Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 27 September 2012

“Docklands Historical Walking Tour, 6 October 2012”

My historical walking tour of Cork’s Docklands is one I’ve been designing for a while. It runs, Saturday 6 October (2pm from Shalom Park, in front of Bord Gais, free, two hours).  Much of the story of Cork’s modern development is represented here. The history of the port, transport, technology, modern architecture, agriculture, sport, the urban edge with the river all provide an exciting cultural debate in teasing out how Cork as a place came into being. The origin of the current Docklands is a product of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century.

Ever since Viking age time over 1,000 years ago, boats of all different shapes and sizes have been coming in and out of Cork’s riverine and harbour region continuing a very long legacy of trade. Port trade was and still is the engine in Cork’s development. To complement the growth of the port, extensive reclamation of swampland took place as well as physical infrastructure quays, wharfs and warehouses.  I’m a big fan of the different shapes of these wharfs, especially the timber ones that have survived since the 1870s. A myriad of timbers still prop up the wharves in our modern port area, protecting the city from the ebb and flow of the tide and also the river’s erosive qualities. The mixture of styles of buildings, which etch themselves into the skyline, also create a kind of drama to unravel on the landscape itself.  Add in the tales of ships over the centuries connecting Cork to other places and a community of dockers, and one gets a site which has always looked in a sense beyond its horizons. Indeed, perhaps the theme that runs through the new walking tour is about connections and explores sites such as Jewtown, the National Sculpture Factory, the Docks, the old Park Racecourse, the early story of Fords and the former site of the Munster Agricultural Society. All these topics are all about connecting the city to wider themes of exportation and importation of goods, people and ideas into the city through the ages.

One hundred years ago, considerable tonnage could navigate the North Channel, as far as St. Patrick’s Bridge, and on the South Channel as far as Parliament Bridge. St. Patrick’s Bridge and Merchants’ Quay were the busiest areas, being almost lined daily with shipping. Near the extremity of the former on Penrose Quay was situated the splendid building of the Cork Steamship Company, whose boats loaded and discharged their alongside the quay.

In the late 1800s, the port of Cork was the leading commercial port of Ireland. The export of pickled pork, bacon, butter, corn, porter, and spirits was considerable. The manufactures of the city were brewing, distilling and coach-building, which were all carried on extensively. The imports in the late nineteenth century consisted of maize and wheat from various ports of Europe and America; timber, from Canada and the Baltic; fish, from Newfoundland and Labrador regions. Bark, valonia, shumac, brimstone, sweet oil, raisins, currants, lemons, oranges and other fruit, wine, salt, marble were imported from the Mediterranean; tallow, hemp, flaxseed from St. Petersburg, Rig and Archangel; sugar from the West Indies; tea from China, and coal and slate from Wales. Of the latter, corn and timber were imported in large numbers.

With such massive port traffic, there was silting up of what’s now the Tivoli channel. A wall called the Navigation Wall was constructed in 1763 to keep dredged silt behind. The wall was five feet across and about a mile in length. The completion of the wall led to a large tract of land behind the wall, stretch­ing from the Marina west to Victoria Road, being left in a semi-flooded condition. In the decade of the 1840s, City engineer Edward Russell was commissioned to present plans for the reclamation of this land, some 230 acres. Russell’s plan proposed the extension and widening of the Navigation Wall creating the Marina Walk, to exclude tidal water entering the land. He proposed the construction of a reservoir (the present Atlantic Pond), and the erection of sluice gates to facilitate the drainage and exclusion of water.

The slobland was gradually reclaimed and became a park and was used as a racecourse from 1869 to 1917. In March 1869, Cork Corporation leased to Sir John Arnott & others the land for a term of five years and for the purpose of establishing a race course. In 1892, the City and County of Cork Agricultural Society leased space from Cork Corporation in the eastern section of the Cork Park, which became the Cork Showgrounds. In 1917 a sizeable portion of the park was sold to Henry Ford to manufacture Fordson Tractors. Both the latter have a depth of history and memories attached to them.

Before the above tour, don’t forget, this Friday 28 September, 6.30pm, a historical walking tour with me of the Cork Blackrock Railway Line in aid of the Irish Heart Foundation, leaving from Pier Head carpark, Blackrock, E.15 per person. In addition, on that day, the city and county historical societies exhibit their local histories in the Millennium Hall, Cork City Hall, 11am-7pm.

Caption:

660a. Cork Docklands September 2012 (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

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).

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)