Some of my images from Glow- Christmas Festival on the Grand Parade & Bishop Lucey Park, organised and funded by Cork City Council
Category Archives: Improve Your Life
Cllr McCarthy: Pedestrianise Cork’s Marina on Sundays
Press Release:
Independent Cllr Kieran McCarthy has called for the pedestrianisation of the Marina on Sundays from the Atlantic Pond to almost Blackrock Village.
“The four weeks in October whereby almost 60 per cent of the walkway was pedestrianised has shown that there is public support for the initiative. The play areas on the road added to the enjoyment of the space by families. Great credit is due to local volunteers who manned such areas and traffic barriers. The calm weather of October brought hundreds of people out to experience the Marina in a different light whereby people could enjoy the space without the cars passing through”.
Cllr McCarthy, who gave a historical walking tour along the Marina as part of the pedestrianisation project, highlights that the potential to create other activities such as history walks and nature walks is quite high; “It is an area with a rich cultural and natural heritage, elements of which could be further mined. Part of The Marina began its life as a dock for shops called the Navigation Wall in 1761. You also can view the enigmatic sixteenth century Dundanion Castle from the Marina and the gorgeous Blackrock Castle as well as reclamation projects such as the Atlantic Pond from the nineteenth century and railway projects such as the Cork Blackrock and Passage Railway Line. Add in elements such as the story of the rowing clubs and one gets a rich kaleidoscope of stories and memories”.
“In the last few weeks, I have had sustained correspondence by constituents in Ballintemple and Blackrock to move the project of pedestrianisation. There was a recent debate in the Council Chamber whereby the sentiment expressed by the Directorate of Recreation and Amenity is of support but to tie the pedestrianisation to the development of Marina Park. Knowing the timeline of Marina Park is one of a 5-10 year strategy, momentum could be lost with the Marina project. It is my intention to keep the pressure on officials to answer the calls in the short terms from constituents for part pedestrianisation on a Sunday, in line with the methodology developed during October’s Sunday closures”.
For more up to date news on Kieran’s ongoing work and lobbying, check out his new Facebook page, Cllr Kieran McCarthy.
Pictures, Dragon of Shandon Parade, Cork, 31 October 2018
Cllr McCarthy Launches Heritage Facebook Series on the River Lee Valley
Douglas Road and Independent Cllr Kieran McCarthy continues his public heritage dissemination work online for the winter months. Kieran recently had a successful series of historical walking tours in different Cork neighbourhoods for October including Douglas. He also recently launched a new book entitled Cork in 50 Buildings. A third element of his heritage work this season relates to his heritage facebook site. Since early August this year Kieran McCarthy has been profiling the local histories of the River Lee valley on his heritage facebook page – Cork Our City, Our Town. Daily local history notes and historic images are posted and abstracted from Kieran’s publications on the river Lee over the past 12 years. The posts aim to showcase the multitude of local histories in the valley and to celebrate life in the valley. Cllr McCarthy noted: “the posts focus on the journey of the Lee and the key places of settlement, monuments and community leaders all the way along the valley. The posts contain lots of old local history pictures, past fieldwork & oral history testimony”.
The daily facebook posts also draw on a past book by Kieran and Seamus O’Donoughue on the Lee Hydro Electric Scheme. The work was published by the ESB to mark the 50th anniversary of Inniscarra Dam being commissioned. The facebook posts has pictures of the Lee Scheme being constructed and pictures of the ‘before and after’ of the affected landscape.
Kieran has also recently launched a facebook page for his local government work (“Cllr Kieran McCarthy”). It compliments his website kieranmcarthy.ie and twitter account @cllrkmac. Cllr McCarthy noted; “All aim to give constituents more information on my broad and ongoing work programs and interests within the city and region”.
Marina, Cork, 14 October 2018
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 13 September 2018
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,
Cork Independent, 13 September 2018
Launch of Discover Cork: Schools’ Heritage Project 2018-19
The advent of the new school year coincides with the sixteenth year of the Discover Cork: Schools’ Heritage Project. Brochures have been sent to all Cork City schools. Launched again for the new school term, the Project is open to schools in Cork City at primary level to the pupils of fourth, fifth and sixth class and at post-primary from first to sixth years. There are two sub categories within the post primary section, Junior Certificate and Leaving Certificate. A student may enter as an individual or as part of a group or a part of a class entry. The County edition unfortunately will not run this year due to my recent surgery and recovery ahead.
Co-ordinated by myself, one of the key aims of the project is to encourage students to explore, investigate and debate their local heritage (built, archaeological, cultural and natural) in a constructive, active and fun way. Projects on any aspect of Cork’s rich heritage can be submitted to an adjudication panel. Prizes are awarded for best projects and certificates are given to each participant. A cross-section of projects submitted from the last school season can be gleamed from this link on my website, www.corkheritage.ie where there are other resources, former titles and winners and entry information as well.
Students produce a project on their local area using primary and secondary sources. Each participating student within their class receives a visit and workshop in October 2018. The workshop comprises a guide to how to put a project together. Project material must be gathered in an A4/ A3 size Project book. The project may be as large as the student wishes but minimum 20 pages (text + pictures + sketches). Projects must also meet five elements. Projects must be colourful, creative, have personal opinion, imagination and gain publicity before submission. These elements form the basis of a student friendly narrative analysis approach where the student explores their project topic in an interactive and task-oriented way. In particular, students are encouraged to attain material through visiting local libraries, engaging with fieldwork, interviews with local people, making models, photographing, cartoon creating, making DVDs of their area. Re-enacting can also be a feature of several projects.
For over sixteen years, the project has evolved in exploring how students actually pursue local history and how to make it relevant in society . The project attempts to provide the student with a hands-on and interactive activity that is all about learning not only about heritage in your local area (in all its forms) but also about the process of learning by participating students. The project is about thinking about, understanding, appreciating and making relevant in today’s society the role of our heritage, our landmarks, our oral histories, our scenery in our modern world for upcoming citizens. So, the project is about splicing together activity on issues of local history and heritage such as thinking, exploring, observing, discovering, researching, uncovering, revealing, interpreting and resolving. This year as well there is a focus on the theme, The Past, An Inspiration.
The importance of doing a project in local history is reflected in the educational aims of the history curricula of primary and post-primary schools. Local heritage is a tool, which helps the student to become familiar with their local environment and to learn the value of it in their lives. Learning to appreciate the elements of a locality, can also give students a sense of place in their locality or a sense of identity. Hence the Project can also become a youth forum for students to do research and offer their opinions on important decisions being made on their heritage in their locality and how they affect the lives of people locally. I know a number of students who have been involved in the project in schools over the years who have took their interest further and have gone on to become professional tour guides, and into other related college work.
The project is open to many directions of delivery. Students are encouraged to engage with their topic in order to make sense of it, understand and work with it. Students continue to experiment with the overall design and plan of their work. For example, and in general, students who have entered before might engage with the attaining of primary information through oral histories. The methodologies that the students create provide interesting ways to approach the study of local heritage. Students are asked to choose one of two extra methods (apart from a booklet) to represent their work. The first option is making a model whilst the second option is making a short film. It is great to see students using modern up todate technology to present their findings. This works in broadening their view of approaching their project.
This project in the City is free to enter and is kindly funded by Cork City Council (viz the help of Niamh Twomey, Officer) Prizes are also provided by the Old Cork Waterworks Experience, Lee Road, Learnit Lego Education, and Sean Kelly of Lucky Meadows Equestrian Centre, Watergrasshill (www.seankellyhorse.com). Overall, the Schools’ Heritage Project for the last fifteen years has attempted to build a new concerned generation of Cork people, pushing them forward, growing their self-development empowering them to connect to their world and their local heritage. Spread the word please with local schools. Details can be found on my website, www.corkheritage.ie
Kieran’s new book, Cork in 50 Buildings (2018, Amberley Publishing) is also now in Cork bookshops.
Captions:
963a. Project page on the local history of Albert Road from Our Lady of the Lourdes NS student 2018.
963b. Model on the local history of Albert Road from Our Lady of the Lourdes NS student 2018.
Ballinlough Summer Festival, August 2018
Thanks and well done to the Ballinlough Festival Committee who recently organised the 10th edition of Ballinlough Summer Festival
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article, Cork in Fifty Buildings, 30 August 2018
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,
Cork Independent, 30 August 2018
Kieran’s New Book Cork in 50 Buildings
My new book Cork in 50 Buildings (2018, Amberley Publishing) explores the history of this venerable old city through a selection of its greatest architectural treasures, from the St Anne’s Church, Shandon, regarded as a symbol of the city, to more recent additions such as the tower of the County Hall, once the tallest building in Ireland. This book offers a glimpse to explore behind fifty of Cork’s historic buildings.
The city of Cork is a place of tradition, continuity, change and legacy. It is a place of direction and experiment by people of ambition and determination, experiences and learning, of ingenuity and innovation, and of nostalgia and memory. Its extraordinary history is embodied in the buildings that have shaped Ireland’s southern capital.
The biggest challenge for me was to pick a mixture of buildings that should be in this book but also ones, which I do not often get to write about or show on my historical walking tours. Whether or which, this book builds on my previous publications, takes strands of articles from this ongoing local history column, Our City, Our Town. It is also inspired by the annual Cork Heritage Open Day, which is organised by Cork City Council and where over 40 buildings open their doors to the public for one day at the start of National Heritage Week.
This book highlights just some of my favourite buildings and stories that have charmed me. It presents a contextual history of buildings and comments on the buildings’ economic expressions, use of narratives, symbols and metaphors and the social environment. There is a great need to highlight the need for more research on the city’s historic structures, a mapping out of them and to continue to identify new ways of celebrating, managing and championing our built heritage.
Eminent Cork Writer Daniel Corkery’s account of Cork in The Threshold of Quiet (1917) has always resonated strongly with me.
“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 throws up a froth and flurry that confuses the stray visitor…for him this is Cork”.
The words “higgledy piggledy” for me best describes the urban fabric of Cork. The mixed “collection of odds and ends” reflects the manner of the city’s evolution. It was built in a piecemeal way by a combination of native and outside influences, its ever-changing townscape and society shaped by different cultures since its origin as a monastic settlement. Cork possesses a unique character, derived from a combination of its plan, topography, built fabric and location.
It is unique among other Irish cities in that it alone has experienced all phases of Irish urban development, from c.AD600 to the present day. The settlement at Cork began as a monastic centre in the seventh century, founded by St FinBarre. It served as a Viking trading post before the Anglo-Normans arrived and created 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 through Georgian and Victorian times when reclamation of its marshes became a priority, as well as the construction of spacious streets and grand town houses; its quays, docks and 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. Built on the surrounding valleysides of the River Lee, the city’s suburbs are the result of a spiralling population in the twentieth century.
Perhaps, the most important influence on the city’s development was and is the River Lee, which has witnessed the city’s growth from a monastic centre to a cosmopolitan twenty-first-century city. Originally, Cork comprised a series of marshy islands, which the Irish for the city, Corcaigh, or marshes, reflects. Just west of the city centre the Lee splits into two channels, each flowing around the city before meeting again in Cork harbour. This means the city centre is an island, bounded by a north channel and a south channel. The urban centre was built on the lowest crossing-point of the river, where it meets the sea. This situation has given the city a rich maritime history and a strong identification as a port town complete with old warehouses.
With the past of a port city, Cork’s architecture has a personality that is varied and much is hidden amongst the city’s narrow streets and laneways. Much of its architecture is inspired by international styles – the British style of artwork and nineteenth century brick pervading in most cases– but it 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. Cork’s most fascinating buildings ranging from the medieval to the military, the civic to the commercial and the educational to the ecclesiastical.
Cork in 50 Buildings by Kieran McCarthy is available online to purchase https://www.amberley-books.com or in any good Cork bookshop. Support local bookshops.
Captions:
961a. Front cover of Cork in 50 Buildings by Kieran McCarthy
961b. Re-enactment at Elizabeth Fort for the recent Cork Heritage Open Day, one of the sites in Kieran’s new book Cork in 50 Buildings (picture: Kieran McCarthy)
Pictures, Cork Heritage Open Day 2018
A great Cork Heritage Open Day 2018; well done to the organisers, building owners and volunteers! some pictures below I took on the day 🙂
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 9 August 2018
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,
Cork Independent, 9 August 2018
Cork Heritage Open Day, 18 August 2018
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)
