kieran McCarthy)
The Honan Chapel celebrates its centenary this week. It opened officially on 5 November 1916. It is unique of its kind and John O’Connell, solicitor and distributor of Isabelle Honan’s will lavished much care as well as imagination on the church’s construction and fitting out (see last week’s column). John O’Connell was a great expert on ecclesiastical archaeology. He wrote many books and papers including “The Honan Hostel Chapel”, which can be read in local studies in Cork City Library. He also gave the site of the Turners Cross Schools in 1932 to Bishop Daniel Cohalan. He was also a descendent of Daniel O’Connell; hence the place name connections to Daniel O’Connell in Turners Cross.
On 18 May 1915, the foundation stone of the Honan Chapel was blessed and laid by the Bishop of Cork Dr Thomas Alphonsus O’Callaghan, and work progressed steadily on it. The new chapel was intended to be a real work of art. The architect James F McMullen planned a very beautiful structure in the Hiberno-Romanesque style, a style, which prevailed nine centuries previously. The Irish Architectural Archive in their Dictionary of Irish Architects denotes that architect and civil engineer James Finbarre McMullen (1859-1933) was born in 1859. He was the youngest son of Barry McMullen, a well-known Cork builder. After attending St Vincent’s School, James entered the arts faculty of Queen’s College, Cork, in 1875. At some stage he evidently decided to take up engineering as a career and served an apprenticeship with his elder brother Michael Joseph. In 1882 he exhibited a design entitled ‘What the Farm Labourers require’ at the Irish Exhibition of Arts & Manufactures, Dublin. He opened his own office in Cork c.1886.
James McMullen’s practice was a varied one, including ecclesiastical, hospital, industrial, commercial and domestic work, primarily in the city and county of Cork. He was architect to the South Infirmary, Cork, for some thirty years and was appointed local engineer and valuer for the Cork Junction Railway in 1904. Some of his largest and best known works apart from the Honan Chapel included Marina Flour Mills on Victoria Quay (1890-92), the Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital on Western Road (1895-97), the Fr Mathew Pavilion Museum at the Cork International Exhibition (1902), additions to the sanctuary for the Capuchin Fathers at Holy Trinity Church (1906) and the restoration after destruction by fire of Castle Freke House (with architect, Kaye-Parry & Ross) in 1910-12.
In addition to running a successful practice, James McMullen played an active part in the life of the community, devoting much time to city hospital work. Living in Trabeg in Douglas, he was appointed a magistrate for the borough of Cork in 1903 and High Sheriff in 1908. In 1910 the honour of Knight Commander of the Order of St Gregory the Great was conferred on him by Pope Pius X. According to his obituary in the Irish Builder, he acted as City Engineer for Cork for some years. He died in 1933, leaving an estate valued at £23,729. He had married Margaretta, daughter of J T Murphy, of Macroom, in 1907. His son James carried on the practice.
The Honan Chapel is based on the most famous Irish church of Hiberno Romaneque style that of Cormac’s Chapel on the Rock of Cashel. It was not the first Cork Chapel to adapt its design in the early twentieth century. St Finbarr’s Oratory in Gougane Barra, opened in 1902 and its architect Samuel Hynes was also inspired by Cormac’s Chapel. Cashel constitutes the most famous architectural assemblage to survive from Medieval Ireland. The entire summit of the Rock has a very complex mix of ideas about history, architecture, public space and meaning. The place is tied to a sacred history – the legend of St Patrick converting the Munster Gaelic kings of old. The information panels at Cormac’s Chapel detail that it was begun in 1127 and consecrated in 1134. At that time, Cormac’s Chapel was a political statement. The act of building it was a political act asserting identity. On the eve of Church reform, architecture became a form of dialogue of contestation. King Cormac MacCarthy, founder of the Chapel at Cashel, was a supporter and patron of the reform movement. The chapel was deemed a metaphor for his kingship, and religious interests and attached to influences of the renaissance in the way of life of the church.
The course of stone in Cormac’s Chapel was so correctly laid, that the joints escaped the eye so that it seems the whole wall is composed of a single block. The impact of such a church building was not seen before. Archaeologist Tadgh O’Keeffe in his book Romanesque Ireland, Architecture and Ideology in the Twelfth Century (2003) highlights that the architects of the Romanesque style were also occupied with great master-pieces. Sculptors and architects were moulded by European Art. The idea existed that Romanesque had form and meaning and thus became fashionable and sophisticated. Cormac’s Chapel as a memorial relied on the permanent qualities of architecture, scale, mass, spacing, proportion, utmost simplicity, and memory. These latter ideas also imbue the Honan Chapel and make it stand out as architectural structure of beauty.
Honan Chapel Symposium, Saturday 19 November, Aula Maxima, UCC, 9.15am-6pm, programme and registration at niamh.mundow@ucc.ie
Cork 1916, A Year Examined by Kieran McCarthy & Suzanne Kirwan is now available in Cork bookshops.
Captions:
869a. James F McMullen, architect of the Honan Chapel, UCC (source: Pike’s Contemporary Biographies)
869b. Interior of Cormac’s Chapel, Rock of Cashel, inspiration for Honan Chapel (picture: Kieran McCarthy)
Remembering 1916: Honan Chapel Celebrates its Centenary
One hundred years ago this week on 5 November 1916, the amazing architectural structure of St Finbarr’s Chapel at UCC or the Honan Chapel had its official opening. The Cork Examiner noted in its editorial the day after the opening the thought and work that went into planning its construction; “the provision of a chapel out of the Miss Isabella Honan Trust Fund was a happy thought on the part of Sir John O’Connell, her executor [of her will], who is himself a lover of Celtic art…it is only right to say that Sir John O’Connell took the utmost pains that everything in connection with the building of the chapel, materials, equipment, as well the carving and stained glass, should be the work of Irish artists”.
Isabella Honan of 26, Sidney Place, had died on 8 August 1913. Her obituary in the local newspapers recorded that she had belonged to an old Cork family, which had long been associated with charitable organisations in the city. The Honan Home (founded as a charitable trust in 1896 to host 12 aged and impoverished men) and the extension of St Patrick’s Church, were well known monuments of the religious and charitable zeal of her brother, Matthew Honan. Isabella herself had given £10,000 for scholarships to University College Cork. On her death, Isabella left a personal estate valued at £153,331 8s 5 ½ d. The distribution of her will was granted to John Robert O’Connell, of 24, Kildare Street, Dublin. Over 22 charitable organisations in Cork were allocated monies in her will ranging from £500 to £1,500. All were delighted with their funding and they sent several letters to editors of newspapers giving further insight into their work but also respect for the Honan Family. Trust funds representing the residue of her other brother’s Robert estate, totalling £40,000, were also granted to John O’Connell to distribute at his discretion to charitable purposes.
In an open public later to President Bertram Windle, UCC on the Cork Examiner on 6 April 1914, John O’Connell expressed concern that the Honan Hostel called St Anthony’s Hall, under the General Order of Friars Minor would sever their connection. The hostel was the house of residence for students at University College, Cork. It has been initially established in 1884 for Protestant students attending the college but began to house Catholics from 1909 onwards. John O’Connell in 1914 wrote about reconstituting it under new management; “it occurred to me that the reconstitution of this hostel, under a permanent Catholic Governing Body, would be of an immense benefit to the Church, and to the entire Catholic population of Munster, and one which would have been peculiarly pleasing to Miss Honan herself”. His idea was that the business side of the institution and the discipline of the students should be looked after by a warden, who for obvious reasons, should be a married man. He also noted that part of his scheme should be a proper chapel “suitable to the dignity of a university, with a chaplain resident in the Hostel, responsible for the spiritual welfare of its inmates, and provided for by endowment”. Bishop of Cork O’Callaghan agreed to John O’Connell’s requests for a governing body and a chapel.
As a further contribution, John O’Connell arranged to allocate to University College, Cork, a sum of £3,000 for the completion of a Biological Institute, dealing with the subjects of botany, agriculture, zoology, and geology. He was convinced that the training in agriculture afforded by UCC to the students of Munster would be rendered “more efficient and successful”. He also asked that St Anthony’s Hall should be called the Honan Hostel and that the Biological Institute in future should be known as “The Honan Biological Institute”.
John O’Connell was the driver of the Honan Bequests. In his obituary in the Cork Examiner on 29 December 1943, it was noted that he was born in Dublin on 12 February 1868, and was educated at Belvedere College and Trinity College, Dublin. He was admitted a solicitor (Ireland) in 1889 and was head of the firm of Thomas F O’Connell and son solicitors, Dublin. He was knighted in 1914 and in 1924 was made Commander of the Order of St Gregory the Great by Pope Pius XI. During his lifetime he was a member of the Senate of the University of Dublin, member of the Governing Body of UCC, a fellow of the Royal Society of Antiquities of Ireland and Vice President of the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland. In 1901 he married Miss Mary Scally of Dublin and following her death he sold his house at Killiney, Co Dublin, and spent some time with the Benedictine Monks. He decided to become a secular priest and was ordained for the Diocese of Westminster.
John O’Connell was a great expert on ecclesiastical archaeology. The Honan Chapel is unique of its kind and John lavished much care as well as imagination on its erection and fitting out. He wrote many books and papers including “The Honan Hostel Chapel”, which can be read in local studies in Cork City Library.
Honan Chapel Symposium, Saturday 19 November, Aula Maxima, UCC, 9.15am-6pm, programme and registration at niamh.mundow@ucc.ie
Cork 1916, A Year Examined by Kieran McCarthy & Suzanne Kirwan is now available in Cork bookshops.
Captions:
868a. Honan memorial, St. Finbarre’s Cemetery; the back stained glass window of the memorial needs to be urgently fixed (picture: Kieran McCarthy)
Historian and Independent Councillor Kieran McCarthy has expressed disappointment that the development of Elizabeth Fort as a tourist product will not progress in the short term. Fáilte Ireland have expressed a disinterest in funding an interpretative centre at the fort, stating that other forts in the harbour will represent the Cork region’s history of fortifications. Cllr McCarthy noted at the last Cork City Council meeting to management that leaving Elizabeth Fort undeveloped comprises a series of missed opportunities – “we have spent four to five years developing a plan for the fort – this is the most prominent landmark in the city region after Shandon. It is unique in Ireland to have an Elizabethan Fort still standing in an inner city space. The fort is the flagship project for the South Parish Local Area Plan. The re-opening of the ramparts, thanks to the OPW, has helped to inspire re-generation on the street and put a pep in the work of planners trying to get landlords of empty properties on Barrack Street to develop them.
Cllr McCarthy continued; “The re-opening of the fort has sent out a message that long term vacancy and dereliction on Barrack Street will not be tolerated. This message will now be diluted due to lack of investment. The fort should be the tourist structure to tell the early origins story of Ireland’s southern capital from the Vikings to nineteenth century industrialist housing– it heads up a suite of historical sites in the local area – from Red Abbey to the 250-year old South Chapel, the new Nano Nagle Community Project to the story of Friar’s Walk and the Cork Improved Dwellings Company houses such as Evergreen Buildings. It is becoming more and more clear that Cork City is being squeezed out of campaigns of the Wild Atlantic Way and Ireland’s Ancient East. It is disheartening to see the lack of reference to Cork City in the website of Ireland’s Ancient East”. Cllr McCarthy has called on City Council officials to engage with Fáilte Ireland to put Ireland’s second city back firmly on the Irish tourist map; “New plans for Elizabeth Fort also need to be put together as soon as possible, so we can start preparing plan b to secure the fort’s future”.
Cllr Kieran McCarthy has welcomed the update by the management of Cork City Council that phase one of the Blackrock Pier Development is on track to be finished by December of this year. Funding for phase 2 is still being sought, which is the development of the car park and pier area itself. Cork City Council has now written to the National Transport Authority for continued funding of phase 2. It is expected that a decision on same will be made around the end of November and a report will be made to Council. If the funding application is successful the current contractor will commence construction on phase 2 in January 2017. Cllr McCarthy noted to the Chief Executive: “Phase 1 has been pursued quickly but with alot of patience asked of residents, business and the community association; it’s not a short term patience but long term in terms of twenty years or more waiting for this project. We are so close in completing what is a fantastic plan and one which all can be proud of; the tram track lines have reminded us all of the great heritage, Blackrock has. We need to finish what we started and not just stop in December”.
This week one hundred years ago, discussions filled the newspapers of the impending cold winter and the need to look after the impoverished of the city. The city’s institutions such as its hospitals – Mercy Hospital, South and North Infirmary, and institutions such as the City and County gaols, the Magdalene Asylum, the Sailor’s Home as well the City’s workhouse or Cork Union record the need to address the needs of society and to provide more financial aid and food to citizens immersed in large scale poverty. The other pillars of Cork Society were its educational ones – the core schools that appear are the North Monastery, the South Presentational Convent, Crawford Municipal Technical Institute and the Cork School of Commerce. All continue through the press to showcase the importance of education and life-long learning in escaping from poverty traps in the city’s vast slum network, and to help the overall societal pull to a better life.
Across October 1916 the Cork Industrial Association called upon the Corporation of the city to provide cheap fuel for the poor during the winter months. It was predicted that fuel of all kinds would likely increase in price due to demand. The Association deemed the prices far beyond the resources of the small wage earners, whose mode of livelihood – difficult enough before the war – had now become a large problem. They spoke of an impoverished class – those who had no regular employment, and whose income did not exceed more than a few shillings each week – who had no possible chance of procuring sufficient food, not to mention fuel. Without the aid of charitable assistance either from their own friends, a little better off than themselves, or from the societies in the city organised for the purpose of helping the necessities, they remained in serious deprivation. The Association denoted that in early October; “Despite the increase of employment in some trades and the circulation of large sums such as war separation allowances, inquiry will show that much extreme poverty exists in Cork at the present time. That sad condition of things will become aggravated with the approach of winter unless organised public effort is made to ameliorate the lot of the genuine poor“.
There is plenty data on living conditions present in the work of Fr Aengus MacSweeney, parish priest of St Mary’s Church, Pope’s Quay who throughout 1916 gave talks on poverty and living conditions of working classes in the City to different organisations. This was part of a personal programme to bring public attention to the conditions he encountered in an MA study. Fr MacSweeney was born in Castlecomer, County Kilkenny in 1894 and ordained into the Dominican Order in 1905. After first serving in Galway, he moved to Cork City in 1913. He had already obtained a BA and on his arrival in Cork, he pursued an MA in University College Cork.
One of Fr MacSweeney’s talks is detailed in the Cork Examiner in early February 1916 during the second of a series of Economic Conferences organised by Professor Smiddy and Mr Rahilly. It was held in the spacious Examination Hall of University College Cork. Professor Smiddy, introduced Fr MacSweeney, and pointed out that he had made an extensive investigation into the lives, housing, incomes, and standards of living of over 1,010 wage-earning families in Cork comprising 5,058 persons. Part of his MA thesis was published by the University in March 1917 (Poverty in Cork) and supported by the new Bishop of Cork, Daniel Cohalan.
Father MacSweeney, at the outset of his paper, dismissed mere hearsay evidence and vague statements concerning the poverty of a city. His study involved fieldwork within the slums. He found that 354 of his 1,010 families who he studied that that their total weekly income did not exceed 19s. The total earnings of these families, which included 1,832 individuals, was £243 17s 5d. Taking the prices and business rates prevalent before the war, the support of these individuals in the workhouse would cost the rates £233 2s for food alone. He noted that it was obvious that there were hundreds of families subsisting in Cork at a rate, which was insufficient to provide an adequate subsistence.
Father MacSweeney did not confine himself to numerical and statistical results. He presented several case studies of “struggles, despair and want”. He highlighted that poverty was a very complex and multi-sided, and that it raised problems in every sphere of social activity. He related that that a third of the families he interviewed did not live in any particular district. They were scattered over the city and were the most migratory portion of the population. Low rent was an attraction for them and determined their fixity of tenure. Fr MacSweeney dwelt on the bad housing conditions of the city and the problem of elevating and educating the children, and on the effects of “blind alley” employments. He also referred to the question of drink and improvidence; he regarded much of the excessive drinking as the effect rather than the cause of poverty.
Abstracted from Cork 1916, A Year Examined by Kieran McCarthy & Suzanne Kirwan is available in Cork bookshops.
Captions:
866a. Map of alaneways of slums, c.1910, north west ward of Cork City (source: Cork City Library)
866b. Fr Aengus MacSweeney, author of Poverty in Cork, 1917 (source: Cork City Library)
“I welcome the report of the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht regarding the concerns over minding the archaeological layers beneath the Beamish and Crawford site. I have noted some of their concerns in the past in the Council Chamber and was told, that the Project “Helix” or partnership of Developer, City Council and Central Government were on top of the matter but that was it; I have heard nothing else until the Department’s serious concerns over the archaeological layers; so I am appalled at these revelations by the Department.
I would like to say at the outset that the City Archaeologist is on top of her job and always is. But I can’t help but think through this serious intervention and revelation by the Department shows clearly that the archaeology is still not a major priority to be integrated into the events centre development. It would be an enormous missed opportunity if we cannot integrate the city’s history with a landmark events centre. I want the Events Centre built but not at the expense of destroying the city’s heritage for the sake of high rise student apartments. I don’t wish to a rerun of the 1970s Viking Wood Quay Dublin situation whereby the proper investigation and proper integration of the archaeology was sacrificed for the sake of an office block. The multitude of City Council archaeology reports on Cork’s medieval spine have showed us how much of Cork’s story lays underground in a great preserved condition in estuarine silt. Our archaeologists have been outstanding in their scholarship but this will be all for nothing if there is no strategy for archaeology integration at the Events Centre site. The test excavations in the Grand Parade City Carpark in the 2000s showed that the city walls, late Viking house foundations, and a multitude of objects have shown the rich archaeological layers beneath our city. We have seen many developments over the years, for example Kyrl’s Quay, in the 1990/ where the archaeology found such as the 60 metre town wall was not showcased as much as it could, and now lies as a 10 metre section locked up from the public now beneath the car park due to anti-social behaviour; there have been other factors of finance which have led to lack of integration as well as lack of vision by some developers towards the integration of the past into the future.
The second of two books penned by myself this year has just been published by Amberley Press and is entitled Cork City History Tour. I have coincided its launch with a free historical walking tour of the Victorian Quarter for the Urban October, Life in the City Project – 2pm, meet at top of St Patrick’s Hill, Sunday 16 October. The new book promotes that the best way to get to know a city like Cork is to walk it – in Cork you can get lost in narrow streets, marvel at old cobbled laneways, photograph old street corners, look up beyond the modern shopfronts, gaze at clues from the past, be enthused and at the same time disgusted by a view, smile at interested locals, engage in the forgotten and the remembered, search and connect for something of oneself, thirst in the sense of story-telling – in essence feel the DNA of the place.
Cork has a soul, which is packed full of ambition and heart. Giving walking tours over 21 years has allowed me to bring people on a journey into that soul but also receive feedback on the wider contexts of what visitors and locals have seen elsewhere. Cork is a city packed with historic gems all waiting to be discovered at every street corner. This book provides insights into about 60 such sites in and around the city centre island. One could have easily added three and four times as many sites to a book such as this.
Cork possesses a north-west European and an eastern North Atlantic port story. Located in the south of Ireland, it is windswept by tail ends of North Atlantic storms, which consistently drench the city and rural areas with wind and rains – but they leave to showcase a very photogenic urbanity with amazing sunsets on the river channels and a resilient green agricultural hinterland and chiselled raw coastline. Cork’s former historic networks and contacts are reflected in its the physical urban fabric – its bricks, street layout and decaying timber wharfs. Inspired by other cities with similar trading partners, it forged its own unique take on port architecture.
Twice a day and every day the tide sweeps in to erase part of this history. The river meanders through this city built on a swamp and sweeps in a sense its historic narratives along. Cork is bound to the river and tide as they are bound to it. It developed because of its connections through water to other cities in Ireland and within the former British empire. Exploring the harbour area, one can still find residues of the mud flat/ estuarine silt landscape that the city was constructed upon. It is a great feat of engineering to build a city on a swamp.
In the new book, there are many historic sites for the reader to explore. Of course each one of the sites deserves a book to be written on them and many have by the city’s array of local historians. The book’s trail takes in the story of the early origins of the city – the monastic site of St Finbarr to Viking age histories to the Anglo-Norman walled town followed by historic areas such as Shandon, St Patrick’s Street, City Hall, Sunday’s Well and the Wellington Road Victorian Quarter.
The first known settlement at Cork began as a monastic centre in the seventh century, founded by St Finbarre. This is now marked by the late nineteenth structure of St Finbarre’s Cathedral. it stands tall proud in its ecclesiastical heritage and also imbuing the city and wider region with a need for community to bring people together and to invest physically and morally in such structures. Hence, Cork has a myriad of church buildings with different styles from different times when such buildings were called upon to impart new messages about their contribution to the city.
The main urban centre was built on a series of marshy islands at the lowest crossing-point of the river, where it meets the sea. One can imagine the timber posts struck into the marshland to mark out the tentative first couple of Viking houses, and the first fires lit in such flood prone structures. The laying of the first block of the Anglo-Norman town wall must have been equally momentous. The actual stone from beneath the encircling southern and northern hills – sandstone and limestone provided the defences. The creeking open for the first time of Watergate and the control by the King’s and Queen’s Castles would have sparked excitement especially as the first timber ship clocked against the key walls. Similarly, the first ship from somewhere abroad in England or France would have brought a sense of wonder and acknowledgment in the city’s role in maritime western Europe.
The topping out of St Anne’s Church Shandon and years later the addition of the bells and clocks would have met with delight and pride. From the top of Shandon, you can gaze down upon the multi-coloured fabric and multi-faceted narrative presented in its urban fabric. Climbing down and walking amongst the streets and laneways, and unravelling those narratives has brought great joy to me personally and has kept me with my camera and notebook in hand trying to make sense of Cork’s place in north west Europe as an ambitious and soulful place.
Cork City History Tour is available in Waterstones and Liam Ruiseals.
Captions:
865a. Front cover of Cork City History Tour (2016) by Kieran McCarthy
865b. Postcard of King Street, now MacCurtain Street, c.1900, the subject of a walking tour on the 16 October (source: Cork City Museum)
