Kieran’s Our City, Our Town article,

Cork Independent, 28 October 2010

In the Footsteps of St. Finbarre (Part 234)

Depressions, Ideas and Spins  

 “I have no hesitation declared Mr. O’Connell [leader of the Irish Labour Party], in stating that this country is facing up to a state of emergency almost as  great, if not as  immediately apparent as that which threatened other countries during the past few months. The practical solution of their difficulties could be summed up in consequence- provide useful and remunerative employment for all who are able to work. It was no small problem, but it was not insoluble. Every person of good will must unite in devising practical methods to bring about such as a re-organisation “(Editorial, Cork Examiner, 5 September 1931, p.10)

At times reading the above, one could replace the year 1931 with 2010. In fact, there are many political commentaries played out in 1931 to question where the country’s economy was going and also to lay the foundations of lobbying the people for a general election in 1932. From the perspective of 2010, one can see the political spin in full form from parties such as Fianna Fáil and the Labour Party in an effort to collapse the Cumann na nGaedheal government. However, what is clear was that the country was in a time of not just recession but a time of great economic depression. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 in New York had seriously hindered trade with Ireland’s best customer, the USA and created an economic depression in Britain as well. The lack of trade also meant that emigration with the intention of attaining jobs in those countries highly difficult.

Cork as a city was no stranger to providing leadership through its national exhibitions in dark economic times. The Irish Industrial and Agricultural Fair held in Cork in 1931 and organised by the Cork business people not only put a focus on the importance of building Ireland up within itself but also sent a serious message to the rest of the country to fight morally for itself. Exhibitions had worked before in the city’s history to draw attention to its enterprises. Perhaps because of its port status, the city was open to foreign ideas more so than non maritime cities. It is interesting to note that in the five years leading up to Cork’s 1931 preparations for its 1932 event, several world fairs had played out with objectives to improve its national industries – Berlin (1926), Lyon, France (1927) Cologne, Germany (1928), Long Beach, United States – Pacific Southwest Exposition (1928),  Barcelona and Seville, Spanish International Exposition (1929),  Newcastle upon Tyne, England/  North East Coast Exhibition  (1929) Hangzhou, Republic of China (1929), Antwerp, Belgium (1930),  Liège, Belgium (1930), Stockholm International Exhibition (1930), Trondheim, Norway (1930), International Foundry Exhibition and Congress  at Milan, Italy (1931) and Paris, France (1931).

The Irish newspaper online resource (an access point is available in the Boole Library in UCC) provides a way to search through several newspapers to explore any topic. On the 16 May 1931, the Irish Independent ran a story that a meeting of prominent business men in Cork decided to create an Industrial and Agricultural Fair for Cork in 1932. It was announced that a site had been secured on the Carrigrohane Road and that a guarantee fund had already been assembled totalling £25,000. Mr. George Crosbie was appointed chairman and Sir Stanley Harrington, Sir A. Dobbin, James Dwyer and Senator J.C. Dowdall were vice chairmen. An obituary for the chairman in 1934 in the Irish Press for the 27 November reveals that George was born in 1864 and was educated at St. Vincent’s Seminary, Cork and later at Tullabeg College after which he joined the literary staff of the Cork Examiner. He was the son of Thomas Crosbie, who played a major part in the management of the paper. George was admitted to the Bar (law) in 1890. He stood for Cork in 1909 as Irish party representative but was defeated. He was defeated in the Senate election of 1925 but was elected Senator in 1932. He was the first president of Cork Industrial Development Association, which was founded in 1903. The Association was inspired perhaps in part by the 1902 and 1903 Cork International Exhibition. George Crosbie, in his capacity as President, met Mr. Henry Ford and interested him in establishing a Ford factory in Cork in 1917.

From the initial idea of the fair, the Cork Examiner also seems to begin to roll out a series of columns on the positive work of the Cork Industrial Fair committee, on the 17 August 1931, the Cork Examiner published the minutes of a meeting whereby on the previous day, chair of the committee George Crosbie’s addressed the County of Cork Committee of Agriculture to gain support for the venture and outlined a number of early objectives for the exhibition. The main thrust of Crosbie’s argument was that: “the time had about come when we should make some effort to try and help on the agricultural side of the country…Emigration had ceased and there was only one direction in which the people’s efforts could be directed and in the opinion of the those who were organising the fair, that was the land.”

Captions:

563a. George Crosbie, Chairman, Irish Industrial and Agricultural Fair, 1932 (sources: Cork County Library)

563b. Advertisement, 1932

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

21 October 2010

In the Footsteps of St. Finbarre (Part 233)

Footprints of a Free State

Of all the places, I have passed through in the Lee Valley, one of my favourite sites is the Lee Fields. I have often walked the length of the footpath along the river running parallel to the Carrigrohane Straight Road and marvelled at the natural slow if hypnotic view of the river. To me, the Lee Fields is an important cross-road where the River Lee’s natural wilderness and the urban wilderness of the City collide. 

The contrasts are extensive. One view is of the River Lee and its part of a large flood plain, shown regularly when the fields are waterlogged during Ireland’s rainy conditions or when the dam at Inniscarra is forced to release reservoir water. The other view is of Cork’s and Ireland’s most impressive buildings such as the Waterworks, Our Lady’s Hospital and the County Hall. There seems to be a playfulness here between the scenery versus harnessing the power of the place to construct monuments such as the latter buildings to the serve the people.

The Carrigrohane Straight Road was built circa the late 1830s and early 1840s. Earlier maps such as Taylor and Skinner’s Maps of the Roads of Ireland (1776) or the Grand Jury map of 1811 do not show any track or path in this area. However, the first edition of the Ordnance Survey Map (1841-42) shows that work was in progress on the new road linking Cork City with Carrigrohane and Leemount Cross. The Straight Road seemed to be built by 1842. The section as far as Leemount Cross (including Leemount Bridge) may not have been completed until during the famine (1845-50).

Work by local historian Walter McGrath reveals that the building of the Straight Road and its extension on to Leemount Cross changed the traffic pattern to the west of the city. That required the building of two bridges – one over the tail race of Carrigrohane Flour Mills, the second over the River Lee. Before the Straight Road and Leemount Bridge were built, the Model Farm Road took traffic to Ballincollig and Macroom while the Lee Road led to Blarney, Coachford and Inniscarra. The original surface of Carrigrohane Straight Road was limestone. In 1927, the County Council and Corporation, who both controlled sections of the Straight Road, laid reinforced concrete. The Straight Road was one of the first concrete road surfaces in Ireland and one of the first in Great Britain. The South of Ireland Asphalt Company (S.I.A.C.) was engaged in the surfacing of the Straight Road and the concrete was hand laid.

The earliest known attempt to harness the Lee Fields for a mixture of business and leisure came through the construction of the holding of the Irish Industrial and Agricultural Fair in 1932 in the southern section of the Lee Fields, south of the Straight Road. A lesser known exhibition in the history of the Exhibitions in Cork, it became the fourth attempt (1852, 1883, 1901/ 2, 1932) within eighty years to showcase Cork and its assets on a national and international stage.

By 1931, Cork Corporation and business leaders, ten years on from the War of Independence, had invested much to reconstruct the city centre as the burning of Cork in December 1920 had destroyed many buildings. The resulting compensation the Corporation of Cork received for the damage to City Hall they chose to invest in trying to alleviate the poverty of one ninth of the city’s population, 2,400 families who lived in slum like conditions.  A total of 468 social housing units were constructed between 1926 and 1932 in Turners Cross. This was followed by the construction of a further 500 housing units in Gurranabraher. This vision was driven by Philip Monahan who served as City Commissioner and then as City Manager in Cork from 1924 to 1959. Philip Monahan did much to bring the city forward away from the horrors of the War of Independence and Civil War and to address the some of the pressing needs for social reform especially through the provision of social housing.

The need for reinvention though seems to echo through the general history of the early Free State. Dermot Keogh, retired Professor of History in UCC in his works on early years of the Free State, points to a country trying to return to normality and trying to nurture a calmer patriotism. Under the darkness of Michael Collins’s death and bitter memories of the civil war, the enormous task of state-building was begun by William T. Cosgrave and Cumann na nGaedheal. They put down the foundation stones for the establishment of a liberal democracy and of the institutions of the state – parliament, executive and judiciary.  They attempted to achieve rapid and radical social reform but international issues prevailed.

Emigration continued, 220,591 leaving Irish shore for the US between 1921 and 1930. Those numbers were reduced totally only when world depression hit in the late 1920s with the Wall Street stock market crash. The theme of emigration and the need to harness the assets of Ireland inspired the creation of the Irish Industrial and Agricultural Fair 1932 on Cork’s Lee Fields, which sought to benefit Ireland’s employment prospects and agricultural progress.

To be continued….

Captions:

562a. Front cover of catalogue of Cork Industrial Fair 1932 (source: Cork County Library)

562b. Lee Fields, 2010, from Cork County Hall (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

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

 15 October 2010

In the Footsteps of St. Finbarre (Part 232)

Warfare, Disorganisation and Reconstruction

Whilst researching the death of Patrick Murphy in the Cork Examiner in the week following the Leemount incident of 14 September 1922, the researcher is exposed to other underlining historical narratives in the evolution of Cork in the early years of the Free State. These include the reconstruction of key infrastructure in the region and attempts to deal with rising poverty and unemployment and how proposed remedies affected.

Standing out in the press pages the trade of the city is presented as down. The agricultural community was ‘severely’ hindered owing to the condition of the country. Country markets were few and far between. Farmers were at the point of isolation owing to the dislocation of railways plus the many difficulties of road transport. The Cork Summer Show at the Cork Showgrounds had to be cancelled as exhibits could not be brought to Cork owing to impassibility of the roads and the dislocation of the railway services.  The argument is given by the Cork Examiner that many Irish industries in the south depended largely on their profits on the market which the Cork Agricultural Show supplied when farmers, cattle and others visited the city, inspected the latest and best that was to be seen and made extensive purchases of various kinds.

Trading was reduced to a minimum across the Cork region. With unsold goods, usual supplies were not ordered. The closure of post office services in the south because of proposed wage cuts led to the shutdown of telegraphs, telephones, postal and engineering. In addition the cutting of wires for Civil War purposes made Cork isolated from other centres in Ireland. An editorial in the Cork Examiner on the 12 September 1922 revealed that inland settlements in the south west were even harder hit. Shopkeepers of towns along the coast, as circumstances permitted, organised between fifty and sixty motor boats and steamers to ply between Cork City and the southern and western towns and villages including Limerick, Tralee, Kenmare, Goleen, Sneem, Cahirciveen, Skibbereen, Union Hall, Cape Clear, Sherkin, Schull, Castletownbere, Baltimore, Clonakilty, Bandon and Courtmacsherry. Cargoes, which arrived at the south jetties in Cork City in mid September 1922, comprised pigs, bacon, butter, eggs and fresh fish and the return of cargo consisting of flour, meal bran, groceries, salt and the products of local breweries and distilleries.

Debate was also carried in the council chamber of City Hall regarding the reconstruction of St. Patrick’s Street, a substantial portion of which had been burned out in mid December 1920. The journalist reporting on the Council meetings noted that a committee had been set up in Cork Corporation to engage and collect data and for the government, which was to be used in the compensation negotiations with the English government regarding the damage done to St. Patrick Street and the wear and tear of British trucks across the city’s streets.

A total of £300,000 had been advanced for the reconstruction of the street. The city solicitor noted that two investigators appointed by the Irish government and one by the British government had visited the city in the second week of August 1922. The British government representative was dealing with cases of damage done by their forces, which was the bulk of the damage in Cork City.  He made a promise of a cash payment to the decree holder i.e. Cork Corporation.

Coupled with this mechanism and it appears to muddle the compensation package available, an international body called the Compensation Commission (the Shaw Commission) had been set up, which was appointed for the express purpose of, amongst other things, reviewing awards already made in the cases of criminal injury applications not defended by a city or county Council. Cork Corporation in mid September 1922 was expecting the Shaw Commission to come to Cork. The minutes of the Corporation of Cork show the Council attempting to understand the two sources of compensation packages and the need to maximise any receipts of compensation packages.

Cork Corporation Council members pressed to harness the advance of £300,000 to provide much needed employment. An important decision was also taken to inform property owners within the destroyed area that the Corporation intended to enforce the byelaws with regard to the closure of temporary structures or timber walled shops. In the early part of 1921, they had emerged on the street and through good will from the Corporation had been allowed to stay but no legal right existed for their erection. A sub committee of the Corporation was to wait on the owners of property in the burnt out areas who had submitted plans for reconstruction work. The Corporation urged them to proceed with work. As a result of the Corporation’s plea, at the subsequent council meeting, the councillors were informed that six firms in the burnt out area were prepared to start rebuilding work. In several cases, traders informed the Corporation that tenders had been invited and in some cases works had already started. However it seems a large number of traders were not prepared to start. They were holding out to maximise any due compensation. Indeed it was to take another ten years before the new street emerged.

To be continued…

Captions:

561a. St. Patrick’s Street, c.1910 (pictures: Kieran McCarthy collection)

561b. St. Patrick’s Quay, Cork City c.1910