Category Archives: Cork City Events

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 14 August 2014

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

755a. Shandon silhouetted through a recent sunset

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 14 August 2014

Kieran’s Heritage Week, 23-31 August 2014

 

National Heritage Week is upon us again at the end of next week (23 – 31 August). It’s going to be a busy week. In the city and county, there is a wide range of events on. The City Library has an extensive local history lecture programme. I will post all events on my facebook page, Cork: Our City, Our Town. I have set up a number of events. They are all free and I welcome any public support for the activities outlined below.

 

Kieran’s Heritage Week, 23-30 August 2014

 

Heritage Open Day:

 

Saturday 23 August 2014 – Historical Walking Tour of City Hall with Kieran; Learn about the early history of Cork City Hall and Cork City Council, Discover the development of the building and visit the Lord Mayor’s Room, 11am, ticketed (free, duration: 75 minutes). 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. For more on Cork Heritage Open Day, check out www.corkheritageopenday.ie

 

Kieran’s Heritage Week, 24-31 August 2014:

 

Sunday 24 August 2014 – Eighteenth century Cork historical walking tour, Branding a City-Making a Venice of the North, with Kieran; meet at City Library, Grand Parade, 7pm (free, duration: two hours).

 For nearly five hundred years (c.1200-c.1690), the walled port town of Cork, built in a swamp and at the lowest crossing point of the River Lee and the tidal area, remained as one of the most fortified and vibrant walled settlements in the expanding British colonial empire. The walls served as a vast repository of meanings, symbolism, iconography and ideology, as well as symbols of order and social relationships. However, economic growth as well as political events in late seventeenth century Ireland, culminating in the destruction of the city’s core in 1690, provided the catalyst for large-scale change within the urban area. The walls were allowed to decay and this was to inadvertently alter much of the city’s physical, social and economic character in the ensuing century. By John Rocque’s Map of Cork in 1759, the walls of Cork were just a memory- the medieval plan was now a small part in something larger – larger in terms of population from 20,000 to 73,000 plus in terms of a new townscape. A new urban text emerged with new bridges, streets, quays, residences and warehouses built to intertwine with the natural riverine landscape. New communities created new social and cultural landscapes to encounter, several of which are explored on my tours for this year’s heritage week.

 

Monday 25 August 2014 – Shandon Historical Walking Tour  with Kieran, Discover the City’s historical quarter; learn about St Anne’s Church and the development of the butter market and the Shandon Street area; meet at North Gate Bridge, 7pm (free, duration: two hours).

There are multiple layers of history around the Shandon quarter. Amongst them is the story of the great butter market. By the mid 1700s, the native butter industry in Cork had grown to such an extent due to British empire expansion that it was decided among the main city and county butter merchants that an institution be established in the city that would control and develop its potential. These ‘Committee of Butter Merchants’ located themselves in a simple commissioned building adjacent to Shandon. The committee comprised 21 members who were chosen by the merchants in the city.  In May 1770, it was decided by the Cork Committee that all butter to be exported from Cork was to be examined by appointed inspectors who had two main duties to perform. Firstly, they had to examine and determine the quality and weight of the butter. Secondly, they had to examine and report on the manner of packing and to detect and signs of fraud. 

 

Tuesday 26 August 2014- Blackpool Historical Walking Tour with Kieran, From Fair Hill to the heart of Blackpool, learn about nineteenth century shambles, schools, convents and industries, meet at the North Mon gates, Gerald Griffin Avenue, 7pm (free, duration: two 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 such 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.

 

Kieran’s other walking tours include:

Thursday 28 August 2014 – Docklands Historical Walking Tour with Cllr Kieran McCarthy, Discover the history of the city’s docks, meet at Kennedy Park, Victoria Road, 7pm (free, duration: two hours).

 

Saturday 30 August 2014,  Douglas Historical Walking Tour with Cllr Kieran McCarthy, Discover about the sailcoth and woollen mills, meet at St. Columba’s Church Car Park, Douglas, 2pm (free, duration: two hours).

 

Captions:

 

755a. Shandon silhouetted through a recent sunset (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 24 July 2014

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

752a. Mary Harris aka Mother Jones

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 24 July 2014

The Spirit of Mother Jones, 29 July-1 August 2014

 

Next week sees the third Spirit of Mother Jones Festival, which remembers the life and times of Cork born woman Mary Harris or Mother Jones. She, according to our autobiography, which can be accessed online as well as some of her speeches and some filmed speeches, was an American schoolteacher and dressmaker who became a prominent labour and community organiser, who helped co-ordinate major strikes and co-founded the Industrial Workers of the World.

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. After a highly successful festival marking that anniversary it was decided to make the festival an annual event 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 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 better 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 1 August 2012 which is the 175th Anniversary of her baptism in the North Cathedral.  Her parents were Ellen Cotter, a native of Inchigeela and Richard Harris from Cork city. Few details of her 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.

Mary is best known for her fiery speeches against the exploitation of miners; she was utterly fearless, travelling all over America to defend workers and their families.  Mother Jones was one of the best and most active union organizers ever seen in America. She became a legend among the coalminers of West Virginia and Pennsylvania; Mother Jones was fearless and faced down the guns and court threats of the mine bosses. In 1905 she was the only woman to attend the inaugural meeting of the Industrial Workers of the World (Wobblies). Later she became an organiser for the Socialist Party and continued her defence of workers in industrial disputes across America. She was arrested and jailed in West Virginia for her activities during the Paint Creek, Cabin Creek strikes, but later released following large demonstrations of her supporters. Between 1912 and 1914 she was involved in the “coal wars” of Colorado which led to the infamous Ludlow Massacre, where 19 miners and members of their families were killed. She was imprisoned many times but always released quickly due to huge local support for her activities.

Described as “the most dangerous woman in America”, her cry of “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living” still resonates through history! Her autobiography was published in 1925. She passed away at the age of 93 in 1930 and is buried at Mount Olive Union cemetery in Illinois, where a museum will be erected to her memory shortly. 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.

The spirit of Mother Jones Festival continues this year with a number of writers, film producers and people associated with Mother Jones in the United States. There are concerts, public lectures and discussions held in the Maldron Hotel and the Firkin Crane centre.  One lecture of real contemporary resonance is on Wednesday afternoon 30th July, at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival, Claire McGettrick, co-founder of Justice for Magdalenes (now JFM Research) will speak at the Firkin Crane in Shandon, Cork,  about the story of the Magdalenes. Claire is an activist, researcher and also co-founder of the Adoption Rights Alliance. She worked as Research Assistant on the project Magdalene Institutions: Recording an Archival and Oral History, which collected the oral histories of 79 interviewees, including 35 Magdalene survivors. The Magdalene Names Project, which is central to Claire’s work with JFM Research, makes use of historical archives to develop a partial, repaired narrative of the lives of some of the women who died behind convent walls, with the aim of creating a lasting memorial to these women.

More information on the Spirit of Mother Jones festival can be seen at:  http://motherjonescork.com/2014-programme/

Caption:

752a. Mary Harris aka Mother Jones (source: Cork City Library)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 17 July 2014

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

751a. Ford Consul Cortina Ad, 1962

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town,

Cork Independent, 17 July 2014

“Technical Memories (Part 83) –Stylising the Landscape”

“Outside the little stream, where the cart wheels were shod I meandered idly by. And the circular platform was still in place. It looked as if the owner had one day got weary of the struggle…then he closed the doors of the little social centre, where the neighbours had met and discussed happenings, far and near, through the generations…some of the craft had survived by adapting their forge to the art of welding and the repair of the new agricultural machinery used in farming: but they were only a minority” (John T Collins, “The Deserted Forge”, Hollybough, 1963).

 

In October 1967, as related in last week’s column, Taoiseach Jack Lynch at the opening of the £2m investment into the Ford Factory on the Marina marked not only change for Ford but also for the motoring population. Lynch during his address related that his government had to cut back on the country’s loss making railway system and spent vast sums on the Irish road networks; “we have had to impose speed limits and complicated systems of traffic control in our towns and cities, while the need to cater for the projected increase in car numbers has been a major factor in the planning of future towns and rural development”. Newspapers like the Hollybough (see above quote), the Cork Examiner and Evening Echo commented on change regularly since the first motor car rolled across the Cork street in the 1910s all the way through to the problem of parking and traffic movement in the 1960s. One I came across recently was the installation of the first set of traffic lights in July 1954 at the junction of Washington Street and the Grand Parade (60 years old since this installation this month). Erected by Messrs Siemens, London, the lights were of a similar type to those being used in some other Irish cities, except that in Cork pedestrian lights were introduced to work in conjunction with the regular lights.

Car dealerships spread and grew with the growth of Irish motoring and there were 87 main Ford dealers in the country in 1966. Fords could record that 11,041 out of 39,546 new car owners chose one of the 12 cars Ford had to offer. The Ford Cortina, introduced in 1962, during its production run was the biggest selling model ever on the Irish market. Next on the range were the Ford Corsair and the Ford Anglia followed by the new range of Ford Zephyr and Ford Zodiac models. The Cork Examiner in October 1967 commented on their affect on the urban and rural landscapes of the country; “Mechanical refinements of independent rear suspension, along with sophisticated styling.. these new cars have become as much of the social scene as their imposing size and impressive appearance would suggest”.

Then there was the sister factory Dagenham in east London, which was the largest motor exporting factory in the world. The first vehicle, a Model AA truck, rolled off its production line in October 1931. In the post war years Dagenham turned its interests to the revolutionary Consul and Zephyr range of cars. Major expansion in the 1950s increased floor space by 50% and doubled production. By 1953 the site occupied four million square feet and employed 40,000 people. An article in the Hollybough in 1954 related that 75 per cent of the Irish in the Dagenham area, circa a total of 3,300 men, were employed there. An old North Monastery boy, Michael J Ronayne, with more than 30 years experience with the company in Cork and Dagenham, was the Chief Engineer in Europe of the Ford organisation. His brother jack was engineer in charge of the building of Gurranabraher and Spangle Hill houses.

As the swinging 60s took hold, Dagenham moved on to a car destined to become one of the favourites – the Ford Cortina. By the time the last Cortina left the line in 1982, the plant had built over three million. In Cork and Dagenham and further afield, Ford technologists, in the search for higher standards, contacted Swedish experts in industrial ventilation and air-handling, Svenska Fläktfabriken. They were world leaders in the complex problems of mining ventilation, they took up a leading role in the equally difficult task of providing the highly specialised conditions for car-body finishing.

The opening of the Cork factory extension in 1967 coincided with ceremonies celebrating the advent of first a tractor factory which sent machines to all parts of the world. With such heritage, service was also of vital importance to the farming community. The ready availability of spare parts from the 38 Ford Tractor Dealers strategically placed throughout Ireland ensured rapid and efficient service for owners and operators of Ford Tractors. In addition, the Agricultural Colleges National Ploughing Championships were initiated in 1966 and sponsored by Henry Ford & Son Ltd., Cork with the intention of stimulating interest in a wider understanding of the skills and values of good ploughing and tillage methods. Prizes of £300 and £150 were awarded to the winners of the Championships. After competitors from all the agricultural colleges had completed qualifying tests under National Ploughing Association rules the successful candidates contested the finals at the National Ploughing Championships.

To be continued…

Captions:

751a. Consul Cortina Ad 1962 (source: Cork City Library)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 12 June 2014

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

746a. Walled town of Cork, c.1575

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 12 June 2014

Kieran’s City Walking Tours, 17 & 20 June 2014

 

My summer walking tours of Cork City centre continue and conclude next week Tuesday evening, 17th June and Friday evening, 20th June. The tours begin at the National Monument on the Grand Parade, at 7pm on those evenings and explore the City Centre’s early development on a swamp. The tour costs e.5 per person and children under 12 are free. No booking is required, just turn up on the evening.

One of the aspects of the city’s development addressed on the walking tour is the walled town of Cork. Access into walled settlement was via three entrances; two well-fortified drawbridges with associated towers and an eastern portcullis gate. Access from the southern valley side was via South Gate Draw-Bridge while entry from the northern valley side was through North Gate Draw-Bridge. Various depictions of the walled town show menacing symbols of power at the top of the drawbridge towers where the dismembered heads of executed criminals were placed as a warning to the other citizens contemplating crime. The severed head was placed onto a spike and this was slotted into a rectangular slab of stone. Legend has it that one of the stone blocks still exists and today can be seen at the top of the steps of the Counting House in Beamish and Crawford Brewery on South Main Street. Other methods of execution involved been hung at Gallows Green, a location on the southern valley side near to the southern road leading into town. The site is now marked by Greenmount National School and the Lough Community Centre.

The third entrance overlooked the eastern marshes and was located at the present day intersection of Castle Street and the Grand Parade. Known as Watergate and comprising of a large portcullis gate, this opened to allow ships into a small quay, located within the town. On both sides of this gate, two large mural towers, known as King’s Castle and Queen’s Castle controlled its mechanics. Today, the place-name Castle Street echoes their former presence. In 1996, when new sewage pipes were been put in place on Castle Street, work was halted when Cork archaeologists found two stone rubble portions of the rectangular foundation of Queen’s Castle. A further section was discovered in 1997. Through these excavations, sections of the medieval quay wall were also discovered on Castle Street. The importance of Watergate is also reflected in the city’s contemporary coat of arms, which shows two castles (King’s and Queen’s) and a ship in between, with a Latin insignia, “Statio Bene Fida Carinis”, meaning a safe harbour for ships.

In the last three decades, a substantial amount of archaeological excavations have taken place within the former area of the walled town and many facets of the townscape and society have been revealed. In particular, several sections of the lower courses of the town walls have been discovered along with parts of streets, laneways, housing and even the remains of citizens. The Pacata Hibernia depiction of the medieval town dates to circa 1585-1600 and shows the wall encompassing an oval shaped settlement. The walled defences, 1,500 metres in circumference, were to provide security for its inhabitants up to 1690. In a present day context, if one starts on the corner of the Grand Parade and the South Mall, on the city library side, the walls of the medieval town would have extended the full length of the Grand Parade, along Cornmarket Street, onto the Coal Quay, up Kyrl’s Quay to the North Gate Bridge. From here they would have extended up Bachelor’s Quay as far as Grattan Street, then turning southwards, the walls would have followed the full length of present day Grattan Street as far as present day Clarke’s Bridge. The walls then followed the course of the River Lee back to the starting point. Much of the town wall survives beneath the modern street surface and in some places has been incorporated into existing buildings. The wall was composed of two stone types, limestone and sandstone, types, which have been used down through the ages in Cork buildings from warehouses to churches. Sandstone deposits are common on the northern hills overlooking Cork while limestone deposits are common under the southern hills.

On the wall, at regular intervals were mural towers, which projected out from the wall and were used as lookout towers by the town’s garrison of soldiers. The walled town of Cork extended from South Gate Bridge to North Gate Bridge and was bisected by long spinal main streets, North and South Main Street. These were the primary route-ways and compared to today, these would have been much narrower but followed an identical plan.  In the early half of the life of the walled town, the majority of the houses overlooked the main street and running perpendicular to North and South Main Street were numerous narrow laneways, which provided access to the back gardens or burgage plots of the latter dwellings. Comprised of individual and equal units of property, burgage plots extended from the main street to the town wall. The sizes of these plots were carefully regulated by owners, tenants and borough charters.

More on the walking tour and keep an eye…

 

Caption:

746a. Walled town of Cork, c.1575 (source: Cork City Library)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 5 June 2014

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

745a. Recent re-opening of Fitzgerald's Park, May 2014

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,  5 June 2014

 

Kieran’s City Walking Tours, June 2014

 

This year I bring the summer walking tours of Cork City centre back during the month of June, on Tuesday evenings, 10th, 17th, and Friday evenings, 13th & 20th. The tours begin at the National Monument on the Grand Parade, at 7pm on those evenings and explore the City Centre’s early development on a swamp. The tour costs e.5 per person and children under 12 are free. No booking is required, just turn up on the evening. Further information if needed can be attained from me at 0876553389.

 

The tour is based on my publication Discover Cork, which was published eleven years ago as a guide to the city’s history. In this book I outline the city’s development and it opens with eminent Cork writer Daniel Corkery’s account of the city in his The Threshold of Quiet (1917) which highlights well the physical landscape of Cork City:

“Leaving us, the summer visitor says in his good humoured way that Cork is quite a busy place…as hundrum a collection of odds and ends as ever went by the name of city – are flung higgledy piggledy together into a narrow double-streamed, many bridged river valley, jostled and jostling, so compacted that the mass throws up a froth and flurry that confuses the stray visitor…for him this is Cork”.

 

One of the distinct questions that arises out of his narrative relates to the query, who could have built such a landscape. It was a combination of native and outside influences, primarily people that shaped its changing townscape and society since its origins as a settlement. The city possesses a unique character derived from a combination of its plan, topography, built fabric and its location. Indeed, it is also a city that is unique among other cities, it is the only one which has experienced all phases of Irish urban development, from circa 600 A.D. to the present day.

 

       The settlement began as a monastic centre in the seventh century, overlooking a series of marshy islands on which the present day city centre grew and flourished; it was transformed into a Viking port and the advent of the Anglo-Normans led to the creation of a prosperous walled town; it grew through the influx of English colonists during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and suffered the political problems inherent in Irish Society at that time; it was altered significantly again through Georgian and Victorian times when reclamation of its marshes became a priority along with the construction of spacious streets and grand town houses; its docks, warehouses exhibit the impact of the industrial revolution; and in the last one hundred years, Corkonians have witnessed both the growth of extensive suburbs and the rejuvenation of the inner city.

 

       Perhaps, the most important influence in the city’s development is the River Lee, an element which has witnessed the city grow from monastic Cork through the Celtic Tiger City of the twenty-first century. Originally, the city centre was a series of marshy islands, which the Irish for the city, “Corcaigh” translated marshes reflects. The river splits into two channels just west of the city centre, and hence flows around the city centre, leaving it in an island situation. The urban centre was built on the lowest crossing point of the River Lee, where the river meets the sea. Built on the surrounding valleysides of the River Lee, the city’s suburbs are constructs of the twentieth century where a spiralling population dictated Cork’s expansion beyond its municipal boundaries.

            Spliced with the city’s physical development is the story of its people and their contribution in making Cork a city whose history is rich and colourful. The characters are astute, confident, and are often rebellious, a distinctive trait of Corkonians through the ages and are remembered in Cork songs, statues, street-names and oral tradition. Corkonians make Cork unique. Their characteristics have been noted through the centuries, from visitors to antiquarian writers. All agree that its people are warm and very sociable. Joking is an essential characteristic of Corkonians. As one antiquarian, Byran Cody in 1859 put it, conversational power is the test of intellectual culture in Cork. A Corkonian is a good talker and the conversation is usually seasoned with spicy anecdotes and pleasant bits of scandal.

 

           A walk through St Patrick Street or affectionately known as ‘Pana’ will reveal the warmth of its people, the rich accent, the hustle and bustle of a great city. As Robert Gibbings, poet and writer put it in 1944, “Cork is the loveliest city in the world, anyone who doesn’t agree with me either was not born there or is prejudiced. The streets are wide, the quays are clean, the bridges are noble and people that you have never met in your life stop you in the street for a conversation”. Not only can each person tell you a story about Cork but its streets, buildings and bridges also do. They echo the rich historic and cultural development of the acclaimed southern capital of Ireland.

 

 

 

Caption:

 

745a. Recent re-opening of Fitzgerald’s Park, May 2014 (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

Historical Walking Tour of St. Finbarre’s Hospital, 7 June 2014

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

On next Saturday, 7 June 2014, 12noon (meet at gate), Cllr Kieran McCarthy, in association with the Friends of St Finbarr’s Hospital, will give a public historical walking tour of the hospital grounds with particular focus on its workhouse past. The walk is free and takes place to support the summer fete 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.

Cllr Kieran McCarthy’s ‘Make a Model Boat Project’ 2014, Fourth Year

Arts, Cork City Events, Kieran's Council Work, Landscapes, Uncategorized, Ward Events

 

Cllr Kieran McCarthy invites all Cork young people to participate in the fourth year of McCarthy’s ‘Make a Model Boat Project’. All interested must make a model boat at home from recycled materials and bring it along for judging to Cork’s Lough on Sunday afternoon, 1 June 2014, 2pm. The event is being run in association with Meitheal Mara’s Ocean to City, Cork’s Maritime Festival and the Lifetime Lab. There are three categories, two for primary and one for secondary students. There are prizes for best models and the event is free to enter. Cllr McCarthy, who is heading up the event, noted “I am encouraging creation, innovation and imagination amongst our young people, which are important traits for all of us to develop”. See www.kieranmccarthy.ie under community programme details, http://kieranmccarthy.ie/?p=10496