Category Archives: S.E. Ward Local History

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, Blackrock Historical Walking Tour, Saturday 22 September 2012

Cork City Events, Cork History, Kieran's Council Work, Landscapes, S.E. Ward Local History, Uncategorized, Ward Events

Blackrock Castle, Cork

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 

Cork Independent

Blackrock Historical Walking Tour, Saturday 22 September

13 September 2012

 

Earlier this year, I ran a walking tour of Blackrock village. On Saturday 22 September 2012, I will run this venture again (meet 2pm, Blackrock Castle, approx two hours). One of the themes I presented during my recent heritage week tours is that within every space in Cork, there is an interesting story to tell about the legacy of a former piece or way of life.

There is much to discover within a short space about Blackrock and its role in the wider city. Dealing with the human experience in this corner of the city, there is a strong legacy in terms of its sense of place and identity; how that was constructed and what clues remain are objects of this tour. Within the story of Blackrock and its environs, one can speak about a myriad of topics from its connection to the river and the harbour to its former mini demesne type landscape in the nineteenth century to its heart of a small village of hard working labourers and fishermen whose struggled to survive.

Within the heart of Convent Avenue, there is a lovely stone wall, which has always impressed me and which separates higher ground from the avenue itself. Random rubble in its nature, it is impressive and adds to the aesthetics of a once very populous area. Around it is a series of modern day houses, but amidst these are a series of cottages, their present day paintwork belying their true nature of times gone by. With more and more British government reports and antiquarian accounts of Ireland, coming online, recently I stumbled across a report from 1843, which focussed on this area and helps to reconstruct life there at that time. The report entitled the “Physical and Moral Condition of the Working Classes in the Parish of St Michael Blackrock near Cork” was read by North Ludlow Beamish, President of the Cork Scientific and Literary Society, before the statistical section of the British Association of the Advancement of Science at Cork August 1843. Of course, this data describes the pre-famine world of Blackrock.

In 1845, the British Association was invited by the Royal Cork Institution, to hold its thirteenth meeting in the Imperial Hotel in Cork. Its comprehensive programme for Cork is now in pdf form on the Association’s website. The Blackrock paper was one of several papers that were read. Some of the science topics included the action of air and water, whether fresh or salt, clear or foul, and of various temperatures, upon cast iron, wrought, iron, and steel, experiments on steam-engines, a series of observations on tidal movement, the physiological action of medicines and even a report on the fauna of Ireland.

North Ludlow Beamish’s paper is full of insights into the area surrounding Convent Avenue. He notes that population of Blackrock and its immediate environs in April 1843 was 2,630 consisting of families living in 413 houses. A total of 61 houses were uninhabited and 9 were in the progress of building. Of the population 2,181 are Roman Catholics and 443 Protestants including dissenters. There were 557 families. Ninety families were living in one roomed houses, 260 in two rooms and 207 in three or more rooms.  The whole number of the gentry was 372 leaving that of the working classes numbering 2,258, and of these 1,125 were males and 1,133 females.

The trades Beamish listed were varied; brick makers (numbering 56), cabinet makers (2), carpenters (15), coopers (3), farmers (53), fishermen (111), gardeners (32), gingle drivers (13, generally owners), lime burners (18), masons (14),  male servants (79), shoemakers (14), slaters (12), smiths (9), tailors (10). Male children numbered 426.  As for females, their total was 1133 with 372 employed as servants in work in fields. Female children, aged and infirm numbered 453 whilst 305 were unemployed.

Beamish further described that 113 of the working classes hold land varying from a quarter of an acre to seven acres each. They pay an average yearly rent of £3 per acre exclusive of poor rate and county rate. The soil was generally excellent and capable of bearing the ‘finest’ wheat crops. The course of tillage was potatoes and wheat alternately, the former being manured. However, the general preparation of the land was not performed well by the working farmer, so that the potato crop seldom yielded more than seven tons or the wheat more than six barrels of 20 stone or about 3 ½ English quarters per acre. This amounted to about two thirds of the same produce that could be produced if the same description of land was under a proper system of tillage. Beamish noted that wages for tradesmen’s were on average 20s per week; labouring men received 5s 10d; women 3s and children 2s per week but many able bodied men worked for 5s a week. In time of harvest, good reapers could be got at the ordinary wages of 1s a day. The Beamish report goes on for pages. A further breakdown is given on the walking tour!

 

Caption:

658a. Blackrock Castle (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

Kieran’s Comments, Tramore Valley Park Draft Plan, Cork City Council Meeting, 10 September 2012

Cork History, Improve Your Life, Kieran's Council Work, S.E. Ward Local History, Uncategorized, Ward Events

Aerial view from Cork City Council of Tramore Valley Park, Cork, a former landfill site; submissions on the plan are now being invited

 

 Lord Mayor, this is a very exciting project.

Building a people’s park is no easy task; the making of a new public façade for the city at the Kinsale Road Landfill is one full of questions and debates on what it should be physically and symbolically.

The last time a major City Park opened was Fitzgerald’s Park in 1905. Of course there are green spaces scattered across the city but none with the same scale of development as the 160 acre site off Kinsale Road.

In recent months Lord mayor, I set up a Design a Public Park Art competition for schools in the city and received over 200 entries plus recently had a historical walking tour across the site as part of the Council’s Open Day. There is enormous interest in this site and I don’t think we have even begun to really promote this park.

The recent open day led to vast crowds taking an interest in the site. And the one thing that will take this project down is the lack of making this a people’s park. Despite the millions of euros invested in managing and capping the dump, the publicity for the new park really hasn’t left the arena of an open day.

We need large signage at the top of its capped hill, a facebook site, engagement with young families and so on

Recently, Lord Mayor, I was asked before my walking tour of the site what was I going to show on the site…. Mary Murphy’s rubbish.

But walking across the site, one can feel the tension in its sense of place, a place haunted and engineered by its past and teeming with ideas about its future. This is a place where the City’s environment has always been debated.

A 1655 map of the city and its environs marks the site as Spittal Lands, a reference to the original local environment and the backing up of the Trabeg and Tramore rivers as they enter the Douglas channel. The backup created a marshland, where coarse wetland grasses grew.

Fast forward to the 1840s and plans were drawn up for a railway between Cork and Bandon. When it eventually opened to the public on 6 December 1851, part of its design encompassed a nine metres high embankment as it crossed the Tramore River’s floodplain. The track crossed the river initially on a wooden bridge, which in time was replaced by a stone culvert more affectionately known as the Snotty Bridge.

The wetlands began as one of the city’s dump or landfill of sorts way back in 1894. Here a facility was made where the sweepings or ashes of the city would be dropped daily and auctioned to the nearby market gardeners for soil enrichment on a Saturday morning. Protests began but to no avail. It remained as a contentious thorn in the debate about the city’s environment well into the twentieth century.

Indeed, when the site of the 1932 Irish Industrial and Agricultural Fair was disbanded, the city got an official dump site off the Carrigrohane Straight Road. In time, this site in 1971 began to be closed off and once again the process of dumping was speeded up at the Kinsale Road site.

Campaigning began once again, this time by the residents of new estates off South Douglas Road. An article in the Southern Star on 13 July 1974 talks about “ a subsidiary, a kind of Branch of the parent dump” being created.

Of course, there were expansions of the dump in 1990. The reams of newspaper columns, which can be tracked down in the City Library reveal that tensions have run strong for nearly forty years to have the dump closed.

Here is a site where the city can draw on so many themes to promote  itself,

A place where the City’s environment has always been in focus

The city’s local history, city’s history, city’s environmental history all interconnect, adding in layers

It is a place of ideas, of opportunity, a place of negotiation, a place of motivation, a place of next steps, a place that needs validation- it has a right to be part of the city

This is a place which changes the city’s gameplan for its future; We need to actively engage people in making the city’s twenty-first century people’s park.

Workhouse Tour, Douglas Road, 24 August 2012

Cork City Events, Cork History, Kieran's Council Work, S.E. Ward Local History, Uncategorized, Ward Events

Friday 24 August 2012, St Finbarr’s Hospital and the workhouse tour; meet at entrance to the hospital, 11am; learn about the life and times of the former nineteenth century workhouse on Douglas Road (duration: 2 hours). The workhouse, which opened in December 1841, was an isolated place – built beyond the toll house and toll gates, which gave entry to the city and which stood just below the end of the wall of St. Finbarr’s Hospital in the vicinity of the junction of the Douglas, and Ballinlough Roads. The Douglas Road workhouse was also one of the first of over 130 workhouses to be designed by the Poor Law Commissioners’ architect George Wilkinson. 

Saturday 25 August 2012, Views from a Park, Historical walking tour through the site of the new regional park, formerly the Kinsale Road Landfill, 11am, free event, car parking on site, meet at central marquee (duration: 1 ½ hours; (part of an open day with Cork City Council). More on this next week and updates on facebook, Cork: Our City, Our Town.

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article, Views from a Park, 23 August 2012

Cork City Events, Cork History, Improve Your Life, Kieran's Council Work, S.E. Ward Local History, Uncategorized, Ward Events

655a. Kinsale Road landfill, soon to be a regional-park

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article 

 Cork Independent, 23 August 2012

Views from a Park

Building a people’s park is no easy task; the making of a new public façade for the city at the Kinsale Road Landfill is one full of questions and debates on what it should be physically and symbolically. The last time a major City Park opened was Fitzgerald’s Park in 1905. Of course there are green spaces scattered across the city but none with the same scale of development as the 160 acre site off Kinsale Road.

On next Saturday, 25 August at 11am, I conduct a walking tour across the site as part of Cork City Council’s Open Day. I have entitled it “Views from a Park” (carparking on site, meet at marquee). The focus perhaps is twofold; by using an elevated site in a city’s suburb, one can tell the story of a city, and also in this context comment on the site’s contentious local history. The physical views range from the city’s shapeful public architecture through Cork’s northern suburbs to the harbour area and Lee Valley to the lush rolling suburbs like Ballyphehane and Douglas.

The new park is an exciting initiative on the Council’s behalf but walking across the site, one can feel the tension in its sense of place, a place haunted and engineered by its past and teeming with ideas about its future. This is a place where the City’s environment has always been debated. A 1655 map of the city and its environs marks the site as Spittal Lands, a reference to the original local environment and the backing up of the Trabeg and Tramore rivers as they enter the Douglas channel. The backup created a marshland, where coarse wetland grasses grew. Such a landscape is also immortalised in the parish name of Ballyphehane or Baile an Feitheáin, Feitheáin, meaning swamp. In the late 1600s, Colonel William Piggott of Oliver Cromwell’s army was rewarded with land across Cork’s southern hinterland. The Pigotts came from Chetwynd in Shropshire and initially came to Ballyginnane beyond present day Togher. In time, they re-named this area Chetwynd. In 1748, the wetland began to be enclosed and be let to city merchants for the grazing of horses. In the late 1700s, this area would have witnessed a number of camp field for military training until a new barracks was built in 1814 on the city’s northside. Interestingly, c. 1784 Sir Henry Browne Hayes, an owner of a glass making and distilling businesses, built Vernon Mount, named after George Washington home and his family’s respect for the British Royal Navy Vice Admiral Edward Vernon.

 

Fast forward to the 1840s and plans were drawn up for a railway between Cork and Bandon. When it eventually opened to the public on 6 December 1851, part of its design encompassed a nine metres high embankment as it crossed the Tramore River’s floodplain. The track crossed the river initially on a wooden bridge, which in time was replaced by a stone culvert. On the southern approach to the city, it became necessary to cut deep through and into the limestone bedrock. The line also cut across three south-eastern approach roads which led into the city itself. Part of this line later became the South Link Road.

 

The wetlands began as one of the city’s dump or landfill of sorts way back in 1894. Here a facility was made where the sweepings of the city would be dropped daily and auctioned to the nearby market gardeners for soil enrichment on a Saturday morning. Protests began but to no avail. It remained as a contentious thorn in the debate about the city’s environment well into the twentieth century. Indeed, when the site of the 1932 Irish Industrial and Agricultural Fair was disbanded, the city got an official dump site off the Carrigrohane Straight Road. In time, this site in 1971 began to be closed off and once again the process of dumping was speeded up at the Kinsale Road site. Campaigning began once again, this time by the residents of new estates off South Douglas Road. An article in the Southern Star on 13 July 1974 talks about “ a subsidiary, a kind of Branch of the parent dump” being created. Of course, there were expansions of the dump in 1990. The newspaper columns, which can be tracked down in the City Library reveal that tensions have run strong for nearly forty years to have the dump closed. And so now it has happened.

 

However, one of the big questions, is how do you rebrand this place? Here is a place for many years provided a need for the city’s waste, a stenchful landscape of waste and broken objects complete with its wildlife. Probably in one hundred year’s time and more, this will be the city’s greatest archaeological sites with thousands of tons of rubbish, still decomposing. Walking across the site, there are the multiple views of the city that reveal its multifaceted story but beneath the feet is the story of Corkonians and pure living. Here is a place of contention but an enormous place of opportunity, a place for years that needed to be validated as part of the city and an enormous landscape of ideas to be harnessed.

 

Caption:

655a. Kinsale Road Landfill, Cork, soil capped and awaiting to be a regional park (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

Kieran’s Heritage Week Events, 18-25 August 2012

Cork City Events, Cork History, Improve Your Life, S.E. Ward Local History, Uncategorized, Ward Events

654a. Saint George slaying the dragon, Old Steam Packet Office, Penrose Quay, Cork

 

Kieran’s Heritage Week Events (18-25 August 2012),

Our City, Our Town, Cork Independent, 16 August 2012

 

National Heritage Week is upon us again next week (18th – 25th August). It’s going to be a busy week. I have set up a number of events. They are all free and I welcome any public support for the activities outlined below.

Saturday 18 August 2012, Historical walking tour of Cork City Hall as part of Cork Heritage Open Day, 10.30am; meet in foyer of old building, Learn about the early history of Cork City Council, Discover the development of the building and visit the Lord Mayor’s Room (duration: 1 ¼ hours; free but ticketed, contact The Everyman Palace, 0214501673, www.corkheritageopenday.ie). One of the most splendid buildings in the city is Cork City Hall. The current structure, replaced the old City Hall, which was destroyed in the ‘burning of Cork’ in 1920. It was designed by Architects Jones and Kelly and built by the Cork Company Sisks. The foundation stone was laid by Eamonn de Valera, President of the Executive Council of the State on 9 July 1932. The building was formerly opened by Eamonn DeValera on 8 September, 1936. The building is designed on classic lines to harmonise with the examples of eighteenth and nineteenth century architecture. The facades are of beautiful silver limestone from the Little Island quarries.

Saturday 18 August 2012, Memories of the Lee Valley; historical exhibition; Discover some of the rich histories and memories of the River Lee valley. All day, as part of Water Heritage Open Day, Lifetime Lab, Lee Road, free event.

Monday 20 August 2012, Historical walking tour of Cork City; meet at St Finbarre’s Cathedral, 11am; discover the early origins of the City, learn about Cork’s development across a swamp and as a port (duration: two hours).

Tuesday 21 August 2012, Historical walking tour of Blackpool; meet at North Mon gates, Gerald Griffin Avenue, 11am; Explore the rich history of the area from Fair Hill to the heart of Blackpool; learn about nineteenth century shambles, schools, convents and industries (duration: 2 hours). The walking tour weaves its way from the North Mon into Blackpool, Shandon and Gurranbraher highlighting nineteenth century life in this corner of Cork from education to housing to politics, to religion, to industry and to social life itself.

Blackpool was the scene of Industry in Cork in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries for industries such as tanning through big names such as Dunn’s Tannery and distilling through families as the Hewitts. The leather industry at one vibrant in Blackpool with no fewer than 46 tanyards at work there in 1837 giving employment to over 700 hands and tanning on average 110,000 hides annually. Blackpool also has other messages about relief in the form of the former Poor House site at Murphy’s Brewery to Madden’s Buildings to highlighting the work of Ireland’s social reformers through street names such as William O’Brien, Gerald Griffin, Daniel O’Connell and Tomas McCurtain. All these messages inject the place with memories of difficult times but also times of determination to survive against the odds. 

 

Thursday 23 August 2012, Douglas historical walking tour; meet at St. Columba’s Church Car Park, Douglas, 11am; Discover Douglas and its industrial heritage (duration: 2 hours). The story of Douglas and its environs is in essence a story of experimentation, of industry and of people and social improvement. As early as the late thirteenth century King John of England made a grant of parcels of land, near the city of Cork to Philip de Prendergast. On 1 June 1726, Douglas sailcloth factory was begun to be built. Samuel Perry and Francis Carleton became the first proprietors, who were part of a colony of weavers from Fermanagh. The eighteenth century was the last golden age for wooden sailing ships, before the 1800s made steam and iron prerequisites for modern navies and trading fleets. It was a golden age too for maritime exploration, with the voyages of James Cook amongst others opening up the Pacific and the South Seas. Douglas in its own way added in part to this world of exploration.

Friday 24 August 2012, St Finbarr’s Hospital and the workhouse tour; meet at entrance to the hospital, 11am; learn about the life and times of the former nineteenth century workhouse on Douglas Road (duration: 2 hours). The workhouse, which opened in December 1841, was an isolated place – built beyond the toll house and toll gates, which gave entry to the city and which stood just below the end of the wall of St. Finbarr’s Hospital in the vicinity of the junction of the Douglas, and Ballinlough Roads. The Douglas Road workhouse was also one of the first of over 130 workhouses to be designed by the Poor Law Commissioners’ architect George Wilkinson. 

Saturday 25 August 2012, Views from a Park, Historical walking tour through the site of the new regional park, formerly the Kinsale Road Landfill, 11am, free event, car parking on site, meet at central marquee (duration: 1 ½ hours; (part of an open day with Cork City Council). More on this next week and updates on facebook, Cork: Our City, Our Town.

 

Caption:

654a. Saint George slaying the dragon, atop old Steam Packet Office, Penrose Quay (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

Kieran’s Heritage Week Events (18-25 August 2012)

Cork City Events, Cork History, Kieran's Council Work, S.E. Ward Local History, Uncategorized, Ward Events

Saturday 18 August 2012, Historical walking tour of City Hall with Kieran as part of Cork Heritage Open Day, 10.30am, free, meet in foyer of old building, Learn about the early history of Cork City Council, Discover the development of the building and visit the Lord Mayor’s Room (duration: 1 ¼ hours); booking may apply, please see Cork Heritage Open Day website.

 

Saturday 18 August 2012, Memories of the Lee Valley; historical exhibition by Kieran Discover some of the rich histories and memories of the River Lee valley. All day, as part of Water Heritage Open Day, Lifetime Lab, Lee Road, free event.

 

Tuesday 21 August 2012, Historical walking tour of Cork City with Kieran, meet at St Finbarre’s Cathedral, 11am, free, discover the early origins of the City, learn about Cork’s former Viking age core and the Anglo-Norman Walled town (duration: two hours).

 

Wednesday 22 August 2012, Historical walking tour of Blackpool with Kieran, meet at North Mon gates, Gerald Griffin Avenue, 11am, free; Explore the rich history of the area from Fair Hill to the heart of Blackpool, learn about nineteenth century shambles, schools, convents and industries (duration: 2 hours).

Thursday 23 August 2012, Douglas historical walking tour with Kieran, meet at St. Columba’s Church Car Park, Douglas, 11am, free; Discover Douglas and its industrial heritage (duration: 2 hours).

 

Friday 24 August 2012, St Finbarr’s Hospital and the workhouse tour with Kieran, meet at entrance to the hospital, 11am, free; learn about the life and times of the former nineteenth century workhouse on Douglas Road (duration: 2 hours).

Historical Walking Tour of St Finbarr’s Hospital, Saturday 23 June 2012

Cork City Events, Cork History, S.E. Ward Local History, Uncategorized, Ward Events

On next Saturday, 23 June 2012, 12noon , Cllr Kieran McCarthy, in association with the Friends of St Finbarr’s Hospital, will give a public historical walking tour of the hospital grounds (meet at gate). The walk is free and takes place to support the summer bazaar of the Friends. Cllr McCarthy noted: “St Finbarr’s Hospital, the city’s former nineteenth century workhouse, serves as a vast repository of narratives, memories, symbolism, iconography and cultural debate”. When the Irish Poor Relief Act was passed on 31 July 1838, the assistant Poor Law commissioner, William J. Voules came to Cork in September 1838 to implement the new laws. Meetings were held in towns throughout the country. By 1845, 123 workhouses had been built, formed into a series of districts or Poor Law Unions, each Poor Law Union containing at least one workhouse. The cost of poor relief was met by the payment of rates by owners of land and property in that district.

In 1841 eight acres, 1 rood and 23 perches were leased to the Poor Law Guardians from Daniel B. Foley, Evergreen House, Cork. Mr. Foley retained an acre, on which was Evergreen House with its surrounding gardens, which fronted South Douglas Road (now a vacant concrete space). The subsequent workhouse that was built on the leased lands was opened in December 1841. It was an isolated place, built beyond the City’s toll house and toll gates. The Douglas Road workhouse was also one of the first of over 130 workhouses to be designed by the Poor Law Commissioners’ architect George Wilkinson. 

 

Cork Union Workhouse by Colman O'Mahony

 

Historical Walking Tour of St. Finbarre’s Hospital,23 June 2012, 12noon

Cork History, Kieran's Council Work, S.E. Ward Local History, Uncategorized, Ward Events

On next Saturday, 23 June 2012, 12noon , Cllr Kieran McCarthy, in association with the Friends of St Finbarr’s Hospital, will give a public historical walking tour of the hospital grounds (meet at gate). The walk is free and takes place to support the summer bazaar of the Friends. Cllr McCarthy noted: “St Finbarr’s Hospital, the city’s former nineteenth century workhouse, serves as a vast repository of narratives, memories, symbolism, iconography and cultural debate”. When the Irish Poor Relief Act was passed on 31 July 1838, the assistant Poor Law commissioner, William J. Voules came to Cork in September 1838 to implement the new laws. Meetings were held in towns throughout the country. By 1845, 123 workhouses had been built, formed into a series of districts or Poor Law Unions, each Poor Law Union containing at least one workhouse. The cost of poor relief was met by the payment of rates by owners of land and property in that district.

In 1841 eight acres, 1 rood and 23 perches were leased to the Poor Law Guardians from Daniel B. Foley, Evergreen House, Cork. Mr. Foley retained an acre, on which was Evergreen House with its surrounding gardens, which fronted South Douglas Road (now a vacant concrete space). The subsequent workhouse that was built on the leased lands was opened in December 1841. It was an isolated place, built beyond the City’s toll house and toll gates. The Douglas Road workhouse was also one of the first of over 130 workhouses to be designed by the Poor Law Commissioners’ architect George Wilkinson. 

 

Cork Union Workhouse by Colman O'Mahony