This day one hundred years ago on 16 June 1916, Cork lamented the death of Mrs George Boole – Mary Everest – who died in London (that week) at the age of 84. The story appeared in a small column within the Cork Examiner, which described the removal of “another link in the chain connecting the present of University College Cork with the past of the old Queen’s College”. One of the most illustrious names associated with the college since its foundation was that of George Boole, who for a number of years occupied a Professorial Chair in Maths. Some of his greatest publications were written whilst he held that Chair. The bi-centenary of his birth was well and rightly celebrated last year in UCC. The newly unveiled sculpture of Boole is also great to view outside the Boole Library. It is carved by Irish sculptor Paul Ferriter and engraved by Ken and Matthew Thompson.
George Boole’s widow, was likewise a talented writer and psychologist. Mary Everest Boole (1932-1916) was born in Gloucestershire where her father was a minister. She spent her early years in Poissy, France where she had a private tutor. On moving back to England at age eleven she assisted her father with his work and was largely self-taught. She was introduced to George Boole through an uncle – Colonel Sir George Everest (1790-1866) who was a Welsh surveyor and geographer, and the Surveyor General of India from 1830 through 1843.
George Everest was chiefly responsible for completing the section of the Great Trigonometric Survey of India along the meridian arc from southern India extending north to Nepal, a distance of about 2,400 kilometres (1,500 miles). This survey was started by William Lambton in 1806 and it lasted for several decades. In 1865, Mount Everest was named in his honour in the English language despite his objections by the Royal Geographical Society.
On the introduction by George Everest to George Boole of his niece Mary, Boole began to tutor her in mathematics. They married and moved to Cork where George was appointed Professor of Mathematics at Queen’s College (now UCC). During nine years of marriage they had five children and then George died of pneumonia. After her husband’s death Mary moved back to England. She first worked as a librarian at Queen’s College, Harley Street in London and became an unofficial tutor to the students. From the age of fifty, Mary started writing books and articles including Logic Taught by Love in 1889, The Preparation of the Child for Science in 1904 and in 1909, Philosophy and Fun of Algebra. Her collected writings were published in 1931 and run to four volumes. Mary Boole regarded herself as an educational psychologist. She was interested in understanding how children learn mathematics and science using the reasoning part of their mind, their physical bodies and their “unconscious processes”. She advocated the use of the reflective journal and cooperative learning where students could share their ideas with one another in an environment of peer tutoring.
The Cork Examiner article makes reference to Mary’s daughters – “it is a remarkable fact that her genius has descended to her daughters, who, by the way, were all born in Cork. It is noteworthy that the late Professor Boole’s grandson has obtained the two highest prizes in mathematics at Cambridge University, and has recently been made Professor of Meteorology by the Government”. Her five daughters made their mark in a range of fields. Alicia (1860–1940) became an expert in four-dimensional geometry. Lucy (1862–1904) was a chemist and pharmacist and the first female professor at the London School of Medicine for Women in the Royal Free Hospital. She was the first female Fellow of the Royal Institute of Chemistry. Mary Ellen (b.1856) married mathematician Charles Hinton. Hinton was a British mathematician and writer of science fiction works titled Scientific Romances. He was interested in higher dimensions, particularly the fourth dimension. Margaret (1858–1935) was the mother of mathematician Geoffrey Ingram Taylor, who is referenced in the newspaper quote. George (1886 –1975) was a British physicist and mathematician, and a major figure in fluid dynamics and wave theory. In 1910 he was elected to a Fellowship at Trinity College, and the following year he was appointed to a meteorology post, becoming Reader in Dynamical Meteorology.
Ethel Lilian (1864–1960) married the Polish revolutionary Wilfrid Michael Voynich and was the author of a number of works. She is most famous for her first novel The Gadfly, first published in 1897 in the United States (June) and Britain (September), about the struggles of an international revolutionary in Italy. This novel was very popular in the Soviet Union and was the top bestseller and compulsory reading there, and was seen as ideologically useful; for similar reasons, the novel has been popular in the People’s Republic of China as well. By the time of Voynich’s death The Gadfly had sold an estimated 2,500,000 copies in the Soviet Union and had been made into two Russian movies, first in 1928 in Soviet Georgia (Krazana) and then again in 1955.
Captions:
848a. Mary Everest, 1932-1916 (source: University College Cork).
848b. Ethel Lilian Voynich, 1864 –1960, née Boole (source: University College Cork).
On Saturday, 25 June 2016, 12noon, Cllr Kieran McCarthy, in association with the Friends of St Finbarr’s Hospital, will give a public historical walking tour of the hospital grounds (meet at gate). The walk is free and takes place to support the summer bazaar of the Friends. Cllr McCarthy noted: “St Finbarr’s Hospital, the city’s former nineteenth century workhouse, serves as a vast repository of narratives, memories, symbolism, iconography and cultural debate, this year the site is 175 years old”. 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 over eight acres, 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.
For early June 1916, the diversity of news stories is very interesting to read in local newspapers such as the Cork Examiner. One hundred years ago exactly amidst the backdrop of military curfews and Frongoch deportations, the references to those Corkmen fighting on the western front was significant, primed with propaganda but also touching.
On 29 May 1916 the management of Cork Opera House began a week long “instructive entertainment programme” in a series of cinema war records. Photos of a number of celebrities identified with the Allies cause, were popular. These were followed by several clever cartoons illustrating the “artist’s conception of things”, and the pointed humour of some of these were created to evoke applause. Scenes on the streets of Johannesburg, South Africa, were displayed as well as British and French battleships in action off the Turkish coast. Smaller craft were shown doing scouting duty. A French airman was also shown decorated on board a battleship for his daring feats. Somewhere in France or Flanders was the next scene of operations. Neuve Chapelle and other villagers were presented after the German bombardment. The desolation of the landscape was pictured – nothing but ruins stood where once churches, schools, public buildings, or industrial establishments flourished. The commentary on the war then led to images of graveyards, where lay hundreds and hundreds of dead soldiers. From ruined villages one was taken to the British trenches, where all the phases of modern warfare were vividly photographed. A battery of 18-pounders was shown in action against a German blockhouse, which was blown to bits.
Trench life was highlighted – the Grenadier Guards marching past to the firing line as well as a Welsh battalion. The greatest interest focused on the Irish regiments. The Royal Irish, the Munsters, and the Connaughts were shown going to Roman Catholic Mass at the front, and then marching off into action. Captain William Redmond MP (for Tyrone East) of the Irish Guards was recognised leading his company to the trenches, and he received audience applause. The work of the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) was detailed. On mobilization the Corps consisted of approximately 9,000 other ranks, by 1918 there were 13,000 RAMC Officers and 154,000 other ranks. Words of praise were given to the camera operators/ producers for having secured fine pictures under exceptionally unfavourable circumstances of difficulty and danger. Some of the pictures were taken within 150 yards of the enemy’s front trenches. The war pictures were to be shown twice nightly at Cork Opera House during the first week of June 1916. There was be a matinee on the Saturday at 2.30 pm.
On the 1 June 1916 further preparatory work began on the establishment of the Government Munitions Factory in Cork. Provision was to be made for the accommodation of those tenants of St Peter’s Market who were to be dislocated. There were to be in all some 78 tenants to be provided for by Cork Corporation. As the accommodation available in the northern avenue of the Bazaar Market only measures 133 feet by 42 feet, with a wing 40 feet by 20 feet, about seventeen tenants, who would otherwise be without room, would have to be accommodated in a new annexe, which was to be built in Portney’s Lane, adjoining, on the site of some old houses recently demolished. An amount of work had to be done, and this included not only the draining of the northern avenue of the Bazaar Market but also the concreting of a large portion of the floor. It was expected that some time would elapse before St Peter’s Market could be handed over to the Government authorities.
In early June 1916, there was much anxiety by the relatives of Corkmen serving in the various units of the British Navy understood to be on duty in the North Sea area. There were many inquiries as to the arrival of casualty lists. It was announced that the three destroyers – Nomad, Nestor and Shark – had been sunk. In and around Kinsale, from which district alone several hundred were serving in the Royal Navy, a considerable proportion of them were in the Grand Fleet. Crosshaven, Ringaskiddy and Aghada were also represented. The full official casualty lists required some days to complete.
On 2 June, the Cork Examiner related the contribution of Lambkins Tobacco and the story of the “boys in the trenches” needing a smoke. Lambkin’s of Cork figured high up on the list of reputable brands. The company had just received a third order for 20,000lbs of tobacco for 320,000 men – so that each would receive an ounce of tobacco. The mixture was made up of two of the best American leaves and a special growth, the result being a smoke that is full flavoured and cool. The making up, packing etc, was mostly carried out in the factory, and it gave a good deal of employment, as well as a huge financial boast to the Cork box industry. Lambkins Factory was based in Fishers Street Merchant’s Quay, Cork. It was observed that the ladies often packed a love message in the tins, which were for dispatch to front line troops.
To be continued…
Captions:
847a. Photograph of staff of Lambkins Snuff and Tobacco Factory (source: Cork City Library)
847b. Captain William Redmond, Irish Guards, c.1916 (source: RTE Archives)
Cllr Kieran McCarthy invites all Cork young people to participate in the seventh 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 Atlantic Pond on Sunday 12 June 2016, 2pm. The event is being run in association with Meitheal Mara and the Cork Harbour Festival. There are three categories, two for primary and one for secondary students. The theme is ‘Cork Harbour Boats’, which is open to interpretation. 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”. In addition, Cllr McCarthy emphasises that places like the Atlantic Pond are an important part of Cork’s natural and amenity heritage. For further information and to take part, please sign up at www.corkharbourfestival.com.
The Cork Harbour Festival will bring together the City, County and Harbour agencies and authorities. It connects our city and coastal communities. Combining the Ocean to City Race and Cork Harbour Open Day, there are over 50 different events in the festival for people to enjoy – both on land and on water. The festival begins the June Bank Holiday Saturday, 4th June, with the 28km flagship race Ocean to City – An Rás Mór. Join thousands of other visitors and watch the hundreds of participants race from Crosshaven to Douglas to Cork City in a spectacular flotilla. Cllr McCarthy noted: “During the festival week embark on a journey to discover the beautiful Cork Harbour and enjoy free harbour tours, sailing tasters, open days at Spike Island and Fort Camden, and lots more; we need to link the city and the harbour more through branding and tourism. The geography and history of the second largest natural harbour in the world creates an enormous treasure trove, which we need to harness, celebrate and mind”.
The matter of time was an issue for the citizens of Cork in early summer 1916. Starting on 30 April Germany and its World War I ally Austria-Hungary were the first to use a Daylight Saving Scheme as a way to conserve coal during wartime. Britain, most of its allies, and many European neutrals soon followed suit to provide more time for agricultural activities in the evenings. Russia and a few other countries waited until the subsequent year and the United States of America implemented it in 1918.
Irish society operated on 25 minutes and 22 seconds behind Greenwich Mean Time. On 20 May 1916, Cork citizens woke up to find the new British Daylight Saving Scheme in full operation. All official clocks, at post offices and elsewhere were duly put forward as required by the new Act. All other clocks showing time to the public on the streets of Cork were similarly advanced during the night.
Irish newspapers such as the Cork Examiner and Irish Times detailed in editorials on 21 May that some of the trains were delayed. While the railway officials did their best to start trains according to the time table, they chose not to leave behind passengers who were seen rushing into the station at the last moment. These little delays, when accumulated over a line of ten or twelve stations, added up to something considerable when the train arrived at its destination.
In the city churches, Roman Catholic masses were celebrated according to the official time. An exception was, however, made at St Finbarr’s West at the Lough, on account of the number of country residents belonging to the parish, some of whom might have missed Mass if the new time was adopted. The following Sunday the masses were celebrated according to the official clock time. The licensed trade was affected by having to close an hour earlier in the evening than usual, but as against this, opened an hour earlier.
As the summer passed, the end of September 1916 meant that Great Britain had to revert to the normal time. Ireland decided, however, not to revert to the ‘old time’, but to try another change – that of adopting Greenwich Mean Time. The legislation to change this was argued for by principally the Irish port authorities and Chambers of Commerce and Shipping. It meant that for the immediate future at all events there would be no difference between English time and Irish time. Ireland made up the 25 minutes in time by simply putting back her public clocks, and her citizens their watches, not by 60 minutes but by 35 minutes on the night of 30 September 1916.
One prominent feature of the city’s interaction with time and of British imperialism was effected – the time gun on Cork’s Marina (one of many operating in British port cities). Established in 1876, as recorded in the minutes of the meetings of the Cork Harbour Commissioners, the gun – an 18 pounder – stood on a platform built for it at the city end of the Marina. The platform surmounted a small building within which a tide register was fixed. Precisely at ten o’clock every morning, the exact solar time was transmitted by telegraph from the Royal Observatory at Greenwich direct to the Harbour Commissioners’ Office on Lapp’s Quay, where its reception was availed of to correct a chronometer of beautiful construction. The dial of the clock showed three indices, one indicating the hours, another the minutes, and the third the seconds; and each index has two hands – one showing Greenwich time and the other Cork time, the difference being 25 minutes, 22 seconds. The daily transmission of Greenwich time by wire to the indicator set beside this clock ensured the clock itself being always kept strictly according to true solar time. The accuracy of the clock influenced the firing of the signal gun.
At the very instant that the dial showed 1pm, Greenwich time of 12hr 34mins 38 secs, Cork time, the movement of the second hand released a hammer, which falling, sent a strong electric current through a wire which connected it with the fuse in the breech of the signal gun. It discharged instantly and informing the public of the correct time. The gun was in the care of a man specially charged with it by the Harbour Board, and it was his duty, twenty minutes or half an hour before the time for the explosion, to charge the gun with a 3lb cartridge, fix the fuse and attach the electric wire to it. A similar provision was made for signaling the correct time to the public on land and water at Queenstown. The Greenwich time was received at the Harbour Office on the Beach, and by like arrangement to that in Cork, a gun was to be fired near the lifeboat house, at the eastern end of the town. To Mariners, this was a great opportunity to correct their chronometers before departing the harbour.
By the early 1920s, post Anglo-Irish Treaty the Marina gun became an expression of a kind of throw away imperial object as it lay defunct and for many years of the early to mid-twentieth century lay on the grass. It finally disappeared physically and from memory.
Captions:
846a. The Marina, Cork, c.1910 (picture: National Library, Dublin)
846b. Supposed picture of removal of Greenwich gun from the Marina, 1930s (picture: Cork City Library)
Continuing on from last week’s column, replying to Mr Brian Dillon MP question on the internment of Irish volunteers post the Easter Rising, British Prime Minster Asquith in late May 1916 in Westminster stated that he would treat with the “utmost leniency and release as speedily as possible all persons except those who were concerned directly or indirectly with the rising and the preparations for it, and he also made an exception in the case of persons whose return to Ireland would be a source of danger to the peace of the country”. John Dillon MP, a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party, dominated proceedings in the House of Commons in London on the topic of the Easter Rising and the aftermath. Mr Dillon savaged the policy of the British government in Ireland, condemning in particular the executions of rebels, the holding of secret military trials, the continuation of martial law, and the wholesale searches and arrests being carried out across the country.
By 6 June 1916, the news of the prisoner deportations from Dublin had begun of one hundred prisoners (of eventually over 1800 prisoners) to prisons in such places as Wakefield, Wandsworth, and Knutsford Detention Barracks. Situated in Gwynedd in Wales, Frongoch was also an important detention barracks. The Frongoch Distillery had been founded by R Lloyd Price in 1897. However, by 1910 the enterprise had gone bankrupt and when war was declared against Germany in 1914 the old buildings were taken over as a prisoner of war camp. Several German prisoners died there and were buried in the village churchyard; their bodies were later disinterred and moved to other sites.
Following the Easter Rising it was decided that Frongoch as a remote location would be the ideal place to incarcerate the rebels. Journalist W J Brennan-Whitmore’s book, With the Irish in Frongoch, published in 1917, details that there were two parts to the camp. South Camp was located in the old distillery buildings, whereas North Camp was based in wooden huts a little higher up the hillside close to Capel Celyn. The two camps were connected by a road Conditions at Frongoch were difficult. The old whiskey distillery buildings were bitterly cold at night, very hot during the day, and the prisoners were plagued by an infestation of rats. Although the camp was guarded by soldiers, many locals worked there, in the kitchens and barrack blocks, and came into regular contact with the Irishmen.
Press opinion is editorials such those provided by the Cork Examiner in early June 1916 criticised the detention and deportation programme as not helping to bring about a compromise to the aftermath of the Easter Rising. The continued existence of martial law in Ireland enabled the military to act with absolute authority in such matters, but this was in variance with the various speeches of the Prime Minister Asquith who led the belief that a more “generous course of action could be pursued in connection with the persons under arrest”. Mr Asquith did not definitely commit himself to a promise that the Dublin prisoners or the prisoners detained in England would be forthwith released, but conveyed the desire as the Cork Examiner noted of “dealing in a humane and generous spirit with such prisoners, subject to certain exceptions”.
Mr Dillon responded positively to the announcement of the release of another batch of 200 prisoners, which was made by the military headquarters in early June 1916; “it is satisfactory as far as it goes, but the general opinion, which it may be said is growing more emphatic, is that this plan of release by instalments does not go far enough, and is not at all as effective, and cannot produce such beneficial results, both for Ireland and Great Britain”. The list included several southern names, but the Cork Examiner was quick to note that that many “Munster men are still incarcerated who took no active part in the recent disturbances, and their families, who have been left unprovided for, are naturally restless and discontented at the delay”.
Fast forward to 15 July and the Cork Examiner details that thirty–eight out of the several hundred prisoners ordered to be released from Frongoch internment camp arrived into Cork the previous day. They were mostly from the county, the greater number of them belonging to Macroom and the neighbouring districts. They left for their respective homes in the afternoon. During the evening others were arriving by the train getting into Cork at 8.35, and a number of sympathisers, headed by a couple of pipers playing national airs went to the Glanmire Station to meet them. The party then proceeded to the National Monument on the Grand Parade. It seemed as if they were about to hold a meeting, but whether this was so or not the police interfered and prevented any such taking place if intended. The party scattered into groups and disappeared in the side streets.
The camp at Frongoch was closed and the Irish prisoners discharged in December 1916. It had been a short lived experiment where the ideals of Irish Republicanism were established and strengthened rather than broken down.
Captions:
845a. Illustration of the huts, North Camp from W J Brennan-Whitmore’s book, With the Irish in Frongoch, first published in 1917; reprinted copies are available from Mercier Press, Cork.
845b. Illustration of the recreation inside the huts, from W J Brennan-Whitmore’s book, With the Irish in Frongoch, first published in 1917.
The imprisonment and executions of Irish Volunteers in May 1916 resonated across all classes of people. Exactly today one hundred years ago, Thursday 19 May – British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith paid a visit to Cork as part of his Irish tour of Rising hotspots. He arrived in Dublin on 12 May, almost three weeks after the Rising – there he stopped any further executions by General Maxwell. However, by then Irish public opinion had swung against him and Westminster.
Newspapers such as the Irish Independent and Cork Examiner describe the Cork visit. In the week of 12 May, it was taken for granted that he was coming to the south of the country with the aim of interviewing leading citizens and to ascertain for himself and first-hand the exact position of military affairs locally and regionally. Silence was displayed by those who knew of Mr Asquith’s movements, and when he would arrive in Cork, as well as the place where he would have his meetings with local political and policing leaders. It was not stated whether he would arrive by train or motor car. Many thought he would travel by train and hence many went to the Glanmire terminus to await the arrival of the 2.20pm train from Dublin. The train steamed in exactly to scheduled time, but the Prime Minister was not on it. A number of cross channel journalists who had been following Mr Asquith during his visit to Ireland alighted and it was ascertained that he was travelling down by motor car.
The hour of Asquith’s arrival was not known with certainty. He had, it was found, left Dublin somewhere about ten o’clock in the morning. At that time a motor-car would take five hours or more to negotiate the upwards of 160 miles. Putting two and two together, the journalists concluded that the distinguished visitor would reach Cork between three and four o’clock in the afternoon. Those who were set to receive and meet him professed not to know exactly when he would reach the city. It was discovered though that he intended to conduct his interviews at the Municipal Buildings or City Hall.
Just as the clock was showing five minutes to four a smart motor car came along via Parnell Bridge and unobserved drew up at the Municipal Buildings. The police in charge cleared a passage from the kerb to the steps of the buildings, and the Private Secretary, Mr Bonham Carter, was inside the vestibule before very many citizens were aware that he had reached the city. Here he was received by the Lord Mayor Thomas C Butterfield. The Prime Minister, evidently bent on business, was immediately conducted to the Lord Mayor’s Room. Here he chatted with Captain Dickie, the army official who dealt with the surrender of arms in Cork. The Premier next received Bishop Daniel Cohalan and a long discussion took place. Sir Henry O’Shea, ex-Lord Mayor, was then received. A deputation comprising of Captain D Sheehan MP, Alderman J C Forde, Mr David McDonnell and Mr Joseph Hosford, then awaited on the Prime Minister. The purpose of this deputation was not disclosed in the press, but after about fifteen minutes they withdrew. After this the City High sheriff, Councillor William Hart had a short interview with Mr Asquith; County Inspector Howe, RIC was next received, and after him Colonel Du Cros, and Lieutenant J F O’Riordan.
While the Prime Minister was at City Hall, the news that he was in Cork travelled rapidly. By the time Mr Asquith left the building at 6.25pm, a large crowd of citizens, of all classes and both sexes, gathered in the vestibule of City Hall and outside on Albert Quay. As he came down the stairs those in the balcony and vestibule raised cheers, which were taken up outside. He got into his motor-car and was driven to the Custom House Quay, where a steam launch was waiting to convey him down the river to Queenstown. The Prime Minister acknowledged the expressions of goodwill by raising his hat and bowing several times. On arrival at Queenstown, a steamer was placed at Mr Asquith’s disposal to convey him to Fishguard en route for London. Asquith remained tight-lipped on what he learned from his visit to Ireland. Ultimately he did not withdraw martial law. Weeks later he still claimed that Irish Home Rule could be best served after the war ceasing on the European continent. By the end of the year, due to the Irish and other military crises in his World War I campaign his political career was over as Lloyd George took over as Prime Minister.
Meanwhile further to the political discussion and the aftermath of the Easter Rising, some 1800 Irish men were interned at Frongoch internment camp at Frongoch in Merionethshire, Wales. It had been a makeshift place of imprisonment during the First World War. Until 1916 it housed German prisoners of war in an abandoned distillery and crude huts. In the wake of the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin, the German prisoners were transferred and it was used as a place of internment for approximately 1,800 Irish prisoners, among them such notables as Michael Collins.
Captions:
844a. Cork City Hall, c.1916 (source: Cork City Museum)
844b. Lord Mayor of Cork, 1916, Thomas C Butterfield (source: Cork City Hall)
Throughout 1916, pages and pages of writing and pictures are given throughout Irish newspapers to the tragedies of World War I. There are local Cork people shown in family photographs bound for the war. There are provocative death-ridden pictures of the front lines complete with descriptions of desolation and in depth geographical detail of hills, valleys and rivers spanning from France to Denmark. Views of the trenches, thousands of miles of scarred landscapes, blown up cities, collapsed road networks, burnt out homes, death at every corner – such images echo throughout the newspapers of 1916 and beyond, and stay in the mind long after you have read about them – the trenches are almost metaphors for the entrenched European society of the day – the allies and enemy not backing down – who will conquer? “Any day now it will end” – such remarks in editorials continuously work into the consciousness of the reader.
The political chessboard is active throughout the year with different perspectives and holding onto power. Physically European culture grasped Cork Harbour and the Irish channel as they became part of the battlefields of the seas and the fight for the Atlantic and North Sea. The torpedoed Lusitania of 1915 and the scuttled ship the Aud of 1916 haunted such maritime spaces – the presence of the other, the unknown enemy – in a submarine – waiting to take its chance and maim, sitting there on the ocean bed.
The daily published lists of deaths and the honours bestowed on participants glorify and construct a raison d’être for being on the front line. The naming of dead Corkmen and the families they left behind – the quests by the soul of city to be part of it – whether it was through the thousands of tons of Lambkins tobacco sent to the front line, to the picture shows of the war in the Palace Theatre and Cork Opera House – or even the regular flag days in support of the Red Cross and the Royal Munster Fusiliers (approx. 48 officers and over a 1,000 men). Then there were the conversations throughout the year about attaining a munitions factory for Cork – the empty shells almost standing in as metaphors for the empty promises of waiting for it – to provide jobs for those who did not go to fight on the masculine territory of the front line. The role of equality amongst the sexes features prominently – the men who went off to fight in the war versus the women in Cork who have stayed to put weaponry together, fundraise, volunteer at the Red Cross, engage in the quest for women’s votes, and in campaigning for women’s places as junior doctors in Cork hospitals – these are also discussion points as the year progresses.
On 18 May 1916, the Cork Examiner ran the story of the German placards placed on the front questioning the Irish holding the line in light of the 1916 rising. Private Dave O’Mahony, Macroom, attached to the Signal Corps of the Royal Munster Fusiliers, which formed part of the Irish Brigade, arrived home on leave from the trenches. Of the fighting generally, he noted it is of the “tricky kind, confined almost entirely to explosives. There is no open fighting, and that does not at all suit the men of the Munsters, who often long for an open hand-to-hand fight with the Germans”. Gas was the one death-dealing element they dreaded most. Just about Easter 1916, the gas attacks, which had ceased for a period of six months, were re-initiated by the Germans. The result of the attacks were disastrous; “It seems to me,” said Private O’Mahony, “that the Dublins and Inniskillings must have been caught unawares, because rats and mice, which are very prevalent, were to be seen turned up-side down, some of them quivering in their death agony”. When the wind is from a certain point all the men donned their masks, and at the first warning they pulled them over their faces to keep out the deadly fumes.
Private O’Mahony heard of the Dublin 1916 and deemed it a great shock to himself and his fellow comrades on the front. Things were unpleasant enough with the high casualty level around them. On one of those days the Germans placed out two boards on their parapet. One bore the news of General Townshend’s capture at Kut, with 30,000 men. Another had this query: ‘Irishmen, why will you fight for England while they are shooting your wives and sisters in Dublin’. Captain Larry Roche made up his mind that the ‘G’ Company should bring in these boards. He sent out some of his men, but the danger was too great, and they had to abandon their task. “Still there were men amongst the Munsters brave enough to take any risk, and who did the trick too. Lieutenant Biggane of Cork City and Corporal Kemp wrapped themselves in sheets of suitable hue, and crawling over the intervening space, with death hanging over them, they reached the enemy parapet and bore away, one each, the annoying placards”.
Captions:
843a. Model of World War 1 trench at Ypres World War 1 museum (picture: Kieran McCarthy)
843b. Former site of St Peter’s Market, Cornmarket Street; in 1916 it became a munitions factory (picture: Kieran McCarthy)
Cllr Kieran McCarthy invites all Cork young people to participate in the seventh 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 Atlantic Pond on Sunday 12 June 2016, 2pm. The event is being run in association with Meitheal Mara and the Cork Harbour Festival. There are three categories, two for primary and one for secondary students. The theme is ‘Cork Harbour Boats’, which is open to interpretation. 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”. In addition, Cllr McCarthy emphasises that places like the Atlantic Pond are an important part of Cork’s natural and amenity heritage. For further information and to take part, please sign up at www.corkharbourfestival.com.
The Cork Harbour Festival will bring together the City, County and Harbour agencies and authorities. It connects our city and coastal communities. Combining the Ocean to City Race and Cork Harbour Open Day, there are over 50 different events in the festival for people to enjoy – both on land and on water. The festival begins the June Bank Holiday Saturday, 4th June, with the 28km flagship race Ocean to City – An Rás Mór. Join thousands of other visitors and watch the hundreds of participants race from Crosshaven to Douglas to Cork City in a spectacular flotilla. Cllr McCarthy noted: “During the festival week embark on a journey to discover the beautiful Cork Harbour and enjoy free harbour tours, sailing tasters, open days at Spike Island and Fort Camden, and lots more; we need to link the city and the harbour more through branding and tourism. The geography and history of the second largest natural harbour in the world creates an enormous treasure trove, which we need to harness, celebrate and mind”.
To ask the CE for the most recent update on the resurfacing of Douglas Pool car-park and adjacent hill, and why the issue has gone on for a protracted time without resolution (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)
