Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 25 May 2023

Recasting Cork: A Visit by Jim Larkin

Exiled Jim Larkin General Secretary of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (ITGWU) made his return to Ireland in April 1923. Subsequently he set about touring the country meeting trade union members and appealing for an end to the Irish Civil War. 

On Saturday evening 26 May 1923 Jim Larkin paid a visit to Cork. He addressed a public meeting from the windows of the old Connolly Hall on the Lower Glanmire Road. On his arrival at the railway station the well-known Labour leader was met by a large crowd and three bands – the Transport Workers’ (Connolly Memorial) Brass and Reed, the Workingmens’ Drum and Fife, and the Lee Pipers’. After he had been welcomed by Robert Day TD, Michael Hill Chairman of the Cork Executive of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union, Cllr Kenneally, and others, Jim Larkin was escorted to Connolly Hall. There a public meeting was held, which hosted a large attendance by the public.

The beginning of Jim’s career as a labour organiser dated from an earlier part of his career when he lost his post as foreman in a Liverpool shipping firm because he showed sympathy with strikers. He became an organiser for the National Union of Dock Labourers in Great Britain and Ireland. Belfast was the first Irish port in which his ability as an organiser was employed. Unskilled workers struck on a large scale for better conditions. 

In 1908, following clashes between workers and employers In Dublin and Cork, Jim was instrumental in forming the ITGWU in which he occupied the position of General Secretary. The Union grew quickly and was engaged in a long and continuous series of disputes. Following the foundation of the ITGWU, he founded the Irish Women Workers’ Union and a newspaper called The Irish Worker.

From 1911 onwards the atmosphere for a bitter labour fight grew in Dublin. In 1913, William Martin Murphy, owner of the Irish Independent and controller of the then Dublin United Tramways Company, sacked despatch workers in the newspaper who belonged to the ITGWU. The strike lasted until early in 1914 and was marked by the most stirring scenes ever witnessed in Dublin labour disputes. Police baton charges were features of every meeting held by the workers and on one day alone there were 500 civilian casualties. Two workers were killed during the dispute.

When the strike ended in a sort of triumph of failure for the workers Jim Larkin went to America on a Trades Union Congress mission for funds, in 1916. As a result of his labour and pacifist attitude during the 1914-18 war he was arrested and sent to penal servitude in New York’s Sing Sing prison. Jim spent several years in prison, before he was eventually pardoned by Al Smith, Governor of New York, in 1923 and was later deported.

In Cork on 26 May 1923, Jim Larkin reminded the public that there had been a revolution in the country and the working classes should look around and see what they as workers had achieved as the result of it. Until such time as they as a class took over the political control of the country, they need not expect any favours from any government, native or foreign. He used a quote from James Connolly; “The freedom of the working class will comb only through the industrial organisation backed up by the official leaders of Labour in every legislative and governing body in the country. It was their duty to secure their emancipation”.

Giving his reflections, on the course of history, which occurred whilst he was in the US, Jim noted because he was a republican, or a “Republican before many of those who are not Republicans”. He wished to advise leaders of both sides that the time had come to keep the truce for one month, and then sit down and arrange peace terms. He wished to not ask any of them to give up their principles. He noted that some people had told him that he advised Republican supporters to surrender. He noted that that was a lie; “I would sooner die at that window gone ask any true man to surrender”.

Jim advised on what he believed that the facts must be first. The Irish Free State government was an overwhelming power; “The government had 50,000 bayonets but the people of Ireland knew that the government lived by the permission of the British Empire. Their hearts in Ireland had always been true to Cathleen Ní Houlihan, and if that were true was it not only natural that their sympathies should be with the men on the hills”. He further articulated that the power of the government was such that Republican soldiers and advisers had not the strength of arms to “win out against such power and it was the duty of the officer to save his men”.

A member of the crowd shouted to Jim a reference to the Treaty; Jim replied;“You are very good to shout about the Treaty. I am not responsible for the Treaty and no labour man is responsible for it. The labour men were not asked to go to England to talk over the treaty”.

Proceeding Jim wanted to get the country back to a “Christian point of view” where human beings would argue facts, where words would be forgotten and where principles are not personalities would be considered; “They must go on arguing. To go on fighting would never bring them anywhere. It would only weaken them”.

Jim noted that ultimately the people of Ireland had two facts to consider – the unity of Ireland and the safety of its people; “The two crimes are the partition of the country and its countrymen or killing each other…I am for the honour and glory of fighting for peace – peace by understanding and not peace at the point of the bayonet for that was the British way”.

Caption:

1203a. Jim Larkin, pictured in Sing Sing Prison, New York, 1919 (picture: Cork City Library).

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 18 May 2023

Recasting Cork: The Future of the Public Library

May 1923 coincided with more of a focus by the Corporation of Cork in their search for a temporary public library for the city. The Cork Examiner’s columnist with the pseudonym Periscope outlines on the 15 May 1923 the search for a temporary library space and newspaper reading room.

The Cork Carnegie Library adjacent Cork City became a casualty of reprisal burnings by Crown forces in the city on the night of 11 December 1920, at the height of the War of Independence.  The building and the stock on site – approximately 14,000 books – were engulfed by the fire in the neighbouring building, the City Hall. 

Considering the competing urgent demands placed on the local authorities in the wake of this decimation of the city centre, the pursuit to re-establish the library service was due largely to the herculean efforts of the then librarian, James Wilkinson. 

In early May 1923 the old Tuckey Street Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) station, owned by the Office of Public Works, was examined and in its first initial inspection was found to be unsuitable because it was a mere burnt out shell and the cost of repair was deemed too high. In addition, it is also recorded that the upper portion of the front wall was leaning inwards. The fire had burnt right out the bearings on this wall, thus leaving the joist holes open, and making some serious pinning and repair works necessary.

On 4 June 1923 a meeting of the Corporation’s Library committee had the attendance of councillors Professor Stockley, Sir John Scott and Mr Mulligan. It was decided to have a premises on Cornmarket Street made into a temporary reading room at once. In conjunction with City Librarian James Wilkinson, the City Engineer Joseph Delany presented plans to those present for a temporary library and reading rooms in the old Tuckey Street RIC Station. After some discussions the report was to be sent to the Corporation meeting to adopt the proposals and to have tenders invited for the necessary works and alterations without delay.

On 10 January 1924, on the examination of the tender of Messrs Coughlan Brothers, builders and contractors, their costs were found favourable and in particular for the creation of an extra upper floor and roof. Nearly two weeks later, the Commissioners of Public Works officially wrote to the Corporation proposing to surrender their interest in the former RIC Barracks. By 11 February 1924, tenders were invited from competent contractors for the making and supplying of furniture and fittings for the temporary public library. 

By 8 July 1924, the columnist Periscope wrote a detailed description of the new temporary library and its three floors. It had been formally opened on 10 June 1924. The reading room was on the ground floor and just off the street, as it was by far the most visited room in the building.

A wide, easy staircase gave access to the lending library.  Periscope reports of spacious bookcases; “Here the arrangements for prompt service are admirable, and every inch of space has been used to the best advantage. The borrower will have access to the open bookcases and can choose the desired book from any of the shelves”.

A smaller room was devoted to the purposes of a juvenile library with bookcases of a suitable height. Periscope notes that is noteworthy that in the previous Carnegie Library – of the average circulation of 93,000 volumes, 10,000 were issued to children under fourteen years. Periscope asserts his view on a juvenile section: “This excellent idea of a library for the children is certain to have a good effect in getting the youngsters into the right line of reading, a most important point when one remembers and considers the appalling trash children sometimes get hold of haphazard”. On the top floor was the Reference Library, where the visitor could pursue his or her research.

Fine flat-topped tables of pitch-pine and oak were supplied by the Minister Arcade. Reading stands and chairs, and the bookcases for the juvenile department were supplied by Grants. The Reading Room tables and the counters and bookcases for the Lending Library were supplied by Coughlan Brothers.

Periscope also emphasises that everything perished in the library fire in 1920 and over 15,000 books were destroyed from the flames. James Wilkinson issued an appeal for book donations, which yielded an extraordinarily generous response from the national and international community. Since 1921 many donated books had been accumulated. By September 1922 5,400 books were held in storage and by June 1924 there were 10,500 donated books and more purchased from cash donations and public funds. So the temporary Library started with well supplied with books in all departments. Indeed, by September 1924 full borrowing services were resumed.

The accession ledgers in which acquisitions to stock were recorded continue to be housed by the Central Library’s Local Studies Department and make for fascinating insight into the history of reading in Cork city.  Some notable donors were Charlotte Bernard Shaw, wife of the playwright George Bernard Shaw; Mrs W B Yeats, wife of the poet, and novelists Edith Somerville, Lennox Robinson, Daniel Corkery and Annie M P Smithson. 

A letter written by James Wilkinson in 1923 to the superior of St Brigid’s Convent, Sydney, apologising for the delay in acknowledging receipt of the order’s financial donation, captures the turmoil of this historic period:  the delay “was due to the fact that the cheque and list of donors was transmitted by Professor Alfred O’Rahilly at a time when he was an interned prisoner, who sent the cheque on to me, but not the list of names”.

Caption:

1202a. Former site of Tuckey Street RIC Barracks, now the present day site of the St Vincent de Paul (picture: Kieran McCarthy).

Upcoming walking tour with Kieran:

Saturday 20 May 2023, The Northern Ridge – St Patrick’s Hill to MacCurtain Street; Tour around St Patrick’s Hill – Old Youghal Road to McCurtain Street; meet on the Green at Audley Place, top of St Patrick’s Hill, 2pm (free, duration: two hours, no booking required, finishes on MacCurtain Street).

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 11 May 2023

Recasting Cork: Meetings with the Post-Master General

On 9 May 1923, Postmaster General Mr J J Walsh TD had a busy set of meetings at Turner’s Hotel on Cork’s Oliver Plunkett Street in receiving deputations and their representative of various interests of the city and region. The minutes of the meetings with the various groups in the Cork Examiner reveal insights into challenges of citizens and the commercial community in Cork in moving away from a dependence on UK markets in particular.

 First up a deputation from County Cork Unpurchased Tenants’ Association attended. They sought completion of land purchase at the earliest possible moment. They were a branch of several agrarian pressure groups in Ireland in the 1910s and 1920s. Under the Irish Lands Acts, many farmers in preceding decades had purchased the freehold to their farms. The branches of different counties represented the remaining tenant farmers. The deputation also expressed their dissatisfaction with the manner in which public administration was being conducted in the county. J J Walsh assured the deputation that free holds would be dealt with. He was also of the view that many public bodies in the country were not doing their full duty so that considerable sums of the people’s money were being wasted through insufficient control and that there needed to be more value for money.

A deputation from the Cork Butter Market Trustees next waited on J J Walsh and called for a highly competent grader, who could act as superintendent in the Market, and a qualified analyst. Ample room could be created in the market for a high grade national brand. The Trustees present recalled that before 1884 the market paid over £10,000 a week in wages and commanded a higher price than Danish butter. An 1884 Westminster Bill permitted unbranded butter to be shipped from Ireland with the result that certain shippers sprang up all over the country and shipped butter of any sort or kind regardless of reputational damage it did. J J Walsh promised to raise their concerns at central government level.

A deputation from the South of Ireland Cattle Trade Association also attended on J J Walsh. The representatives noted that before Independence, Ireland had practically the monopoly of the external supplies of cattle to the English markets. They now found themselves against very stiff competition from Canada. They called on central government to lower freights particularly on railways. As an example, they quoted that the “carriage of a beast” in 1914 from County Cork to Yorkshire was roughly eight shillings with the cost going up to 33 shillings in early 1923. In 1914 a truck of nine cattle from Tralee to Liverpool via Dublin cost just £4 but that cost had risen to £15.  The delegation also drew attention to the fact that post offices ought to be open at 8am in all country towns on the occasion of cattle fairs in order to facilitate traders. J J Walsh agreed with their perspective on the need to decrease costs denoting that; “It is the duty of government to be very wide awake and see that the ground was not cut from under their feet”.

A deputation of flour millers of the County and City of Cork met J J Walsh. Irish millers had been asked by government to consider several proposals. Among them was a proposal to require all imported flour to be placed in bags branded front and back with the name, address, and country of origin of the foreign manufacturer in large block capital letters of a specified minimum size, printed in black ink. England had recently taken a similar step in regard to Irish and other foreign products. The millers supported this proposal. They drew the attention of J J Walsh to the increased import of foreign flour – an increase of over 400,000 tons of flour in the previous twelve months and that every ton of foreign flour was estimated to create a loss of over £4 to the workers of Ireland.

The Cork millers related that the total annual capacity of flour production in England and Wales was 40 million socks per annum, but the consumption did not exceed 30 million sacks. This led to the selling of below cost flour to Irish buyers. The millers also asserted that the milling capacity of Ireland was about seventy per cent of the requirement. J J Walsh articulated that foreign made flour should be plainly and sufficiently branded to enable buyers to see whether the product was Irish or not; “Flour-milling is one of our staple industries, and it is behoved on everybody anxious to maintain such industries to wake up to the grave danger after destruction by carelessness our oversight on the part of the Irish people”.

The commercial community of Cork were the last to meet J J Walsh. They were most anxious to help the government in every way to bring about a better and more prosperous condition for the city and region. They pointed out the serious loss the city had suffered during the previous immediate years. Many subjects were discussed which included the restoration of Mallow railway bridge, the improvement of postal, telegraphic and telephone services, payment of claims for cork burnings, proposed valuation on new buildings, allocation of government contracts in the car carrier, abolition of the Cockett Tax, and collection of income tax by employers.

J J Walsh admitted that in the past Cork had not received its proper share of government contracts but in the previous two months Cork had received not less than a quarter of the total contracts of the Irish Free State. These contracts were given on merit based on the price but never less Cork had been fortunate in securing a big over proportion of the monies at the disposal of the Irish Free State.

On the question of reconstruction of the City Centre over thirty months on from the Burning of Cork event, J J Walsh produced figures that there were 400 rebuilding and property losses claims. A total of 180 claims had already been paid the money – this amounted to £150,000. He noted that the outstanding 200 claims would be cleared. He had also spoken on a number of labour leaders and they assured him that there was no truth in the assertion that Cork workmen were not as able and as willing in the execution of their work as those in any other part of Ireland.

JJ Walsh also met with tea agents and agricultural education groups before his return by train to Dublin.

Upcoming walking tours with Kieran:

Saturday 13 May 2022, The Battle of Douglas, An Irish Civil War Story, meet at carpark and entrance to Old Railway Line, Harty’s Quay, Rochestown; 2pm, (free, 2 hours, finishes near Rochestown Road).

Saturday 20 May 2023, The Northern Ridge – St Patrick’s Hill to MacCurtain Street; Tour around St Patrick’s Hill – Old Youghal Road to McCurtain Street; meet on the Green at Audley Place, top of St Patrick’s Hill, 2pm (free, duration: two hours, no booking required, finishes on MacCurtain Street).

Caption:

1201a. Marina Flour Mills, South Docks, Cork, 1919, from Cork: Its Chamber and Commerce (source: Cork City Library).