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

Discover your Area

Another year and another great set of projects by Cork students. This year marks the eighth year of the Discover Cork: Schools’ Heritage Project co-ordinated by myself. The Project is open to schools in Cork; at primary level to the pupils of fourth, fifth and sixth class and at post-primary from first to sixth years.

One of the key aims of the project is to allow students to explore, investigate and debate their local heritage in a constructive, active and fun way. Projects on any aspect of Cork’s rich heritage (built, natural and cultural) can be submitted to an adjudication panel. Prizes are awarded for best projects and certificates are given to each participant. A total of 28 schools in Cork City took part in the 2010 Project. Circa 900 students participated in the process. Approx 180 projects were submitted on all aspects of Cork’s heritage.

The standard was very high this year. The top prizes, 60 in all, were given to students’ projects, which took a clever approach to the topic. Much of the work could be published as local heritage / history guides. The methodologies that the students provide interesting ways to approach the study of local heritage.

Submitted projects must be colourful, creative, have personal opinion, imagination and gain publicity before submission. These elements form the basis of a student friendly narrative analysis approach where the students explore their project topic in an interactive and task oriented way. In particular students are encouraged to attain primary material generating primary material through engaging with fieldwork, interviews with local people, making models, photographing, cartoon creating, making DVDs of their area. Re-enacting is also a feature of several projects.

Students are to experiment with the overall design and plan of their projects. This year thirty per cent of the marks went towards making a short film on projects. This brought the overall project towards ideas of phenomenology and looking at topics as phenomenons within the student’s world. It brought the student to become more personal and creative in their approaches.

The submitted DVDs this year had interviews of family members to local historians to the student taking a reporter type stance on their work. Some students also chose to act out scenes from the past. In general this DVD brought up the standard of the personal response by students and also engaged other family members and friends to help out, whether that be sourcing a camera or helping with scripts and ideas or helping with editing of films on computers.

The creativity section also encourages model making. All models are referred to in the project book. The student must describe why and how they put the model together. The best model trophy in general goes to the creative and realistic model.

Students are encouraged to compare and connect the past to their present and their immediate future. Work needs to involve re-imagining what life may have been like. One of the key foundations  in the Project is about developing empathy for the past and to try to link the present to the past – to think about attitudes and experience in the past. Interpretation is also empowering for the student- all the time developing a better sense of the different ways in which people engage with and express a sense of place and time.

Students’ opinions are very important to the overall aims of the project. The inclusion of opinion is about personalising your project. Any text taken from books and the internet needs to be the students’ own words (as far as possible).Personal commentary is to appear throughout the project.

Every year, the students involved in the project produce lots of project books and do enormous work getting the information from the local community. This section is about showing the student’s work to the wider community. It is about reaching out and gaining public praise for the student but also appraisal and further ideas. This year the most prominent source of gaining publicity was having parents into the classroom for an open day for viewing projects. Students were also successful in putting work on local parish newsletters, newspapers and local radio stations and also presenting work in local libraries.

Overall, the Discover Cork: Schools’ Heritage Project attempts to provide the student with a hands-on and interactive activity that is all about learning not only about your local area but also about the process of learning by participating students. The Schools’ Heritage Project also focuses on motivating and inspiring young people. The Project attempts to build a new concerned generation of Cork people, pushing them forward, growing their self-development empowering them to connect to their world.

The project in the city is kindly funded by Cork Civic Trust (viz the help of Mr. John X. Miller), Cork City Council (viz the help of Ms. Niamh Twomey), the Heritage Council and the Evening Echo. Prizes were also provided in the 2010 season by Sean Kelly of Lucky Meadows Equestrian Centre Watergrasshill, the Lifetime Lab, Lee Road (thanks to Meryvn Horgan) and Cork City Gaol Heritage Centre. A full list of winners, topics and pictures of some of the project pages can be viewed at www.corkheritage.ie

Captions:

539a. View of creative quilt depicting the streets of Cork by students of Scoil Bernadette (pictures: Kieran McCarthy)

539b. View of winning model by Julianne McGowan, Our Lady of Lourdes National School, Ballinlough with Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr. Dara Murphy, John X. Miller of Cork Civic Trust, Niamh Twomey, Heritage Officer, Cork City Council and Cllr Kieran McCarthy, co-ordinator.

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

In the Footsteps of St. Finbarre (Part 211)

Carrigrohane – A Geography Inspired

From Ballincollig, the Lee meanders towards the tidal water. Its journey is nearly over. On one side of the valley is Curraghkippane and on the other, soaring above the scene just before one encounters the Carrigrohane Straight Road, is Carrigrohane castle. Carrigrohane translated means Carraig Raitheach or ‘the rock of the ferns’. The second translation is Carraig Rothain or ‘the rock of the (hangman’s) noose’.

Here, the geography of a place is, again, as important as its history. The development of Carrigrohane castle from its origins to the present day was inspired by its geographic location, so close to a cliff face and overlooking the Lee and one of the principal approach roads leading into Cork. In fact, its walls overlook Hell Hole — a favourite swimming and fishing haunt for many centuries that is near the present-day Angler’s Rest Pub.

The development of the site began around the year 1180 when King Henry II granted Milo De Cogan, an Anglo-Norman lord, several hundred acres of land south and west of the walled town of Cork. In 1207 Richard DeCogan, a relative, was given the manor of Carrigrohane and his successors built a castle. In 1464, on the occasion of a new charter granted to the city of Cork, the western limits of the liberties of the city were extended to Carrigrohane castle. In 1317 William Barrett, in consequence of his father Robert working with the king’s armies against ‘the King’s enemies’, was granted two parts of the local land of ‘Gronagh’ and the castle on that land.  By the 1400s, the DeCogans of Carrigaline returned as overlords of the Barrett property. In the 1500s, the castle supported the Irish Earl of Desmond in his revolt against the English crown. When the Earl of Desmond’s uprising failed, the Queen’s Lord Deputy (in around 1600) gave the lease of Carrigrohane to Sir Richard Grenville, on the condition that he would repair the ruined walls of the castle and build a new house. Subsequently, the lands were given to Sir William St Leger. The new house could be described as a Tudor castle – a type of semi-fortified mansion with three storeys lit by four windows on each storey. The medieval castle has partly survived next to the present-day dwelling.

The builders of fortified houses were concerned with creating a formal plan based on renaissance lines in order to accommodate more luxurious living standards. Fortified houses were symmetrical and had a central doorway. The structures resembled semi-defended country houses, with many of the features found in earlier castle conceptions, such as crennelations, mural stairs and bawn walls, all being abandoned.

Circa 1601 the Carrigrohane house and lands, through Warham, were granted to Abraham Baker and Barrachias Baker. In the 1640s, during the confederate war, Lord Inchiquin occupied the dwelling and large portions of the interior were dismantled. The site became the haunt of a man called Cope, who terrorised and robbed the countryside with his gang.

In the ensuing years, the Baker family returned and the house was rebuilt. One of the sons, John, had a niece who married Peter Wallis. Their son John died in 1731 and the property passed to his brother, Barrachias of Ballycrenane in Cloyne. His daughter Clotilda married Sir Edward Hoare in 1771. The Hoares were a Cromwellian family. The house was reduced to a ruin again as the family squandered their fortune and were forced to abandon the structure.

Around the year 1790 Nathaniel Grogan, a Cork painter, depicted the house gloomily with all its contours, located on its cliffside overlooking what look like flour mills in the foreground and two gentlemen fishing in the Lee. In 1837 Samuel Lewis referred to those mills and others in the vicinity when he noted that they were capable of manufacturing between 350 and 400 sacks of flour weekly. Around the year 1830 Carrigrohane castle passed to Augustus Robert McSwiney, a corn merchant in the city (at 18 Dunbar Street) who also owned Carrigrohane Flour Mills, mills, which are illustrated in Grogan’s painting (buildings were later demolished). McSwiney is reputed to have worked with Cork architects Deane and Woodward to carry out extensive reconstructions. One of the key features especially commissioned of the occasion was a chimney mantle piece emblazoned with the shields of the McSwiney family. During this time the Carrigrohane Straight Road, a two-and-a-half mile stretch of a new line of road from Cork, was constructed to replace the old road.

Soon the McSwiney family ran out of money for refurbishment and in 1846 the Hoares bought the property back and lived there until the 1940s. In 1946 the house was bought by Mr Burnett and in 1976 it was purchased by Leo and Mary O’Brien. Today, the house is a splendid building retaining all of its charm and identity. Its owners, the O’Brien family, have ensured that the legacy of this historic building can be used in the modern world. As well as that, its long history has been remembered and commemorated in a wealth of papers and books by scholars like James N. Healy and painters like Nathaniel Grogan.

To be continued…

Sincere thanks to the O’Brien family of Carrigrohane Castle for their courtesy and insights.

Captions:

538a. Nathaniel’s Grogan’s sketch of Carrigrohane Castle c.1800 (courtesy: Crawford Municipal Art Gallery)

538b. View of River Lee from atop of Carrigrohane Castle (picture: Kieran McCarthy)