Kieran’s Our City, Our Town article, Cork Independent, 15 April 2010

In the Footsteps of St. Finbarre (Part 208)

That Flying Spirit

Enormous work was pursued in the late 1980s and early 1990s by history teacher Dermot Lucey of Ballincollig Community School who encouraged his students to document the changing village of Ballincollig in the twentieth century. That work culminated in a number of annual historical journals. They shine a light on people, events and transformations within Ballincollig over the century.

By 1900, an elaborate village social structure was well in place in Ballincollig comprising military, police, clergy, teachers, shop-owners, vintners and landowners. The main employers during the early twentieth century were the gravel pits of John A. Wood and at O’Regan’s Poulavone as well as the military presence. These all contributed to the local economy.

However, from reading the journals one can also learn of Edward ‘Mick’ Mannock, a World War I flying ace who was born on 24 May 1887 in Ballincollig. Edward grew up to be a master of air strategy. After joining the Royal Air Force during World War I, he officially shot down 73 enemy planes. Edward received many honours for his courage including the Victoria Cross. He was shot down in 1918 by enemy ground fire while assisting a young pilot. His body was never recovered.

In 1922 Ballincollig Barracks was formally handed over by the War Department to the new Irish State. During the ensuing Civil War, the barracks was burned and was only reopened in 1940 when it was named Murphy Barracks in memory of a former Officer Commanding 3rd Batallion 1st Cork Brigade, who saw active service during the War of Independence and was killed in action at Waterfall on 22 June 1921.

During the Second World War the Irish army began to use the Barracks after it lay in ruins for almost 20 years. Manoeuvres were conducted by the LDF and the army in the Barracks and in the surrounding district, including the guarding of the level crossing on the Cork-Macroom line, near Maglin and the locating of a checkpoint on Inniscarra Bridge.

In the 1930s also a number of flying circuses came to Ballincollig and used the landing field behind the ruined barracks for their displays. Alan Cobham’s was the most famous of these. The public enjoyed the thrill of air flights, parachute drops, giro copters and the exploits of two of Britain’s youngest pilots, Miss Winnifred Drinwater and Sir Alan Cobham.

A member of the Royal Flying Corps in World War I, Alan Cobham became famous as a pioneer of long distance aviation. After the war he became a test pilot for the de Havilland aircraft company. In 1921 he made a 5,000 mile air tour of Europe, visiting 17 cities in 3 weeks. In 1928 he flew a Short Singapore flying boat around the continent of Africa landing only in British territory. In August 1926, he flew from England to Australia where 60,000 people swarmed across the grassy fields of Essendon Airport, Melbourne when he landed his DH.50 float plane. On 25 November 1926, Alan Cobham attempted but failed to be the first person to deliver mail to New York City by air from the east, planning to fly mail by taking off from the White Star ocean liner RMS Homeric in a De Havilland DH.

In 1932 Alan Cobham started the National Aviation Day displays. They comprised a team of up to fourteen aircraft, ranging from single-seaters to modern airliners and many skilled pilots. The displays toured the Britain and Ireland, calling at hundreds of sites, some of them regular airfields and some just fields cleared for the occasion like Ballincollig. Generally known as “Cobham’s Flying Circus”, it was hugely popular, giving thousands of people their first experience of flying. The displays continued until the end of the 1935 season. Indeed, the presence of Cobham’s Flying Circus led to considering Ballincollig as a possible location for Cork Airport, but this suggestion was rejected because of the nearby hills.

Ballincollig also enjoyed considerable success in GAA fields in the 1940s when the Club featured in the County Senior Hurling Final in 1941, 1942 and 1943. Two of Ballincollig’s most famous players were Paddy “Hitler” Healy and Billy “Long Puck” Murphy. Paddy Healy was both a hurler and footballer and won All-Ireland medals in both sports. Paddy Healy won his All-medals during the 1940s. In Hurling, he won medals as a substitute in 1943 and 1944 and he won his third medal playing right wing forward in 1946. Whilst he played for Ballincollig during most of his playing career, he also played with Clonakilty when he was stationed there as a member of the 31^st Army Battalion. Between 1944 and 1952 he won four Cork County football titles with Clonakilty and he won his All-Ireland football medal in 1945. He said he got his nickname “Hitler”- during the war years because he was “game for anything” and he had a similar hairstyle to the real Hitler.

Billy Murphy was born in 1915 in Ballincollig. He was successful in the Ballincollig Hurling Team. As he struck the ball probably longer than any other player has ever done, he will always be remembered as “long puck” Murphy. He won All-Ireland medals at right corner-back for Cork.

To be continued…

Captions:

535a. Checkpoint on Inniscarra Bridge during World War II (pictures: Ballincollig Community School Collection)

535b. Cobham’s Flying Circus at Ballincollig on the banks of the River Lee, 1930s

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town article,

Cork Independent, 8 April 2010 

In the Footsteps of St. Finbarre (Part 207)

A Place for Us

Next week I present a lecture to the Cork Adult Education Council annual lunchtime lecture series entitled In Search of Gougane Barra: History and Memory (Crawford Art Gallery, Wednesday, 14 April, 2010, 1pm). It has been great to revisit the memories at the beginning of the valley. In particular I am quite taken by the late nineteenth century renewal of Gougane Barra by Fr Patrick Hurley. In 1872 the Bishop of Cork Rev. Dr William Delaney, Bishop of Cork wished to raise the profile of the pilgrimage island in Gougane Barra. He paid a visit to the Carthusian monks in the Chartreuse Mountains, to the north of the city of Grenoble in France His visit aimed to get some of the monks to settle in Gougane Barra.

It perhaps can be speculated that Bishop Delany saw similarities in terms of sacred characteristics between the remote sites of Chartreuse and Gougane. Four of the Carthusian monks came the next year to see Gougane Barra but abandoned the idea. However, their advent had one result – the leasing of the island on 29 January 1873 at a nominal rent of one shilling from Mr Townsend, Uncle of a Captain Townsend, the proprietor, to the Catholic Bishop of Cork Bishop William Delany and Parish Priest of Inchigeela, Fr Jeremiah Holland (as evidenced through documents in the Diocese of Cork & Ross Archives).

Fr Patrick Hurley, who accompanied Dr. Delany in his visit to the Grand Chartreuse, was appointed parish priest of the surrounding parish of Gougane Barra in 1888. This appointment was made in May 1888 on the death of Fr Jeremiah Holland. Fr Patrick Hurley’s obituary in The Cork Examiner, on 26 June 1908 and in the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquities of Ireland for 1909 reveals a learned man with a strong intellect. In particular he had a passion and an interest in the power of education in helping the less well off and in ideas of heritage management and harnessing those ideas for the good of the society.  Born in 1841 in Eniskeane, near Bandon, Co. Cork, Fr Hurley certainly would have had experienced the ravages of the Famine in rural Ireland. He received his early education in the Diocesan Seminary in Cork and completed his course in the Irish College in Paris and he was ordained in 1865 at the age of 24.

After ordination, he was appointed to Schull, Co. Cork for a short time but was transferred in 1867 to Kilbrittain, Co. Cork and in 1869 he was appointed to Blackrock, Co. Cork.  After spending six years in Blackrock, Fr Hurley was transferred to SS Mary and Anne’s North Cathedral, Cork City – He was elected as chaplain to Bishop Delany.

During his late thirties, Fr Hurley also developed an interest in the history of the Diocese of Cork and Ross. He published a number of articles in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record concerning Cork Bishops and their lives – namely Robert Barry, Bishop of Cork and Cloyne, 1647-1662 and Dr Patrick Comerford, Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, 1629-1652.

Two years after the death of Bishop Delany, Fr Hurley was involved in securing Gougane Barra for the Diocese of Cork in 1888. Subsequently he was sent to Gougane Barra by the new Bishop O’Callaghan to administer in that area of West Cork. Fr Hurley’s continued interest in antiquities is reflected in the fact he became a member of the Royal Society of Antiquities of Ireland in 1890 and in time became honorary local secretary for County Cork.

Fr Hurley also became a committee member and a contributor of articles (1892 & 1896) to the Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society. In his first contribution to the first volume of the journal series he admits to having been engaged in collecting materials, which might serve to unveil the past history of the Diocese of Cork.

Fr Hurley also highlights his early work at Gougane Barra in managing the area’s heritage. In Fr Hurley’s commentary (1892) in the Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society he notes that the trees had become decayed and the walls of the enclosure in Gougane Barra, where tradition had it that St Finbarr had his cell were in a very dilapidated state. Fr. Hurley had the walls repaired, new stations of the cross in terracotta erected and also the cross restored where it formerly stood. He also engaged in the design of a new oratory which brought new meanings to the landscape of Gougane Barra.

Fr Hurley’s obituary of 1908 in the Cork Examiner also acknowledges him as a staunch advocate of the Irish language movement. He noted that on his arrival he found the language on the point of going. In an attempt to encourage the use of the Irish language in schools, Fr. Hurley made the acquaintance of Rev. Richard O’Daly, a priest of a diocese of Goulbourne, Australia. In the summer of 1903 Fr Daly invited Irish scholars to Ballingeary from several parts of Ireland. This was the start of the Irish college in the region. It was found the accommodation at Gougane Barra was too limited and it was arranged to have the Irish college opened in Ballingeary.

More at Kieran’s lecture: In Search of Gougane Barra, History and Memory, Kieran McCarthy, Crawford Art Gallery, Wednesday 14 April, 2010, 1-2pm

Captions:

534a. Pilgrims at Gougane Barra, c.1900 (picture: Cork City Library)

534b.Tomb of Fr. Denis O’Mahony; He established the present cells on the pilgrimage island in the early eighteenth century (picture: Kieran McCarthy).

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town article, Cork Independent,

1 April 2010

In the Footsteps of St. Finbarre (Part 206)

A Soldier’s Grave

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, Emma Ryan, Main Street, Ballincollig, married William John Regan who was stationed in the local barracks. William was a bandmaster with the 3^rd Dragoon Guards. They had twin girls in Acra, India in 1886. William died in India whilst on active service. Subsequently Emma returned to Main Street Ballincollig to continue her life. She arranged a child minder and studied maternity nursing. Eventually she became the local midwife/ nurse in Ballincollig.

The above is just one real life that has been unearthed by Anne Donaldson through her work and publication on the military cemetery, which was attached to Ballincollig Barracks. Apart from the biographies of member of the British army in Ireland up for scrutiny, Anne’s book I feel brings the reader onto other grounds of research. In recent years, the commemoration of Irish soldiers has shifted to studies of their contribution in the British army. As Ireland’s popular history focuses on the colonial impacts, recent studies have highlighted that 210,000 Irish soldiers took part in the first World War alone, of whom at least 35,000 were killed. Many of the Irish soldiers who died in that War lie in the fields of France, Belgium, Germany, Greece, Turkey, India, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Egypt and South Africa.

However, active service was also seen in Ireland. The role of the British citizen in the British army in Ireland had huge socio-cultural implications for every settlement that they were close to. Like those who died and who were buried overseas, their story too is largely forgotten. In their time, they also played an important part in Irish social history. A garrison such as the one at Ballincollig would have brought wealth, employment and opportunity. The lives of the garrison and the town would have become intertwined and in many ways mutually dependant.

As with the barracks, the military cemetery was also integrated into the Ballincollig landscape. The cemetery through its head stones provided an honour in death in the service of the British nation, the idea of a human sacrifice for the cause. The cemetery is a type of hero’s grove. The first map showing the site appears to be the 1834 ordnance map. The earliest inscribed gravestone found to date is the barrel grave of Isabella Wall dated 15 November, 1813. The earliest burial record found is of Mary Duggan, daughter of Gunner William Duggan and his wife May of the 9^th Battalion, Royal Artillery buried a month earlier on 13 October, 1813. The final burial seems to be that of Private E.C.J. Stratton of the 17^th Lancers, who was buried on 13 June 1920.

Initial survey work of cemetery was completed by Leslie Rice and Richard Henchion in 1995 and they noted 77 gravestones. Anne Donaldson added to this by consulting the army burial registers stored by the Church of Ireland at Carrigrohane. Anne identified 352 individuals as been buried in the Ballincollig Military Cemetery. A total of 291 soldiers are either buried at there or have a close family member buried there. Forty-seven officers including surgeons, a schoolmaster and bandmasters are similarly associated with the graveyard. Known adult males number 157. Of these 3 are known as married men. Known adult females amount to 34. Ages are known for two hundred entries. Ages at death range from eight hours to 77 years. Only six cases of death in Cork hospitals could be ascertained.

In my recent chat with Anne, she highlighted the stories of several individuals buried in the cemetery.  However, her early work is also expanding as more and more genealogical websites and census documents in the UK and Ireland are put online (e.g. www.ancestor.co.uk). Her findings reveal the significant depth of complexity of the lives of soldiers within the Barracks. The stories indicate that there were many aspects to a soldier’s life in Ireland in the years between 1810 and 1922. Trauma, fear, loneliness became the lot of many soldiers who were stationed far from home. So Anne’s work apart from recording, the process itself has also led to a partial restoration of the memory of forgotten souls. Three examples are given below (more can be read in Anne’s book).

Shadrack Gould, born 1 January 1855, was from Bradfield, Essex, England. He was a soldier in the 2^nd dragoons (Royal Scots Grays) from June 1873 – until his untimely death in 1882/ 1883. According to family tradition, whilst stationed at Ballincollig, Shadrock Gould died from an accidental gunshot wound delivered by his commanding officer.

A Bengamin Blackwell was born in 1844 in Wrexham Wales. In his younger years he was on board the ‘Formidable’, a ship for destitute and homeless people based at Bristol. A total of 480 boys were on that ship. He died on 16 July 1890. Twenty-two years old Bombardier Charles Mason was, in 1847, remembered by the non-commissioned officers and men of no.1 Company, 4^th Battalion. His epitaph reads:  “Comrades see a Soldiers Grave, Tread lightly O’er this sod. And Now that you. Your soul save, My soul seek Your earthly Peace with God.”

The graveyard became the responsibility of the Office of Public Works in 1922 and its heritage remains to be integrated into the way of life of modern Ballincollig.

To be continued…

Captions:

533a. Andrew Gillespie, died at Ballincollig Barracks on 26 August 1915 (pictures: Anne Donaldson collection)

533b. Shadrack Gould, died at Ballincollig Barracks in 1882/ 1883

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, Cork Independent article

In the Footsteps of St. Finbarre (Part 205)

Ballincollig Barracks, 1901

On the postal directories of Ballincollig for the early 1900s, a cavalry barracks is mentioned in the town. Originally built in 1814, it stands as a reminder of the presence of empire within Cork and wider afield in Ireland.

The celtic tiger years coincided with more housing been built than ever before built in Ballincollig. Subsequently it has also opened up the former barracks area more and probably for the first time in nearly a century, the memories of the barracks have been re-opened but now to new meanings. The old recreation house of the barracks is now a pharmacy. The main barracks buildings are now home to offices. There is an ease with how one can walk amongst the buildings. The air of restricted space has been lifted.

Perhaps the only feature to remind one of the barracks former restrictiveness is its demense limestone wall which runs on the eastern side of the main street delimiting the width of the street but also serving up a claustrophobic atmosphere that the townscape on this side of the street is different in nature to the western side. Once defining the military space of the barracks, it now stands a symbol of another age and makes for an interesting contrast with both Aldi and the Dunnes Stores shopping centres respectively.  

Ballincollig Barracks is a military landscape set within the river valley landscape – a set of buildings initially organised around a set of functions but ultimately built to protect British imperial needs. The role and impact of the British army and the life of the British soldier within Ireland is an interesting study. How they integrated into the everyday life of towns and villages across Ireland makes for interesting reading.  

The work of local historian Dermot O’Donovan highlights many aspects of the composition of Ballincollig Barracks in 1901. He draws on the national census that was taken on 31 March 1901. He also builds on historical journals compiled from students of Ballincollig Community School under Dermot Lucey who has also unearthed aspects of Ballincollig’s history over the last number of years.

On 31 March, 1901, the compiled census records reveal much about Ballincollig as a place. There were 240 soldiers of the provisional regiment of Lancers (the 17^th Lancers). The reserve squadrons 12 and 16 were known as the Duke of Cambridge’s Own. The officer in command was Brevet Lieutenant Colonel C.J. Briggs. His second in command was Major W.R. Ricardo. Major Henry Fagan and Captain Eustace Maudsley were also some of the fellow officers. There were 195 privates. They wore a blue uniform with a white plum. There were upwards of forty or more personnel living in married quarters.

A total of 196 soldiers were born in England, 21 in Scotland and 12 from Ireland. The remainder were from Wales, India, East Indies, Isle of Man and Australia. In terms of the religious profession, 183 soldiers were Church of England (75%), 28 soldiers were Roman Catholic (11.6%), 22 were Presbyterians (9%), 4 were Wesleyan, 2 were Baptist and one was Congregationalist. Of the 28 Catholics, 20 were English born, 6 were Irish born and 2 Scottish born. The Irish Roman Catholics were from Dublin, Monaghan, Mayo, Athlone, Kilkenny and Kerry. The Church of England soldiers were from Dublin, Dundalk, Tipperary, Antrim and one Presbyterian from Co. Down.

The literacy rate of Ballincollig Barracks was 100% (read and write). The average age of the soldier in the barracks was 28 years. The oldest soldier was a 55-year old English born private, single status and an ex-labourer. The youngest soldier was a 17-year old, English born private and also an ex-labourer. A total of 51 soldiers (21%) were under 20 years, 81 soldiers were aged between 20 and 30 (33%), 58 soldiers (22%) were aged 30 and 40 and 49 soldiers (20%) were aged between 40 and 50. One soldier was over 50 years of age. A total of 88 soldiers were married (36%). There were two widowers. The majority of the NCO’s were married.

There are upwards of 85 trades or occupations listed in the census returns. The various trades reflect the industrial, urban background of the enlisted soldiers. Labourers, clerks, grooms, carters, engineers made up the first 100 professions.

Army personnel lived both within and without the barracks walls. Soldiers’ houses are still in existence at Station Road across the road from the main entrance to the Barracks. Postal directories list army officers as residents at various addresses in the area. A soldier’s home, supervised in 1907 by Elsie Sandes, was situated beside the graveyard near East Gate and the Mills Ranges.

Various historical figures including Sir Robert Baden Powell, who founded the Boy Scouting Movement in 1908, were stationed at Ballincollig during their military careers.

In 1922, Ballincollig Barracks was formally handed over by the War Department to the new Irish State. During the ensuing Civil War, the barracks was burned. It was only re-opened in 1940 when it was named Murphy Barracks in memory of a former Officer Commanding 3rd Btn. 1st Cork Brigade. He saw active service during the War of Independence and was killed in action at Waterfall on 22nd June 1921.

To be continued…

Captions:

532a. Recreation House, Ballincollig, c.1900 (pictures: Dermot O’Donovan Collection)

532b. Soldier’s Home, Ballincollig, c.1900