Cork Heritage Open Day takes place this Saturday 18 August with over 40 buildings and nearly 100 associated events happening. As a way of referencing the buildings’ locations, five themed self-walking routes throughout the city are suggested on the map on the guide you can pick up at venues or online at www.corkheritageopenday.ie. But one can make up your own route as well. It took me a few years to get to all of the buildings and even now returning to many of them, the non-rush makes for a more savoured approach. You can revel more in the detail of buildings and their historical context and nuances through displayed old documents, objects and pictures. Some buildings cross many timelines in their development and there is no better guide than to chat to building owners.
The team behind the Open Day at Cork City Council group the buildings into general themes, Steps and Steeples, Customs and Commerce, Medieval to Modern, and Life and Learning and Saints and Scholars – one can walk the five trails to discover a number of buildings within these general themes.
On the Saints and Scholar’s route is the Nano Nagle Place. Like many other heritage buildings in Cork City, it an unexpected oasis in the centre of bustling Cork City. It is a place that celebrates Nano Nagle’s vision of empowerment through education, community inclusion and spiritual engagement for a contemporary world. The complex houses a heritage centre, gardens, a café, and shop. The beautifully regenerated convent buildings are home to several educational charities.
The heritage centre opens with a late eighteenth century John Rocque map of Cork City, which is one of my favourite maps to study. The era is interesting to study from a city, trade and population expansion to the social challenges problems within Cork. Nano Nagle was born in Ballygriffin townland, twenty miles north of the city in the parish of Killavullen in 1718. She was the eldest of seven children of wealthy, well-connected parents. At ten years of age, she left country to go to school in Paris with her sister Anne. This was the custom at the time of all well-to-do families Catholic families.
Nano remained in Paris after her schooling but was brought back to Ireland when her father died. She subsequently went to live with her widowed mother in Dublin. However, a double tragedy struck soon after when her mother died in 1748 and Anne died a year later. Grief-stricken, she returned to Paris where she entered a convent.
After several years of training in Paris, Nano heeded the advice of a Jesuit priest to return again to Ireland. Her aim was to help the crucial plight of the poor children in the country of the time. Returning in 1754, she lived with her brother Joseph and his wife Frances. In Cork, Nano Nagle provided her own wealth in helping poor Catholic children in the city. Among the backdrop of influential charity schools in the city for Protestants, she particularly wanted to provide education and instruction in the Roman Catholic faith.
Nano’s first school was in a little rented cabin on Cove Street, now Douglas Street. This school was established in a time when the Penal laws against Catholic worship were not fully in force. Public teaching of the Catholic religion did carry a large fine plus jail for three months jail for each offence. She also ran the risk that the political climate could change, and the penal laws could be tightened up.
Such was Nano Nagle’s presence in the city that she established her own congregation of sisters in 1776. This was her way of establishing a more permanent basis for her schools. Her foundation was named “Sisters of the Charitable Instruction of the Sacred Heart of Jesus” (which became the Presentation order in time). Nano died on 26 April 1784 aged 65 years.
As Nano Nagle was consolidating her first school in the 1760s, the topography of the city was gearing up for further changes. In 1761, new by-laws were passed which aimed at collecting more taxes from citizens to enable improvements in public ‘wick in oil’ lighting in the city, in creating a new water pipe supply and building two new bridges. The first bridge was to span from Princes Street to Lavitt’s Island (later Morrison’s Island). The second was from Lavitt’s Island to Red Abbey Marsh. This is now the site of present day Georges Quay. In otherwords the second bridge proposed was the forerunner of present day Parliament Bridge (built 1806).
In 1763, the first bridge occupied by St Patrick’s Bridge was proposed. At the time, North Gate Bridge still was the only crossing point over the north channel into the city. An increase in the number of inhabitants using Mallow Lane (now Shandon Street) to gain access to North Gate bridge was prevalent. Carriages and foot passengers are described as too many making movement for pedestrians dangerous on Mallow Lane. In addition, the growing butter trade in the city in the area of present day Shandon meant that a large number of merchants were living in Blackpool, who required better access to the city centre and docks areas.
Kieran’s Cancelled Tours:
Unfortunately, due to surgery on a herniated disc, I am unable to conduct tours for National Heritage Week next week. My tours, which appear on Cork City Council’s brochure are all cancelled. However, there are many other talks and walks, which appear on the brochures, and this information can be picked up from Cork City Hall, the libraries or viewed online.
Captions:
959a. Entrance to Nano Nagle Place Heritage Centre, present day (picture: Kieran McCarthy)
Cork Heritage Open Day celebrates its 15th anniversary this year. This year it takes place on Saturday 18 August with 42 buildings and nearly 100 events and festivals happening. Last year it was estimated that there were over 18,000 visits to the buildings and events on the day. The event is organised by Cork City Council as part of National Heritage Week and the team works closely with building owners, local historians and communities who give their time free of charge. The success of the event lies with the people behind the buildings who open their doors willingly every year to allow the public a glimpse of the amazing and unique built heritage of Cork City.
It is always a great opportunity to explore behind some of Cork’s grandest buildings. With the past of a port city, Cork architecture is varied and much is hidden amongst the city’s narrow streets and laneways. Much of its architecture is also inspired by international styles – the British style of artwork pervading in most cases– but it’s always pays to look up in Cork and marvel at the Amsterdamesque-style of our eighteenth-century structures on streets such as Oliver Plunkett Street or at the gorgeous tall spires of the city’s nineteenth-century churches.
With 42 buildings open to the public for Cork Heritage Open Day it is almost impossible to visit them all in one day. It takes a few goes to get to them all and spend time appreciating their physical presence in our city but also the often-hidden context of why such buildings and their communities came together and their contribution to the modern day urban landscape of the city. The team behind the Open Day do group the buildings into general themes, Steps and Steeples, Customs and Commerce, Medieval to Modern, Saints and Scholars and Life and Learning – one can walk the five trails to discover a number of buildings within these general themes. These themes remind the participant to remember how our city spread from the marsh to the undulating hills surrounding it – how layered the city’s past is, how the city has been blessed to have many scholars contributing to its development and ambition in a variety of ways and how the way of life in Cork is intertwined with a strong sense of place.
The trail Steps and Steeples is a very apt way to describe the topography of our city. The trail encompasses not only some of the amazing buildings on the northern hills of the city, but also some of the most spectacular views. Admire the interior of Everyman Palace on McCurtain Street, re-examine the crooked but limestone inspiring spire of Cork Trinity Presbyterian Church, gorge on the stained glass windows of St Luke’s Church, re-imagine past hospital treatment at the Ambassador Hotel, revel in how many barrels of beer have been exported from the former Murphy’s Brewery, now Heineken Ireland, reminisce of Cork’s North Infirmary at the Maldron Hotel, attempt to count how many barrels of butter were weighed at the Firkin Crane, ring the bells of St Anne’s Church, Shandon.
At Collins Barracks read up about the military history underlining the city’s and harbour’s development. The military museum at the Barracks has three themes – the history of the Barracks, Michael Collins and Peacekeeping. The core collection consists of memorabilia associated with Michael Collins and also has displays from donated private collections. The Heritage Day brochure remarks that the Barracks building is a fine example of Georgian Architecture. It is also significant from a historic perspective. The fine limestone gateway has been the focal point of historic events in Ireland since the time of the Crimean War in 1856 with the return of the seventeen Lancers after the Battle of Balaclava. It was the location for the handing over of the Barracks from the British Government to Commandant Sean Murray of the Irish Army in 1922, and was visited by President Kennedy in 1963.
Meanwhile down by the river, the Customs and Commerce walk follows the Lee and showcases some of the old and new commercial buildings in the city. These buildings track the commercial history of Cork City and highlight its many industries over time. For the more energetic walker this route can be combined with the Medieval to Modern walking route. Think highly of the multiple stories of the city’s masons and carpenters at the Carpenter’s Hall; feel the energy of the steam ships in the maritime paintings in the city’s Custom House, and look at the fine details on the pillars within AIB Bank on the South Mall. Learn about local government in the City Hall. Re-imagine the turning of the wheels of the trams at the National Sculpture Factory.
The National Sculpture Factory, set up in 1989 is a thriving artists resource facility, where artists are working on many creative projects. It is a significant national resource and is primarily funded by the Arts Council and Cork City Council. One hundred years ago, the National Sculpture Factory was once the central hub for electric trams whose trackways created arteries through a bustling city of contrasts from slums to richly embellished Victorian terraces in the city’s middle-class suburbs. The site was also the electricity distribution centre, which changed the way of life for citizens. The trams supplied a rhythm through the city – their stopping, going and wining- the iron wheels pushing into the tracks moving through the city, connecting citizens.
More at www.corkheritageopenday.ie
Captions:
958a. Pouring iron ore recently onto Tamzie Ringler’s River Lee’s mould at the National Sculpture Factory, July 2018 (picture: Kieran McCarthy)
958b. Christ Church during sunset in February 2018; one of the 42 buildings to be celebrated for Cork Heritage Open Day 2018 (picture: Kieran McCarthy)
The Laya Healthcare City Spectacular Street Performing Championships were held this month (July) in Fitzgerald’s Park recently. Below are some pictures I took at the end of the second day, a day which was abit of a washout with rain – but still well done to all the organisers and the amazing street performers.
Spirit of Mother Jones Festival & Summer School, 2018
The annual Spirit of Mother Jones Festival and Summer School will be held in the Shandon area of Cork City from Wednesday, 1 August to Saturday, 4 August 2018. This year’s festival once again covers a broad range of topics to be covered in a selection of daily lectures and talks and documentary films in addition to the ever-popular music events.
The Cork Mother Jones Commemorative committee was established in 2012 to mark the 175th anniversary of the birth of Mary Harris / Mother Jones in Cork, Ireland. After a highly successful festival marking that anniversary it was decided to make the festival an annual summer school marking the life and legacy of Mother Jones.
Although famous in other parts of the world, especially in the United States of America where she was once labelled “the most dangerous woman in America”, Cork born Mary Jones (née Harris) – or Mother Jones as she is perhaps more widely known – was virtually unknown and certainly not recognised as yet in her native city. The festivals and activities of this committee have changed that and now the name of Mother Jones is widely known in Cork and beyond.
The Cork Mother Jones Commemorative Committee, in conjunction with Cork City Council commissioned Cork Sculptor Mike Wilkins to create a limestone plaque to honour Mother Jones in the Shandon area of the city, near her birthplace. This plaque was erected near the famous Cork Butter Market and was unveiled on 1st August 2012 which was the 175th Anniversary of her baptism in the North Cathedral (we have not been able to ascertain her actual date of birth but it would most likely have been a few days before this date). Her parents were Ellen Cotter, a native of Inchigeela and Richard Harris from Cork city.
Few details of Mary Jones’ early life in Cork have been uncovered to date, though it is thought by some that she was born on Blarney Street and may have attended the North Presentation Schools nearby. She and her family emigrated to Canada soon after the Famine, probably in the early 1850s.
Later in the United States, after tragic deaths of her husband George Jones and their four children, she became involved in the struggle for basic rights for workers and children’s rights, leading from the front, often in a militant fashion. She was a constant thorn in the side of the establishment. When she died in 1930, she was a legend in her adopted land. A magazine (Mother Jones) is still published to this day, along with dozens of books and countless references in US Labour History. She certainly can claim to be the most famous Cork woman in the history of the United States of America.
In 2012, 175 years passed since Mary’s birth in Cork city and to honour her life, the broad-based voluntary Commemorative Committee, along with local community organisations, honoured one of Cork City’s most famous daughters with an immensely popular festival. The unveiling off the plaque at John Redmond Street was just part of a wider celebration which has now developed to an annual event which has gained international recognition.
One of the many talks this year focusses in on the one hundred years since Irish women over the age of 30 were granted the right to vote. Louise Ryan will speak at the Spirit of Mother Jones festival and Summer School on Friday afternoon, 3 August at 2.30pm at the North Cathedral Visitor Centre. She is a Professor of Sociology and co-director of the Migration Research Group at the University of Sheffield. She will address the topic, “Votes for All Women: the tricky issue of class politics in the Irish suffrage movement”.
Her most recent book, Winning the Vote for Women: the Irish Citizen Newspaper and Suffrage Movement in Ireland was published by Four Courts Press in 2018. Ireland’s best-known suffragette, was a Munster woman, although most of her adult life was lived in Dublin. She was born in Kanturk, Co Cork, and her father, David Sheehy, was a mill owner. When she was three the family moved to the site of another mill, at Loughmore, Co Tipperary, where they lived until Hanna was 10.
The Irish Citizen newspaper was founded by Hanna and Francis Skeffington and was published from 1912 to 1920. The newspaper provides a vivid picture of suffragists’ issues during that period. The newspaper clearly shows that the contributors to the newspaper were concerned not just with the franchise but with a much wider array of issues affecting women generally. Among the many issues debated in the Irish Citizen were the suffragists’ attitudes to work, class, wages and trade unions. The movement was contained within a broad spectrum of ideas and views. Suffragists such as Louie Bennett, Winifred Carney, Cissie Cahalan, Meg Connery, Marion Duggan, Mary Galway, Margaret McCoubrey and Marie Johnson raised the issues of wages, exploitation, class and workers’ rights throughout this period and their debates and lively discussions appeared regularly in the pages of the Irish Citizen. This year the newspaper has been added to the British Newspaper Archive, which is searchable online.
More details on the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival and Summer School can be found at www.motherjonescork.com
Captions:
956a. Mary Harris/ Mother Jones (source: Robert Shetterly)
956b. Mother Jones plaque Shandon, unveiled in 2012 (source:www.motherjonescork.com)
On Thursday, 19th July 2018, artist Tamsie Ringler Performed a iron pour During the IRON-R 2018 iron casting workshop in connection with Crawford College of Art and Design and the National Sculpture Factory in Cork, Ireland. The piece depicts the tributary system of county Cork’s river Lee.
On next Saturday, 23 June, 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: “For a number of years now I have ran the walking tour of the workhouse story at St Finbarr’s Hospital. Of the twenty or more city and suburban walking tour sites I have developed the tour of the workhouse site has been popular. The tour though is eye-opening to the conditions that people endured in the nineteenth century but a very important one to tell. The dark local histories are as important to grapple with as the positive local histories. Cork city is blessed to have so much archival and newspaper material to really tell the story of the Cork workhouse. Out of this tour I have developed a walking tour as well around the old Our Lady’s Hospital, which I will run for National Heritage Week in August this year”.
Cllr McCarthy highlighted: “A present day blocked up archway on Douglas Road was the old entrance to the laneway that ran down from Douglas Road through market gardens to the workhouse complex. Between 1838 and 1845, 123 workhouses were built, which were part of a series of districts known as Poor Law Unions. 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, one 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 the workhouses to be designed by the Poor Law Commissioners’ architect George Wilkinson”.
Lord Mayor Cllr Fitzgerald, congratulations on a great year – you did this city and your community proud.
I think the theme of connections served you very well.
Opening your year by celebrating the 230 years of the present chain’s existence created the framework of your ship of sorts, you created a ferry of ideas that the chain is the connector of all civic debate and citizens across space and time. You noted throughout the year, the chain you wear is the most powerful, connective, mnemonic and enduring symbol of all of Cork’s heritage. Indeed, your ongoing conversations on the connection paradigm opened up many reasons on why the chain has endured.
You mentioned in your speech yesterday about the city’s history linked to the contemporary. It was forged in a time of change, where the city’s canals disappeared and broad streets such as St Patrick’s Street, Grand Parade and the South Mall were filled in and emerged, and bridges such as St Patrick’s Bridge were constructed. Citizens worried about the impact of filling in the canals in a city whose inspiration one hundred years previously were cities such as Amsterdam and Venice.
In the 80 years previously, Cork’s population had grown from 20,000 to 80,000. Nearly ten years before the forging of the chain the first docklands plan emerged.
Ironically 230 years later, all of these ideas are still being debated – the use of public spaces, harnessing the water front, the future of docklands, the advent of the city’s population growth are all ongoing – but as you pointed out in your speech yesterday, this city on a river remains on its journey.
The journey the chain took you on this year went from the mountainous heights of the UNESCO Learning City Conference last September to the peak quadrant of the Prince Charles visit yesterday. And yes whilst you would expect the Lord Mayor to be present – you took the chance symbolically perhaps to represent the smaller links of the chain, which physically keep the SS Links, the medieval Watergate and Coat of Arms medallion together but sometimes are not always championed.
Your interests in social inclusion, a city of welcomes, community engagement, the power of education, sharing life experiences. constructing a healthy cities narrative, building friendships of equals and honouring people who just endure, survive and keep the darkness in our communities at bay – these are all very important themes to champion in this city on the river – these themes during the year infused the gold on the chain with extra social qualities, which gave the chain a compassionate and inclusive shine.
I would also like to thank Georgina for her grace and honesty she brought to the Lady Mayoress role. Wherever she arrived she was a beacon of positivity and a beacon of welcoming. The same beacons were sent out by Deborah and Michelle, whose company, fun and wit I very much enjoyed over the year.
I also like to pay tribute to the Deputy Lord Mayor, Cllr Fergal Dennehy. When the city ground to a halt twice this year. Fergal stood strong at the helm and took the city through a hurricane and a snow blizzard – and assisted in helping to get municipal life back on course. Indeed, he should get his own honorary admiral’s hat. He also spoke very well at his engagements and always gave very insightful, heart-felt and meaningful speeches.
To conclude, you and your team rallied a cry to embrace citizenship and the corners of community life in our fair city. Indeed tá sé soléir go d’amhráin tú amhrán na bhFiann ar do bhealach.
In your own way you sang a soldier’s song with a cheering rousing chorus,
And as your ferry turns for its next harbour, and especially after your event yesterday you can be proud to symbolically fire your cannons from the hallowed ground of Knocknaheeny, and rejoice amidst Le gunnaí scréach faoi lámhach na bpiléar,
Go raibh míle maith agat arson do bhlian specialta,
Some pictures I took from the finish line of Ocean to City Race (2 June 2018) in association with the Cork Harbour Festival and Meitheal Mara; well done to all the organisers.
Saturday 9 June 2018, Cork City & its Bridges (new tour), learn about the early history of the city’s most historic bridges; meet at the National Monument, Grand Parade, 2.30pm (free, duration: two hours, finishes in City Centre) in association with Meitheal Mara’s Cork Harbour Festival.
Saturday 23 June 2018, The Cork City Workhouse; learn about the workhouse created for 2,000 impoverished people in 1841; meet at the gates of St Finbarr’s Hospital, Douglas Road, 12noon (free, duration: two hours, on site tour), in association with the Friends of St Finbarr’s Hospital Garden Fete.
Saturday 30 June 2018, The Lough & its Curiosities; explore the local history from the Legend of the Lough to suburban development; meet at green area at northern end of The Lough, entrance of Lough Road to The Lough; 12noon (free, duration: two hours, on site tour)
