Category Archives: Cork History

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 10 April 2014

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

736a. Heritage relationships, Grand Parade boardwalk with Holy Trinity Church and Parliament Bridge, 17 March 2014

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 10 April 2014

Cork City Heritage Plan, 2014-2018

 

The new Cork City Heritage Plan (2014-2018) is an action plan and sets out a series of realistic and practical actions to protect conserve and manage the city’s heritage over the next five years and a methodology on the implementation of these actions. The draft reports outlines that Cork City’s heritage is diverse, vibrant and can be seen all around us. It includes archaeology, built heritage, natural heritage and cultural heritage together with our archives, museum, libraries and other collections. Other important elements of our heritage include landscapes, geology, and parks. It also includes local history and folklore, turns of phrase and accents, local customs and traditional food.

Cork City Heritage Plan 2007-2012 was the first plan of its kind in Cork City. The plan had four principal objectives and there were forty seven actions covering all aspects of heritage protection and focusing on built heritage, archaeology, cultural heritage and natural heritage. Perhaps the more successful elements were the hands-on elements such as Heritage Open day, which recently won Best Interactive Event for National Heritage
Week 2013. Other successful actions included publications e.g. a Guide to the Record of Protected Structures and A Guide to Nature in the City (which is very much worthwhile googling and downloading to read), Surveys and Studies e.g. the Bridges of Cork City, Development of Heritage Trails in Cork City, Training e.g. Seminar on Ironwork in Cork City, Museum Basics, Events e.g. Cork Heritage Open Day and Heritage Week, and annual projects such as the Cork City Heritage Grants Scheme and the Discover Cork Schools Heritage Project.

The new draft plan does not contain actions on every aspect of heritage, as this would be impossible to achieve in five years. A conscious decision was made by the diligent Heritage Officer Niamh Twomey to keep to a realistic number of actions and in so doing 30 priority actions were identified. However, the draft plan calls for the public to respond to it. Niamh rightly comments that “heritage is more than just the individual material assets and environment of a place. It is also about the relationship between all these elements and the people of Cork City. In truth heritage is all of these things. It is what we as a community have inherited from the past and it is what defines our city, making it unique and separate from any other place”.

Stand on any public space in Cork and one can view is a city of contrasts and is a mixture of many varied cultural traditions. As the draft plan denotes; “ The heritage of Cork City maps and mirrors this diverse and continuous change in Cork and its citizens, from the Vikings through to the Victorians and into the modern day. It is this heritage which helps make Cork City the vibrant and interesting place it is today”. All elements of heritage can be experienced in Cork City. The archaeology of the city can be seen in the medieval street pattern of the North and South Main Streets, the historic graveyards such as St Joseph’s and St Finbarr’s and medieval and early post medieval structures such as Red Abbey Tower and Elizabeth Fort. Cork’s industrial archaeology and historic remains still survive in the contemporary City e.g. the Butter Market in Shandon and the bonded warehouse in the Port of Cork.  Natural heritage has also always thrived in Cork, no doubt due to its estuarine and wetland origins. Many mammals, birds, invertebrates and wild plants have adapted to life alongside humans in our urban landscape.

There are four objectives of the draft heritage Plan. Firstly, caring and managing our heritage is at the core of what the plan sets out to do. This is achieved through promoting best practice and encouraging the care, conservation and protection of our heritage. Secondly, the need for better communication of the heritage message was one of the clearest outcomes from the heritage plan review process. Good communication is required to raise awareness of heritage issues and garner public support for the protection and care of our heritage while also facilitating greater enjoyment of Cork City’s rich heritage for everyone. Heritage events will play a key role in attracting more people to explore and enjoy their heritage.  Thirdly support education, research and training is key. Learning more about our heritage by collaborating with collecting and research institutions and bodies and commissioning research which adds to our knowledge, is important, as is providing training opportunities for those interested in managing their local heritage.  The fourth objective is to increase level of community activity for heritage and forge stronger links with business and tourist interests. Heritage groups and organisations, dedicated individuals and local communities play a key role in caring for and raising awareness of our heritage and in adding to our knowledge of our heritage.

The draft Cork City Heritage Plan is available to download from www.corkcityheritage.ie/newsandevents or by contacting the Heritage Officer at heritage@corkcity.ie or tel. 021 4924086. The closing date for comments is Friday 25 April 2014.  Please forward all submissions in writing to Niamh Twomey, Heritage Officer, Cork City Council, City Hall, Cork. 

 

Caption:

 

736a. ‘Heritage relationships’, Grand Parade boardwalk with Holy Trinity Church and Parliament Bridge, 17 March 2014 (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 4 April 2014

Cork City Events, Cork History, Kieran's Council Work, Landscapes, Uncategorized

735a. Illustration of central industrial hall, Cork International Exhibition 1902

 

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 4 April 2014

Talk on Cork’s Exhibitions

Next week on Wednesday morning, on 9 April, as part of Cork Lifelong Learning Festival, I present a public lecture on a history of Cork Exhibitions (10.30am, Meeting room, Church of the Real Presence, Curaheen).  Cork has had three exhibitions (1852, 1883 & 1902/3) and one fair (1932). All put the city in a highly visible place in Irish public life and in the popular imagination. All developed social tools to push forward an ideology, representation and symbolism that marked Cork’s and Ireland’s place in the British empire under British rule and in the context of the 1932 fair in the early twentieth century.

The exhibitions were the brain child of Cork’s social elite. The exhibitions became a marketing strategy where spectacle and culture merged. Aesthetics of architecture, colour, decoration and lighting were all added to the sense of spectacle and in a tone of moral and educational improvement. The events also aimed to consolidate ideologically and extend the authority of the city’s corporate, political and scientific leadership. Each stand in its own way promoted ideas about the relations of the Cork city and other nations, the spread of education, the advancement of science, the nature of domestic life and the place of art in society.

The 1902 exhibition, for example, had several hundred exhibits on display from May to October in the Mardyke in prefabricated timber buildings. The main categories of exhibits included a women’s section, raw materials section, geological specimens section, natural history section, modern science section, archaeological and historical section, raw materials industrially treated section, forestry section, educational section and a nature study section. By the close of the Exhibition, over one million people had visited the Cork site. The newspapers of the day wrote about the exhibition enchanting and diverting the masses from more serious matters such as unemployment and housing conditions.

The ideals and symbols of the exhibitions were even magnified for their opening day where the Exhibition organisers sought to embrace the wider public. The Cork exhibitions presented a national narrative of modernity – how the fusion of Irish national values were reflected and materialised. The opening day on 1 May 1902 was observed as a general holiday. The large drapery houses remained closed till 2 pm by which the procession had passed through the thoroughfares. From an early hour, people anxious to watch the spectacle densely crowded advantage points. Special trains ran on all the railway systems converging on the city. Previous to the procession, various trades, national bodies, city bands and county contingents formed in Anglesea Street at the Municipal Building

A lavish opening ceremony marked the opening outlined key speeches that were made. The Concert Hall possessed comfortable seating accommodation in the auditorium for two thousand persons, while the organ loft afforded ample room.  The opening speeches embraced a forward looking universalising future, a creative entrepreneurialism, the quest to create a spectacle of technological innovation whilst engaging a national past.  They asserted difference while maintaining internal communication within an Empire culture.  

 

The Cork Examiner noted of the canata “The Building of the Ship” being performed. The canata had been especially composed for the Leeds Musical Festival of 1886 and was written by Henry Wadeworth Longfellow and composed by John Francis Barnett. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a commanding figure in the cultural life of nineteenth-century America. Born in Portland, Maine, in 1807, he became a national literary figure by the 1850s, and a world- famous personality by the time of his death in 1882. Henry Wadeworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include Paul Revere’s Ride, The Song of Hiawatha and Evangeline. He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy.

The story of the Building of the Ship poem deals with the Master who heard his merchant’s word with delight and who designed the model of a ship of modern mould, built for “freight and yet for speed, a beautiful and gallant craft, which was to be completed by a youth, “the heir of desterity”, who when he had built and launched the ship, was to receive the hand of the old man’s daughter. The vessel was to be built of “cedar of Maine and Georgia Pine”- indicating the northern and southern states of the US – and the “ Union” was to be her name.

The whole process of construction is elaborately and eloquently described, how the heavy hammers and mallets were plied until at length at the mast head the stars and stripes unrolled and all is finished and the bridal day is the day of the launching. The poem concluded; “Then, too sail on, O Ship of State, Sail on, O Union, strong and great”. The poem was read in Cork to symbolise the unity of purpose of Industrial Ireland – north and south – how the project was built up and how on its completion it was publicly launched with the best wishes of all classes of the community, with the hope that it may be “safe from all adversity”. These sentiments are also echoed in the origins of many of the stands at the 1902 Exhibition, with many coming from the southern and northern Ireland (more at the lecture).

 

Caption:

735a. Illustration of central industrial hall, Cork International Exhibition, 1902 (source: Cork Museum)

Draft Cork City Heritage Plan 2014-2018

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

The draft Cork City Heritage Plan 2014-2018 is now available for public comment. 

 
The Cork City Heritage Plan is an action plan and sets out a series of realistic and practical actions to protect conserve and manage our heritage over the next five years and a methodology on the implementation of these actions.  The formulation of what is the second Heritage Plan for Cork City presents an opportunity to build on the achievements of the previous plan and to renew the efforts to protect, manage and promote Cork City’s heritage. The aim of the draft Cork City Heritage Plan 2014-2018 is “To protect and promote the heritage of Cork City and to place the care of our heritage at the heart of the community”
 
Organisations and individuals are invited to make submissions and express their views and opinions on what they believe are key heritage issues in the city and what they would like to see in the new Heritage Plan.
 
The draft Cork City Heritage Plan is available to download from www.corkcityheritage.ie/newsandevents  or by contacting the Heritage Officer at heritage@corkcity.ie or tel 021 4924086
 
The closing date for comments is Friday 25th of April 2014.  Please forward all submissions in writing to
Niamh Twomey, Heritage Officer, Cork City Council, City Hall, Cork, Or email to heritage@corkcity.ie

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 27 March 2014

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

734a. Model of Blackrock Castle from student in St Vincent's Secondary School, Cork

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 27 March 2014

Discover Cork: Schools’ Heritage Project 2014

 

This year marks the eleventh year of the Discover Cork: Schools’ Heritage Project co-ordinated by myself. The Project for 2014 culminated recently in two award ceremonies for the project. It  is open to schools in Cork City and County- at primary level to the pupils of fourth, fifth and sixth class and at post-primary from first to sixth years. A total of 48 schools in Cork took part this year. Circa 1600 students participated in the process and approx 220 projects were submitted on all aspects of Cork’s history.

One of the key aims of the project is to allow students to explore, investigate and comment on their local history in a constructive, active and fun way. The emphasis is on the process of doing a project and learning not only about your area but also developing new personal skills. Students are challenged to devise methodologies that provide interesting ways to approach the study of their local history. Submitted projects must be colourful, creative, have personal opinion, imagination and gain publicity. These elements form the basis of a student friendly narrative analysis approach where the students explore their project topic in an interactive way. In particular students are encouraged to attain primary material through engaging with a number of methods such as fieldwork, interviews with local people, making models, photographing, cartoon creating, making DVDs of their area.

Students are to experiment with the overall design and plan of their projects. It attempts to bring the student to become more personal and creative in their approaches. Much of the work could be published as local heritage / history guides to people and places in the region. For example a winning class project this year focussed on the history of the Church of the Annunciation, Blackpool, researched it, mapped out its memories through interviewing local people.

This year marks went towards making a short film or a model on projects to accompany history booklets. Submitted DVDs this year had interviews of family members to local historians to the student taking a reporter type stance on their work. Some students also chose to act out scenes from the past. A class in the city this year chose to narrate their own film on what it is to be a Cork Citizen. Another group created a short film on University College Cork and Fota House.

The creativity section also encourages model making. The best model trophy in general goes to the creative and realistic model. This year the best model in the city went to a model of St Anne’s Church, Shandon, which complemented her creative booklet. Indeed models of Cork churches featured this year in several projects. In the county, the top model prize went to students from Scoil Aban Naofa, Baile Mhuirne who re-created different archaeological monuments associated with St Gobnait.

Students are encouraged to compare and connect the past to their present and their immediate future. Work needs to involve re-imagining what life may have been like. One of the key foundations in the Project is about developing empathy for the past– to think about attitudes and experience in the past. Interpretation is also empowering for the student- all the time developing a better sense of the different ways in which people engage with and express a sense of place and time.

Every year, the students involved produce a section in their project books showing how they communicated their work to the wider community. It is about reaching out and gaining public praise for the student but also appraisal and further ideas. Some class projects were presented in nursing homes to engage the older generation and to attain further memories from participants. Students were also successful in putting work on local parish newsletters, newspapers and local radio stations and also presenting work in local libraries. This year the most prominent source of gaining publicity was inviting parents and grandparents into the classroom for an open day for viewing projects or putting displays on in local community centres and libraries. 

Overall, the Discover Cork: Schools’ Heritage Project attempts to provide the student with a hands-on and interactive activity that is all about learning not only about your local area but also about the process of learning by participating students. The project in the city is kindly funded by Cork Civic Trust (viz the help of John X Miller), Cork City Council (viz the help of Heritage Officer Niamh Twomey), the Heritage Council. Prizes were also provided in the 2014 season by Lifetime Lab, Lee Road (thanks to Meryvn Horgan), Sean Kelly of Lucky Meadows Equestrian Centre Watergrasshill and Cork City Gaol Heritage Centre. The county section is funded by myself and students. A full list of winners, topics and pictures of some of the project pages for 2014 can be viewed at www.corkheritage.ie and on facebook on Cork: Our City, Our Town. For those doing research, www.corkheritage.ie has also a number of resources listed to help with source work.

Forthcoming lectures with Kieran; Wednesday 2 April, 7.30pm South Parish Historical Society at St John’s College, talk on the River Lee; Wednesday, 9 April, 10.30am, Meeting room, Church of the Real Presence, Curaheen, talk on Cork’s Great Exhibitions.

Caption:

734a. Model of Blackrock Castle, from a student in St Vincent’s Secondary School (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 20 March 2014

Cork History, Landscapes, S.E. Ward Local History, Uncategorized

733b. Gouldings, Centre Park Road, Cork, 1958

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 20 March 2014

“Technical Memories (Part 76) – Goulding’s Heritage”

 

Picking up from last week’s column, in 1872 a change took place when the Goulding business became a limited company with a capital of £150,000. The first Board of Directors was composed of William Goulding, Chairman, H M Goulding, B Haughton, N D Murphy MP, and J S Smithson. The prospectus of the new company referred to 500 duly appointed agents in the United Kingdom, France, Portugal, Russia and America. It was reported that Gouldings were the first firm to ship a cargo of manures into the United States, and in addition to the countries referred to above, an extensive export trade was carried on with Norway and Natal in South Africa. A special manure was supplied to the latter for the sugar cane crop. The year 1872 was also noteworthy in that a further factory was opened at Singland in Limerick, where a 20-year lease was taken on the premises.

In the manufacture of superphostate, the use of mineral phosphates steadily replaced bones. At what date Gouldings first used the mineral phosphate is unknown, but in 1873, the company purchased phosphate beds in France. These deposits, belonging to a group known as Quercy phosphates, were situated near Cahora in the French Department of Lot. The material varied widely in quality and was difficult to mine. The Goulding Phosphate Company Ltd was formed to operate the mines. In 1876 this company leased a mill at Mercuès in the vicinity of the phosphate deposits and a works was in operation at Laberaudie in the same district. Operations were continued until 1880 when Gouldings ceded their rights to a French firm.

In 1874, a cargo of rock phosphate was imported from Pernambuco in Brazil, and in subsequent years this raw material was obtained from a variety of sources. In addition to the French phostate referred to, there was Estramadure phosphate from Spain, Sombrero phosphate from the West Indies, phosphates from Norway, Canada, Belgium and Russia. American phosphate from South Carolina was in use and in later years, particularly when a Florida factory was opened, the American material was used extensively.

Another new works was started in 1878 at Gracedieu, Waterford and in 1884, new works were commenced on Bressay one of the islands in the Shetland group.  In the same year 1884, William Goulding died at the age of 67, having spent half a lifetime in the fertiliser business. From small beginnings, he rapidly built up and expanded the company until at the time of his death it consisted of five factories and was one of the largest concerns within Britain and Ireland. Seven years previous to this, Humphrey Manders had died at the age of 57. Following William Goulding’s death, his son, William Joshua Goulding, was appointed Chairman of the Company.

In 1902, sales of manures by the Goulding group had reached 119,337 tons and the building of a new factory at Newrath, Waterford was commenced. This now gave the company six factories in Ireland, situated at Londonderry and Belfast in the north, two at Dublin in the east, and at Waterford and Cork in the south, this making distribution to any part of the country an easy matter.  Phosphates from North Africa began to replace material from other sources and eventually North Africa became the sole supply. During the next twenty years, output from these factories was gradually increased by improved processes and extensions to the factories. In 1919 a controlling interest was purchased in two further companies, namely the Drogheda Chemical Manure Company Ltd. and the Dublin and Wicklow Manure Company.

From 1920 to the commencement of World War II, production of fertilisers showed a steady increase from the factories in operation and the total deliveries rose to 178,000 tons. The company also went through two chairmanships, Sir William Joshua Goulding and his son Sir Lingard Amphlett Goulding. On Lingard’s death in 1935, Sir Basil Goulding took over as Chairman.

The World War II years coincided with a serious reduction in trade brought about by difficulties of obtaining shipping for imports of raw materials, but after the end of the of the war, production rose to surpass the pre-war level in a most spectacular manner. The post-war years were a time of immense activity, many items of plant were in a state of disrepair and other items were becoming obsolete. As a result all the factories witnessed extensive replacement of old equipment with modern machinery and methods of manufacture.

By 1956, due to the increasing demands on the Glen Factory, the first steps were taken towards the construction of a new factory on a 17-acre compound on the deep water site at the Marina, Cork on which the company had had an option for some years. The Irish Times for 29 March 1958 records that work began on the preparation of the Cork site at the Marina and the piling in October, 1955. There were 303 piles driven and the contractors started work in February, 1956. In all, 16,500 cubic yards of concrete were used in the construction of the factory, 291 tons of reinforced steel and 700 tons of steelwork.

To be continued…

 

Caption:

733a. Gouldings, Centre Park Road, Marina, 1958 (source: The Irish Times, 29 March 1958)

733a. Cork City with Docklands, 1968 (source: Cork City Library)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 13 March 2014

Cork History, Landscapes, S.E. Ward Local History, Uncategorized

732a. Cork Docklands, 1949, source: Cork City Library

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 13 March 2014

“Technical Memories (Part 75) – Outputs and Targets”

 

The day before Verolme Dockyard was officially opened on 15 October 1960, the two and half million pounds factory of Messrs. Goulding Fertilisers Ltd at the Marina, Cork, was opened. Again Seán Lemass did the honours in the presence of a large and distinguished audience. In his speech, recorded in the Cork Examiner, he highlighted Ireland’s work in seeking out new export markets; “In the struggle for export markets everything, which makes for great output at lower costs, is vital and all the available evidence supports the view that greater use of fertilisers and lime is essential for the realisation of high production targets”.

The new factory was another milestone in Cork’s ever-widening industrial progress. It completed the final stages of an ambitious project conceived by the company some years previously for the creation in the Southern region of a modern fertiliser plant. The first stage for the compounding of fertilisers in powder and granular form was completed in 1958. The opening of the factory in 1960 marked the second and final stage, and its purpose was to produce single superphosphate in largely increased quantities and also for the first time in the country, triple superphosphates together with the large amounts of sulphuric acid required for both projects. The Marina plant was planned with an eye to the future, for it had been so designed that large-scale additions could be made conveniently in spaces reserved for them whenever the need arose.

When the Taoiseach arrived at the new factory, he was met by Sir Basil Goulding, who presented him with a symbolic key and invited him to unlock the gates and declare the factory opened. The Goulding family had deep commercial roots in Cork and this is outlined in the special supplement in the Cork Examiner. William Goulding was born in 1817, the first son of Joshua Goulding, of Birr in King’s County, and Sarah, née Manders, of Blackpool, in Cork. Three years later, a second son, Humphrey Manders Goulding, was born. When Joshua Goulding died in 1829, it is thought that the family moved to Cork. Certainly by 1842 William Goulding was living in the city and carrying on the business of an oil and colour merchant at 22 Maylor Street. In the following year, this business was transferred to 108 Patrick’s Street, premises which were occupied by the firm for many years and now the site of the site of the Savoy Cinema. The title W and H M Goulding came into being in 1846 when Humphreys Manders Goulding joined his elder brother in the business at the age of 26.

An early interest in agricultural materials was shown by the sale of Goulding’s Anti-smut Composition for seed wheat, which appeared on the market in 1844. The firm became agents for patent sheep and cattle dressings in 1854, and in the same year sold fertilisers produced by the British Economical Manure Company. The year also marked the beginning of Goulding’s interest in superphosphate manufacture. A small tonnage of superphostate was thus produced in their premises available at St Patrick Street and Nelson Place (now Emmett Place) and would have been inadequate and unsuitable for large scale manufacture. The results of these pilot-plant experiments must, however have been sufficiently encouraging to warrant bigger operations, for the Goulding Brothers procured additional premises for superphostate production in the following year, 1856. During 1855 and 1856, the premises of the Glen Distillery at Blackpool, in Cork, came on the market. This property comprised mills, kilns, stores, chimneys, spacious yards and various items of machinery and plant, and it was this property which, the Goulding brothers obtained for their manure works.

Superphostate manufacture at this time involved treating ground bones with sulphuric acid, the reaction being carried out in wooden tubs, cast-iron horse troughs, or even on the bare ground. The resulting material was removed to stores and allowed to dry out. All operations were by hand, and output was necessarily small. For example the total sales for the season 1860/ 61 season were no more than the 1960 production of superphosphate from one works for one week.

While bones were available locally, sulphuric acid had to be imported during the early years. The purchase of acid from outside sources was a serious drawback to the early development of the business. To remedy the situation, an acid plant, was built in 1860 and had been extended to five chambers by 1868. The sulphuric acid was produced from sulphur initially, but pyrites were also used at an early stage, and certainly not later than 1864. The pyrites could be purchased for £1/5 per ton and was readily available from the Avoca mines in Co Wicklow, while sulphur cost £7 per ton. In 1861, following the introduction of the acid plant, five special manures were offered in addition to superphostate. During the period 1861 to 1888 delivery of manures from Cork rose from 857 tons to 7,139 tons, and the demand was so great that it was considered to open a new factory. Dublin was selected as the location for this new works as it had good port facilities and was well placed for the delivery of manures.

To be continued…

 

Caption:

732a. Cork Docklands, 1949 (source: Cork City Library)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 6 March 2014

Cork History, Kieran's Council Work, Landscapes, Uncategorized

731a. Verolme Dockyard,1960

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

 Cork Independent, 6 March 2014

“Technical Memories (Part 74) – Keel Encounters”

 

Verolme occupied the site of the old yard at Rushbrooke, where ship repair work had been carried on for a century. The new yard covered a much larger area, a great deal of which was reclaimed from the estuary of the River Lee. The outstanding features of the new yard in 1960 were the huge 230 feet long plating shop and the new 668 feet building slip-way. The slip-way was flanked by two giant mobile 40-ton cranes, which were used to transport the plates from the workshop to the slip-way.

In accordance with the Verolme system of using the most modern techniques, the work was carried out by methods of prefabrication in the plating shop, which contained the most up-to-date shipbuilding machinery, and was equipped with a variety of cranes, some of which were run on overhead girders. As one journalist noted at the time “everything was designed for efficiency, combined with speed in production”. The opening on Saturday 15 October 1960 coincided with the laying of the keel of the first ship to be built in the new yard, a 14,700 ton dry cargo vessel for Irish Shipping Ltd. The vessel, 500 feet long, was the biggest to be built in the country, outside of Belfast. Guests who attended the opening of the shipyard – they numbered over 400 and included a large party form Dublin – saw some of these modern techniques in operation at the keel-laying ceremony. The keel section, which had been prefabricated in the workshop, was something new in keel construction. Instead of a single plate, as was usual in other yards, it consisted of a bottom and inner keel, joined together by separating plates. The section, weighing about 38 tons, was picked up in the workshop by the large 40-ton overhead crane, which travelled along the workshop on rails.

Outside the doors of the workshop the keel section was picked by one of the great mobile cranes, which then moved down its tracks and placed the keel section in the correct position on the slipway.  The first stage in the actual building of the first ship in the new dockyard was completed in a matter of minutes. Incidentally the ship had not been given a name, and had been known only as no. 645 on the Verolme books. The beginning of shipbuilding had not awaited the final completion of the yard. Steel was imported from Great Britain for the building of the new ship. The conveyor system which was to bring the imported steel from the ships, unloading at a nearby jetty, to the workshop, was still in the course of completion. It was to be some time before the jetty was ready. In the meantime, a special crane equipped with magnets, was used to lift the plates and get them on the conveyor.

Although part of the keel was been laid, work was still proceeding on the building of the slip-way, about two thirds of which was completed. The construction of the slip-way, and the dockyard area generally, involved a great deal of excavation work and extensive piling had gone on for a number of years by the Irish Engineering and Harbour Construction Co. Ltd Dublin. John A Wood Ltd supplied all the gravel for reclamation and all aggregates for the concrete work at the yard. Another new feature of the Dockyards efficiency was an optical tower, in which, by an ingenious system of photographic enlargements, the plans of desired sections of the plates were projected onto the steel for speedy and accurate marking. This was the first time that such a method had been used in ship-building in this country, north or south. In addition new to Ireland was the use of automatic cutters or burners for the shaping of the profiles of plates – another example of modern techniques in the building of ships.

Irish workers were especially trained in Holland for work in the Cork Dockyard. Under the direction of these men, more workers were to be trained in the dockyard at Rushbrooke. Proposing a toast to the venture on the day of the official opening, An Taoiseach Seán Lemass recalled that he had first seen the dockyard 30 years previously. It was then derelict – an area of desolation – and its equipment was rusty, and was shortly afterwards to be sold as scrap. He then entertained the hope that day that the dockyard might be restored, but the outlook in the depressed thirties had not been bright and at the time dozens of vessels lay at permanent anchor before going on their last journey to the ship breakers. The picture remained unchanged until the war and the foundation of Irish Shipping Ltd and the taking over of the old dockyard to maintain and repair the collection of vessels acquired by Irish Shipping and which remained Ireland’s Lifeline through those difficult years. Seán Lemass spoke of the decision to carry on the work of the shipyard in the post war years and the important event in 1958 when the Irish Ambassador in the Hague made contact with Mr Cornelis Verolme and put him and the board of Cork Dockyard Ltd in touch with each other.

To be continued…

 

Caption:

732a. Verolme Dockyard, 1960 (source: John Brennan, The Yard, A History of Shipbuilding at Rushbrooke, Cobh).

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 27 February 2014

Cork History, Uncategorized

730a. Cornelis Verolme, July 1968

Article 730- 27 February 2014

“Technical Memories (Part 73) – Verolme Bound”

 

Two years previous to Whitegate Oil Refinery officially opening in 1957, negotiations began with a Dutch firm for the establishment in Cork Harbour of a large scale ship building operation. The negotiations entered their final stages in October 1958 when Seán Lemass left for Holland on the invitation of Mr Cornelis Verolme, owner of Verolme United, an important ship building concern at Rotterdam, the largest port on the European continent.

Verolme United Shipyards was a concern with a world-wide reputation. It had large shipyards in the Netherlands at Alblasterdam, Meusden and Rosenburg, which could build and repair vessels up to 50,000 tons. In a biography of Verolme, written by Ariëtte Dekker, Cornelis Verolme came from a farming background and rose to success without a university education, but had business acumen to succeed. By setting up technical training and recruiting personnel from competitors Verolme foresaw the growing need for qualified technicians to make his ventures have an excellent reputation. Verolme was also someone who went regularly amongst his workers and knew many of his employees by name.

Another Verolme company manufactured diesel engines, steam reciprocating engines and boilers at Rotterdam, whilst another company belonging to the same concern had a marine electrical plant at Massluis. An idea of the extent of Verolme United Shipyards’ activities was given in a Dutch publication in 1958 which gave a listing of ships under construction or on order in shipyards in the Netherlands. It showed that Cornelis Verolme’s three shipyards had more than any other single concern in Holland. It had on its order books 36 vessels, and of them 25 were tankers. One of them being, being built for the Dutch Esso Company, was of 46,000 tons; three more, for American owners, were of 47,000 tons; two were 45,000 tons and six were 19,500 tons. Prior to opening in Rushbrooke, he has successfully worked with the Brazilian government enabling him to build a shipyard in the Jacarecanga Bay near Rio de Janeiro.

The Southern Star newspaper in October 1958 records that Seán Lemass was accompanied by JP Beddy, Chairman of the Irish Industrial Development Authority to meet Cornelius Verolme. The visit enabled the Dutch Company to take over Cork Dockyard Ltd, Rushbrooke and to lease certain installations at Haulbowline for large scale ship building. The new yard was to concentrate on building large vessels and was not to be in competition with the existing ship-builders of the 26 counties. The Rushbrooke project was pitched to proceed in five stages and was to take six years to complete. Its cost, estimated at over £5 ½ million initially, was to met partly by the sponsors and partly by government loans. The first stage provided for the building of two new slipways at Rushbrook, enabling vessels of 50,000 tons to be constructed there. The existing yard was to be modernised and the drydock at Haulbowline was to be greatly enlarged to enable vessels of up to 47,000 tons to be repaired.  In the first stage, direct employment was to be provided for about 450 men with a quest to have 1,800 eventually on the payroll. 

There had been a ship-building concern in Rushbrooke since the nineteenth century. At that time Joseph Wheeler was one of a group of enterprising Cork businesses who financed the ship building industry in Cork Harbour. The period 1832-1860 was particularly prosperous in Cork’s shipping history and the house flags of many Cork’s shipping firms were to be seen on the masts of their vessels in all parts of the world. There were the shipyards of Hennessy and Brown at Passage West, and at those of Wheeler, Pike and Robinson at the head of the river. Numerous timber and iron ships were produced for home and foreign owners – ships which conformed to the highest international standards of the time and enhanced the reputation of Cork Harbour’s craftsmen. About the 1840s Joseph Wheeler also had a building-slip on the Cork river-bank. The Cork Directory of 1842-43 contains the following entry, Joseph Wheeler, Ship-builder. His shipyard was located near where the Port of Cork yard now stands. Wheeler built numerous timber-vessels for Cork based owners and foreign merchants. The Illustrated London News of 11 February 1860, carried a description of a 500 ton sailing ship from Wheeler’s Yard. The Aura was the largest ship to be constructed in Cork up to that date. She was the eighth vessel to be built for exporter Mr Harvey and was to be commanded by Corkman and seaman Captain Belchel.

Wheeler’s enterprise at Rushbrooke opened for shipbuilding in 1860. Between 1917 and 1920, the dock, then owned by the Furness Whithy Company, was enlarged. While no ships were built at Rushbrooke – with the exception of some 200 ton barges – very extensive alterations were undertaken and in some, major overhauls ships were almost literally rebuilt there. In the post war years, when the Cork Dockyard operated the yard, major conversion work was successfully done at Rushbrooke including the conversion of two ex Flower Class corvettes to passenger and cargo vessels for Mediterranean service and the conversion of an ex River Class frigate to a passenger and motor car ferry for the Dover-Calais service.

To be continued…`

 

Caption:

730a. Cornelis Verolme, July 1968 (source: Cork City Library)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 20 February 2014

Cork History, Uncategorized

729a. Cork Harbour, c.1900

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article, 

Cork Independent, 20 February 2014

“Technical Memories (Part 72) – Markets of Ferocity”

 

The first speaker at the opening ceremony of Whitegate on 22 September 1959 was the Chairman of the Irish Refining Company Mr D A C Dewdney, who was introduced by Dr R R Lawton, general manager of the company (continued from last week). Mr Dewdney spoke from a rostrum erected at the end of the Mechanical Services Hall and behind him was the triptych which was involved in the formal opening by the Taoiseach Seán Lemass. Surmounting the triptych was a painting by Soirle MacCana’s of the complete refinery.

 

In the course of his speech, and detailed in the Cork Examiner Mr Dewdney recalled that it while William Norton TD was Minister for Industry and Commerce that the real seeds of the refinery were sown and it was through Mr Norton’s persistence and persuasion that the three oil companies concerned – Caltex, Shell-Mex BP, and Esso – came to accept the Irish Government’s proposal that the refinery should be built. He voiced the debt of gratitude the Irish Refining Company gave to the Chairman of the Industrial Development Authority, Dr Beddy. From the moment, the Refinery Company had decided to expend £12million on the refinery, they had co-operation from all concerned – government departments, Cork County Council, the Cork Harbour Board, and the Electricity Supply Board. Mr Dewney continued; “How satisfactory, then, is it for me to be able to place on record the fact that we were able to have the refinery built exclusively with Irish labour, running at times into over 2,000 men, and this, in spite of the complexity and technical demands of such an operation”.

 

Mr Dewdney noted that the problem of recruitment of staff for operating the refinery had not been an issue. People with the requisite skills or potential ability became available in the area in large numbers. Irish materials were also used. The Lumus Company were the contractors. All the administration buildings were designed by Irish architect, Mr James Rupert Boyd Barrett and built by the Cork firm of builders, Messrs Hegarty and Sons. Boyd Barrett had nearly half a century of practice under his belt and had designed many major buildings throughout Ireland, including the Department of Industry and Commerce in Dublin, four new churches in Cork and ten new churches in the Diocese of Kerry. Dewdney remarked; “This was an Irish refinery in conception and in fact. It started a new industry for Ireland and would make a significant contribution towards the steady progress of the Irish economy. It would give added impetus to the drive towards greater industrialisation”. Dewdney also spoke of a greatly increased movement of shipping into the Port of Cork. At that time, the refinery was operating at an annual throughput of about one and half million tons. Taking crude oil in and products out represented a very considerable volume of shipping he detailed; “I do not believe there is any industry in the world where competition for markets is fiercer or more sustained than it is in the oil industry”.

 

In his speech, Minister for Industry and Commerce Jack Lynch praised the Refinery Company’s confidence in the developing economy of Ireland. This he alerted to was further illustrated in that the capacity of output of the finished product was about 50 per cent in excess of the contemporary Irish market of one million tons per annum. This was to provide for an expected continuing expansion in demand due to increased use of petroleum products in railways, shipping, jet aircraft and commercial and private motor vehicles, as well as in industry where industrial fuel oil was expected to be used more and more as an alternative to coal.

 

According to Jack Lynch, Whitegate Oil Refinery would give permanent employment to over 400 workers. These were to be drawn from many parts of the country and it would provide opportunities for Irish workers to acquire training and to obtain employment as skilled craftsmen and in scientific and technical work. He described that higher technical, technological and professional training programmes were to be provided in the local vocational schools, in technical institutes like that in Cork City and in University College Cork. He argued that as new forms of training would be required every effort would be made to construct proper facilities. On this point, he highlighted the fact that many of the technicians amongst the refinery employees were products of technical schools and more than 50 were graduates of Irish universities. Indeed, about this time, and as a side remark the committee of the Crawford Municipal Technical Institute through the leadership of William Ellis TD began to call for a new technology college, of which it was to take another decade or so before it came to fruition (Cork VEC Minutes).

 

Jack Lynch also noted of Cork Harbour as one of the world’s finest harbours. He referred to the new Verolme dockyard in the course of construction, the construction of Cork Airport, Irish Steel Holdings in the middle of the harbour were planning major expansion, and a new fertiliser factory was planned. These are also worthwhile to have a quick look at in terms of the enormous technical expertise needed to carry them out.

 

To be continued….

 

Caption:

 

729a. Cork Harbour, c.1900, from Queenstown/ later Cobh (source: Cork City Museum)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 13 February 2014

Cork History, Uncategorized

728a. The tanker Vasum, 1962

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 13 February 2014

“Technical Memories (Part 71) – An Asprit de Corps”

 

In the Southern Star, 28 February 1959, reasons were detailed why the Irish Refining Co. Ltd choose Whitegate for the site of their refinery. Dr R R Lawton, General Manager of the Company said at the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, that Cork Harbour was reasonably sheltered and in the initial stage of development it was possible to bring in tankers up to 35,000 tons. By dredging on a fairly modest scale tankers up to 45,000 tons could be brought alongside the Whitegate jetty. Further dredging should make it possible to bring in 65,000 ton tankers and it was for that size ship that the jetty was designed. Dr Lawton noted that generally speaking oil companies have the reputation of being good employers and the staff who joined a particular oil company tended to stay with it noting; “Each of the principal companies appear to develop a type of mentality peculiar to itself and have been able to imbue its staff with an asprit de corps, which is highly commendable”.

In the Southern Star, 25 April 1959, the tanker called Vasum is reported as the first super tanker to discharge at the refinery. Built in 1955 as the flagship of Shell Tankers Rotterdam, the 32,000 ton tanker was the largest to ever to visit Irish waters and she was the largest vessel of any type to tie up in Cork Harbour. Irish Shell Ltd were hosts to a large party of guests, which included many Irish industrialists and the captain of the tanker, J Sieben, who had just taken command of the vessel the previous Saturday. The captain was presented with two prints of old Cork, one depicting Cork Harbour, and the other, the Grand Parade about a hundred years previously.

Dr R R Lawton at a press conference in mid August 1959, held at the oil refinery, noted that all the products that the refinery was capable of manufacturing were being produced. They were butane gas for lighting and heating, propane gas for welding, premium and regular motor spirit, tractor vapourising oil, jet fuel for planes and diesel oil. At the time, the Calor Gas Company were building premises in Midleton for the distribution of butane and propane, which formerly were imported. The Kosane-gas Company, a Danish firm, were also seeking a site in Midleton. Their needs were supplied by Whitegate. The first shipment of petrol was sent to Cork on 7 August 1959, just two years after the first sod was turned. This was deemed very positive in view of bad winters in 1957 and 1958 and poor weather in the summer of 1958. Mr Lawton also noted that Whitegate was the only air cooled refinery in Europe. It has cost £11,000,000, and £3,000,000 of that was spent on Irish contracts and wages.

When Taoiseach Seán Lemass officially opened the £12 million oil refinery at Whitegate on 22 September 1959, he said the undertaking was as “modern and efficient as human skill and equipment could make it”. The Cork Examiner on 23 September 1959 remarked that the symbolic opening ceremony was marked by a celebration party attended by some three hundred guests. Lemass remarked that the establishment of a new major industrial undertaking was always an occasion for rejoicing; “the function celebrates a very significant development in the extension of Irish manufacturing industry. It is appropriate therefore, that so many representative people should be assembled here to wish success to the new enterprise…The industrial progress of Ireland is a long road, to which indeed there is no end, but an occasion like this when a new milestone is passed, we can look back on how far we have come, and in that way, find encouragement to face the problems that are still ahead, Whatever problems or new difficulties the future may bring they cannot be any greater than those we have already encountered and surmounted”.

The ceremony took place in the vast mechanical services building close to the processing area of the refinery. There, Seán Lemass turned the miniature valve locking together the small panels of a mahogany and silver triptych, the silver engravings of which symbolised the old and the new – the round towers and horse ploughs of yesteryear the refinery fractionating towers and the motor ploughs of today-and in which the centre panel showed the refinery jetty projecting into Cork Harbour towards Cobh.

The symbolic opening was the culmination of one of the largest celebration parties ever staged in the country by the directors of the Irish Refinery Co Ltd. The guests from overseas were flown from London to Dublin on the Monday and the entire Dublin and overseas party travelled to Midleton by train, the Cork contingent joining them at Kent Station. Mr Lemass arrived at Whitegate in a car, and there inspected a guard of honour of Gardai Siochana under Chief Superintendent J O’Dowd. At Midleton, the party entered a fleet of buses to complete their journey to the refinery. All along the route people lined the route to wave at the ten buses and private cars which went by.

 

To be continued…

 

Caption:

728a. The tanker, Vasum, 1962 (source: Cork City Library)