The column for this year will continue to try to highlight everyday events and local history nuggets from this period of centenary commemorations. The year 1918 brought continuing challenges and opportunities to Cork and Ireland – elements such as rationing, war fatigue, renewed Sinn Féin vigour, the war ending – all offer lenses in telling the story of life in Cork one hundred years ago.
The first week of 1918 was filled with a host of entertainment options for Cork citizens at a variety of venues, all of which were described in the Cork Examiner. On New Years Eve, on 31 December 1917, the delightful musical comedy The Maid of the Mountains, by the George Edwards Company continued to attract an audience at Cork Opera House. It was the closing week of this company’s visit. George Joseph Edwardes was an English theatre manager and producer of Irish ancestry who brought a new era sin musical theatre to the British stage and beyond. Edwardes started out in theatre management and soon worked at a number of West End theatres. By the age of 20, he was managing theatres for Richard D’Oyly Carte and for the next three decades, Edwardes ruled a theatrical empire. He sent touring companies around Britain and abroad to entertain audiences with performances from Burlesque and Comic Opera to Musical comedy.
After the George Edwardes Company, the boards of Cork Opera were to be thread by The Warblers, the Cork Pierrot Concert Party. This was a variety show performed by a local company of actors and singers – they sang songs and made up their own parody songs. They performed at the Opera House for six nights and a matinee. A concert party, also called a Pierrot troupe, was the collective name for a group of entertainers, or Pierrots, popular in Britain and Ireland during the first half of the twentieth century. The variety show given by a Pierrot troupe was called a Pierrot show.
Mr Frank Pitt, manager of the Opera House, having the theatre vacant on Saturday night, 5 January 1918 offered free of cost, to the Society of St Vincent de Paul the space for a concert in aid of its funds. The concert had several singers. Selections were also given by the Butter Exchange Band, under the direction of Mr A K Ogden.
At the Palace Theatre on King Street on New Year’s Eve, another variety show took place. Amongst the more acclaimed acts was “The Great Como”, the Irish-American Illusionist. His feats had been seen before but were characterised by a “skill and smoothness”. The O’Brien Brothers as comedians and dancers entertained the crowds. The singer known as Wardini and Kathleen O’Mara represented the vocal contributors. The orchestra was under the baton of Mr R H Richards. Short films were also shown.
Further along on King Street was the Coliseum, which in 1918 had been five years in operation. On New Year’s Eve another variety show was presented. In addition to a fine picture programme, the group, The Cheeros, who were Pierrettes and Pierrots, were performing. They played to crowded houses. Mr J F Mullane was the musical director of the troupe, and the composer of the opening and finale choruses. The film side of the programme consists of a Human Sacrifice, a powerful drama in four parts. The manager, M Tighe was acknowledged in the Cork Examiner at securing a great programme.
In the city centre at the Father Mathew Hall the pupils of Mrs J F Lyons performed on the first week of January. The piece they presented was In the Days of Tara, written by Mr B McCarthy, Crosshaven. It was an interesting romantic piece and interspersed with popular Anglo-Irish songs with an elaborately well-dressed stage. On 30 January 1907, the Fr Mathew hall was opened on what was then Queen Street. There was a good auditorium for plays and concerts and plenty of rooms for activities such as a billiard room, a card room, a reading room. For a time, attempts were made to run pictures – it was called a Picturedrome. The Christmas Pantomines became popular – the cast being hall members and monies that were made defrayed expenditure. At different times, members organised dramatic societies, bands, orchestras and choral groups. Classes were held in cookery, sewing and needlework, gymnastics and first aid. Outdoor recreation comprised hurling, football and cycling.
On 4 January 1918, at Cork City Hall a treat was provided for the school children of the city. It was organised by the ladies of the Temperance League. The vestibule and entrances of the City Hall were besieged by an eager and excited throng of juveniles long before the hour arrived for the starting of the concert. Between three and four hundred were admitted but many more hundreds of children had to be refused admission. Their disappointment was somewhat relieved when they were told that the performance would be repeated in the afternoon, and those turned away would be prioritised. Greenmount Industrial School Band lent an added feature of entertainment and the magic lantern picture display, presented by Mr C Fielding was also enjoyed by the children. The other contributions included those by Fr Christy O’Flynn, the girls of the North Presentation Convent and St Marie’s of the Isle school, as well as Greenmount Dancing Class, and Mr Dan Hobbs.
Note: All the 2017 Our City, Our Town columns can be accessed on my website www.corkheritage.ie under the index to the Cork Independent column section.
Captions:
927a. Postcard of the old Cork Opera House, early twentieth century (source: Cork City Through Time by Kieran McCarthy & Dan Breen; Cork City Museum)
927b. Old Cork City Hall, c.1910 (source: Cork City Through Time by Kieran McCarthy & Dan Breen; Cork City Museum)
Missed one of Kieran McCarthy’s 50 columns of Our City, Our Town in the weekly Cork Independent in 2017 – all exploring the topical issues and challenges within Cork in 1917 – check them all out and more images at http://corkheritage.ie/?page_id=4649
Evening Echo is sited on old gasometer land gifted by Cork Gas Company to Cork City Council in the late 1980s, and subsequently dedicated as Shalom Park in 1989. The park sits in the centre of an old Cork neighbourhood known locally as ‘Jewtown.’ This neighbourhood is also home to the National Sculpture Factory. Not a specific commission, nor working to a curatorial brief, Evening Echo is a project generated as an artist’s response to the particularities of a place and has quietly gathered support from Cork Hebrew Congregation, Cork City Council, Bord Gáis and a local Cork newspaper, the Evening Echo.
References to the slow subsidence of the Jewish community in Cork have been present for years, but there is now a palpable sense of disappearance. Within the Cork Hebrew Congregation there are practical preparations underway for this, as yet unknown, future moment of cessation. Evening Echo moves through a series of thoughts and questions about what it might mean to be at this kind of cusp, both for the Jewish community and for other communities in Cork.
Evening Echo is manifested in a sequence of custom-built lamps, remote timing systems operated from Paris, a highly controlled sense of duration, a list of future dates, an annual announcement in Cork’s Evening Echo newspaper and a promissory agreement. Fleetingly activated on an annual cycle, and intended to exist in perpetuity, the project maintains a delicate position between optimism for its future existence and the possibility of its own discontinuance.
Maddie Leach’s work is largely project-based, site responsive and conceptually driven and addresses new thinking on art, sociality and place-based practices. She seeks viable ways of making artworks in order to interpret and respond to unique place-determined content and she is recognised for innovatively investigating ideas of audience spectatorship, expectation and participation in relation to art works. Leach’s projects include commissions for Iteration: Again (Tasmania, 2011), Close Encounters (Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, 2010), One Day Sculpture (2008), the New Zealand publication Speculation for the Venice Biennale 2007 and Trans Versa (The South Project, Chile, 2006).
In the early hours of Sunday morning 16 December 1917, a storm of terrific force broke over the Cork region. One hundred years ago, the newspaper coverage in the Cork Examiner reveals a damaged city much like that from Storm Ophelia several weeks ago. In our time the coverage gives insights into the smaller important geographical features of the city a century ago, which sometime remain hidden in the record of local history through being taken for granted.
The storm came first from NNW and then varying from points north and north-east the wind blew, rapidly passed the half-gale stage, and reached hurricane strength. The weather report records that it was intensely cold. With the advent of the storm numerous houses, out offices and other buildings suffered damage with roofs being stripped of slates and tiles, and sheds being, in many cases removed of firmly-fastened corrugated iron coverings. During the morning and well into the day falling slates in nearly all parts of the city were a source of considerable danger, and according to the press, rarely before had slates been torn up in such a manner. The amount of damage issued by the breaking of glass was also significant. It affected the narrow streets more than the large thoroughfares – many valuable, pieces of plate glass were broken by falling debris during the day.
In the wooded districts on the outskirts of the city many trees were uprooted and felled while the havoc to which telegraphic and telephone connections were made to were severe. Boats in the river and harbour tied up to moorings broke away in several instances, while others were swamped and submerged. Night watches on ships at anchor and alongside wharves were kept on the alert through the night and morning. The tides too were at their highest in the month and lashed rough and breaking water. This rendered difficult and dangerous the task of securing tenders and boating at the quayside and on the river. Comparatively little rain fell during the early evening of day. Towards the evening the wind moderated just a little but came on again with renewed drive as the dark set in.
Some extraordinary escapes from injury were recorded by falling masonry and flying slates. In Douglas Street a little girl turning a corner was suddenly struck by the full force of the gale and driven backward into the footpath. This probably saved her life. For at the same instant a heavy roof slate smashed itself into fragments falling right where the child had been. After holding on through the night against the fierce onslaught of the elements the flagstaff on the tramway standard in front of the Recruiting Office in St Patrick’s Street, from which the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack had been flying, was smashed a little after noon. The flags fell to the ground.
Wooden hoardings in the different parts of the city suffered much damage. Those on the Western Road at the entrance to the Cork Muskerry Railway terminus were almost destroyed. Near the Cork, Blackrock and Passage Station at Albert Street, hoardings were also partially blown down by the wind. In the Cork Athletic Grounds the damage done to similar constructions was extensive. Here also breaches were made in several parts of the enclosure, particularly on the east side. Hurling matches arranged to be played at these grounds had to be abandoned. The ground of the Greenmount National School suffered to some extent, the railing boards of the western side being stripped from their iron supports.
The glass roof of the Electric Power House and Tram Car Shed on Albert Road was smashed in many places, but the city tram services were not disrupted. In the roofs of houses in the south side of the city large holes, some many square feet in size, were caused by the forcible removal of slates by the gale.
Gas lamps in many city streets were extinguished, rendering pedestrianism in places difficult and dangerous. In the vicinity of St Luke’s Cross, some of the residents had a narrow escape from what might have been serious accidents owing to the collapse of the upper portion of a lamp post, which fell across the roadway.
The absence of hackney cars on the streets, especially covered vehicles, was also noticeable. Drivers had reason and experience early in the day for taking this step – there being imminent danger of accidents in the more exposed hazards of the city’s open spaces and wind tunnelled street areas.
During the day upward of a dozen persons were treated at the city infirmaries for injuries caused by slates, masonry, glass and some falls. They were nearly all however, of a minor nature and did not require people staying overnight at infirmaries. Ten were scalp wounds, and cuts on arms and faces but there were two cases of fractured arms. An abatement in the force of the wind set in the hours that followed.
Happy Christmas and Happy New Year to all readers of the column – if you missed one of the columns this year, check out the Our City, Our Town column at my website, www.corkheritage.ie. Secret Cork, which is my 2017 book, and published by Amberley Press, is now in Cork bookshops as well as a selection of previous books.
Captions:
926a. Tram leaving Douglas Village, c.1900 (source: Tram Tracks Through Cork by Walter McGrath)
926b. Tram outside Electric Power House and Tram Car Shed on Albert Road, c.1900 (source: Tram Tracks Through Cork by Walter McGrath)
Cllr Kieran McCarthy has welcomed the dividend return on the sale of electricity from the decaying old landfill, now Tramore Valley Park. Over the past three years the cumulative income from the sale of electricity from the site is approximately €565,000. The cumulative expenditure to date on the project is in the region of €610,000.
The Director of Services for Environment and Recreation and Amenity David Joyce informed Cllr McCarthy at last week’s City Council meeting after he asked the question about future funding for the park. This site will be for sometime still to come, subject to an EPA license. One of the conditions of the EPA License is the need to process the gas being produced by the degradation of the landfill matter under the capping material. The decision to generate electricity at TVP from the landfill gasses was a direct result of this requirement. Generating electricity from this gas is a much better environmental alternative to just simply flaring to the atmosphere. Procurement processes were undertaken, which involved the hiring of a suitable ‘engine‘ and the sale of the electricity generated. These contracts covered the initiation of the electricity-generation process, management of the process and provision of planned preventative maintenance (PPM) on the system (engine, pumps, pipelines, SCADA etc) as well as the purchase the electricity from the City Council (Vayu).
Cllr McCarthy noted: “this is a great European best practice example of sustainable land use. The income generated to date from the sale of the electricity have gone towards the capital costs associated with the setting up and maintenance of the infrastructure and hardware required for the electricity generation. It is anticipated that during 20l8 the project capital costs will be fully repaid and that going forward the income from the sale of electricity will be put towards the ongoing costs associated with the maintenance of the equipment”.
It is important to note that the quantity and quality of the gasses at the site are already falling and as such the annual income to the City Council will decrease year on year at a rate yet to be identified. It will thus become uneconomical at some point to continue to produce electricity at the site. It is expected that this point will be reached in the next 3-5 years but given the uncertainty surrounding the prediction of gas quality and quantity these figures are only estimates.
Cllr McCarthy has also put forward Tramore Valley Park and the story of the electricity from the landfill as a best practice sustainable land use example in the EU Urban Agenda as part of his membership on the European Committee of the Regions; he noted “it is great to be able to share this success story with other local authorities from across Europe and learn from other projects; Tramore Valley Park is larger than the sum of its parts; it’s something the City and region can be proud of; I am also heartened to hear that funding has been put aside by Cork City Council to open the park to the public next year”.
This week, one hundred years ago, Éamon de Valera made his first appearance in Cork as the national President of Sinn Féin. In the Easter Rising of 1916, de Valera commanded an occupied building and was the last commander to surrender. Because of his American birth, he escaped execution by the British but was sentenced to penal servitude. After his release from Dartmoor prison in June 1917, he almost immediately won a by-election in East Clare, standing for Sinn Féin. The by-election was caused by the death of the previous incumbent Willie Redmond, brother of the Irish Party Leader John Redmond who had died fighting in World War I. De Valera was elected President of the Sinn Féin party and of the Irish Volunteers in October 1917.
On Saturday 9 December 1917 on the occasion of De Valera’s visit to Cork, the Cork Examiner records that he arrived by the 8.30am train from Dublin, and was met by large contingents of Sinn Féin sympathisers who escorted him through the streets to the Grand Parade. He was accompanied by Messrs J J Walsh, Liam de Róiste, Tomás MacCurtin and other local leaders of the movement. A large force of extra police were on duty in the streets, but no incident of violence took place. A public meeting of very large dimensions was held at 3pm on the Grand Parade. Mr Liam de Róiste again presided.
Éamon de Valera reiterated the aims of Sinn Féin – to secure recognition for their island and their nation as a sovereign and independent State, an Irish Republic. Their methods would be to use “every method and every means available for their people to win that”. At the settlement of peace talks in Europe a chance would come their way, and they were going to prepare themselves to be in a position to avail of it. They would go to the peace settlement talks as they were a nation in subjection against their will or as he quoted “by that militarism which the Allies, at least, put before the people – as the reason for which they were waging the terrible war”. De Valera believed that the war was to protect small nations, and to him America was in the war to liberate the peoples who were governed against their will. He declared that the Irish nation was governed by England against its will.
De Valera detailed a letter he wrote to the Freeman’s Journal a few days previously, which was reply to a speech of a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party, John Dillon. It was intended, according to De Valera, to show the people of Ireland that the campaign being followed by the Nationalist politicians and their press aimed to misrepresent them and was tiring in its pursuit of Home Rule.
John Dillon was a member of the original committee of the Land League from the late 1870s and was a strong support of Prime Minister’s Gladstone’s Home Rule Bill in its initial pitch. Dillon continued his interest in obtaining Home Rule for over four decades. On the outbreak of the first world war, John Dillon, almost agreed to his leader’s stance in support of the British war effort, but did not share John Redmond’s enthusiasm, nor did he participate in the recruiting campaign in Ireland. He became increasingly concerned at the effect on Irish opinion of the government’s marked disregard of Irish nationalist sensitivities as the war evolved. For the duration of the rising of 1916 John Dillon was the only Irish party leader in Dublin, secluded in his house in North Great George’s Street, a short walk from the General Post Office. In the immediate aftermath he wrote urging John Redmond to impress upon the government “the extreme unwisdom of any wholesale shooting of prisoners”.
DeValera’s outings at Sinn Féin rallies undermined the Irish Parliamentary Party. He articulated strong comments to the Cork crowd in December 1917 a moral on how the positions of politicians in the Party were weakening. He described them as tigers in the process of being caught and tiring in their pursuit of their prey; “A poor tiger got in and trampled on a large gummed sycamore leaf but the tiger did not want to have that leaf stick to his paw. and he tried to shake it off, with the result that it got stuck more to him; and in its exasperation, it rolled on its back and got coveted with such leaves. Anyone who would try to reply to Mr Dillon or the Press in that way would meet with the same fate as the tiger. When one tackled one or two big lies in the Press a thousand little ones were put forward to support them. Lies grew like bacteria – they could have one or two in a moment and in half an hour they would have a bottle full of them”.
At the end of Éamon deValera’s oration, Liam de Róiste in declaring the meeting ended, appealed to all who were convinced of the righteousness of Sinn Féin to join their organisation. They were out for recruiting for Ireland, and if they were an organised nation, “there was no force on earth could keep freedom from Ireland”.
Secret Cork, which is my 2017 book, and published by Amberley Press, is now in Cork bookshops. For information on other publications or the back catalogue to previous columns, check out www.corkheritage.ie.
Captions:
925a. Éamon de Valera, c.1917 (source: Cork City Library)
925b. Harry Boland, Michael Collins & Éamon de Valera, c.1919 (source: Cork City Library)
As part of the creation of Tramore Valley Park, a deal was struck between the City Council and Vayu Energy Company to sell the gas from the landfill to this energy company, yielding an income for the Council each year. What has been the return for the City Council todate? (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)
Motion:
That the trees due to be planted on the Blackrock Pier regeneration project be put in place (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)
