Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 28 November 2013

“Technical Memories (Part 62) –Engineering Success”

Following on from my recent column on Cork in 1945 and promoting the new book West Cork Through Time book, the announcement of the re-opening of the branch railway lines in the winter of 1945, which were closed during the war was received with positivity.  Providing access between West Cork and Cork City for the general public including visitors and farmers was the Cork Bandon and South Coast Railway line. The Cork-Bandon line opened to the public on 6 December 1851. The Cork terminus was on Albert Quay, which had three passenger platforms, a carriage storage area, and sidings into the Cork Corporation’s stone yard and into the corn market. The Cork-Bandon Railway Project was an enormous undertaking. The main parts included; the longest railway tunnel in Ireland at Goggins Hill; the Chetwynd Viaduct; a short tunnel bridge under old Blackrock Road near the Albert Quay Terminus; 21 cuttings, 19 embankments and 15 road bridges. The Bandon terminus is now the offices of the Bandon Urban District Council. 

Between 1852 and 1894, a further 25 engines were acquired by the railway company.  Between 1851 and 1893, the mileage of the West Cork line, extended from 25 to 94 miles. Many West Cork towns attained their own railway stations; Kinsale (1863), Clonakilty (1866), Dunmanway (1866), Drimoleague (1877), Skibbereen (1877), Bantry (1881),  Timoleague and Courtmacsherry (1890), Bantry Bay (1892), and Baltimore (1893). Several of the stations and platforms such as those in Drimoleague have survived since the closure of the line in 1961 (due to faster modes of travel such as buses and cars). Opened in 1886, the Skibbereen to Schull line had numerous problems from geological to mechanical issues. The terrain was a constant problem. The gradients and rough land meant that locomotives could only pull three of four times their own weight. This meant that engines like the “Gabriel” named after a mountain to the north of Schull, which started work in 1906 could only attain a maximum speed of 15 miles an hour.

An article on 1 December 1945 in the Evening Echo describes the re-start of the Schull and Skibbereen Light Railway whose re-opening was welcomed by many local people and visitors to the region. The journalist remarked of the scenery; “It is a charming country, which retains a quality of remoteness that is not due to its distances. Off the track of arterial traffic, it by no means suffers from isolation, but at the same time, gives an impression of being self-contained and self-reliant. This quiet distinctiveness and air of placid content constitute a good deal of the charm which visitors find there”.

The journalist writes about an efficient service but “unhurried, free of all business and very sociable”. He recalls his first trip over the line on a crowded summer’s day when an excursion ran the whole length of the line from Skibbereen to Schull, where a regatta was being held. The town of Skibbereen contributed its hundred passengers, and the small stations along the route added their own numbers. Beside the expanding Ilen river, the train went slowly and with “much gentle puffings”, enabled the passengers to have a fine panoramic view of the waters that host ‘Carbery’s Hundred Isles’. As the train gathered more passengers along the way, the little engine “panted more heavily, but made a brave, carefree, vigorous sprint wherever the line offered freewheel facilities”. At Ballydehob, the wide expanse of Schull harbour, Dunmanus Bay and the farther waters of Bantry and Berehaven could be viewed. On this heavy excursion train, every available unit of the passenger carrying rolling stock was pressed into service. Even the guard’s van was filled to overflowing and scores of passengers carried scores more, in terms of children, on their knees. Gallantly the train tried and gallantly it failed.

Determined to take a steep gradient after Ballydehob, the crowd on this day cheered and then a tense silence followed as the “heavily labouring locomotive, ground its way upwards, its puff-puffs becoming slower and more sobbing in tone”. “She’ll do it!” some of the passengers noted hopefully; others shook their heads. Heaving nearly reached the crest of the gradient, there came to the strained ears of the crowded coaches “one mighty sobbing puff that failed to double itself into a puff-puff, and with a hissing of futile steam the train came to a standstill. There were no bitter comments, no reproaches, and if there was disappointment, it was softened by a sympathy for the engine that had tried and failed”. It was agreed that the gradient and the trainload created a position that was unreasonable and unfair to any engine. The train reversed back into the station. A couple of coaches at the rear were swiftly uncoupled and left behind, while the rest of the train went off, taking the gradient “without one faltering breath”. Later the locomotive retraced its journey, gathered up the rest of the train, and after warning blasts of the whistle proceeded with any lingering and remaining patrons to Schull.

West Cork Through Time by Kieran McCarthy and Dan Breen is available in any good Cork book shop and on Amazon. It is published by Amberley Publishing, UK.

Caption:

719a. The Viaduct, Ballydehob (source: Cork Museum)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 14 November 2013

Technical Memories (Part 61) –Re-Rationing Éire

Many people contributed to the success of the Crawford Municipal Technical Institute through the years. The obituaries in the Cork Examiner and Evening Echo on 20 November 1945 for Dean Patrick Sexton, a member of the governing committee of the institute reveal a learned man who placed a huge emphasis on role of education in society. One of his greatest achievements was the building of St Patrick’s National School for boys on Ballyhooly Road, considered at the time as one of the most modern and best equipped schools in the country.

At least once a week Dean Sexton visited the four national schools in his parish of St Patrick’s. He taught the children music for the mass. He was also a founder member of the Christian Brothers’ College Past Pupils’ Union and was Vice-President of that body. The Dean was one of those who introduced the Catholic Boy Scout and Catholic Girl Guide movements to Cork. He was chairman of St Patrick’s Scout Committee and Vice President of the Scout Diocesan Council since 1930, and he was largely responsible for the campaigning and fundraising for a fine Scout headquarters on Summerhill North.

A look at the news stories around November 1945 reveals a country trying to rebuild its own economy – to move forward from a time of rationing. During a speech by Seán Lemass TD, Minister for Industry at the Retail, Grocers, Dairy and Allied Trades Association in Dublin, he pointed out that a fall in the cost of food would not be effective unless there was also a reduction in the prices of fuel and clothing. Butter and sugar rationing would be continued into 1946 whilst the importation of tea was governed by British suppliers who were still experiencing export problems; According to Lemass “the three main essential foodstuffs still scarce are butter, sugar and tea…the retention of the present six ounce butter ration for the whole of the present winter instead of a temporary increase to eight ounces for three months as in last winter is due to our decision, of which the Dáil and the public unanimously approved to ship the largest possible quantity to Europe in relief of stress arising from the war”.

Similar discussions on garages being able to fix cars and petrol rationing were discussed in the local newspapers. On 30 October 1945 the Evening Echo ran the story that the prospect of the early resumption of private motoring was being warmly welcomed by proprietors of garages. One proprietor told one reporter that quite a number of private owners had already taken out licences for private cars that had not been driven since a prohibition order against petrol and gas use from 1942. They were ensured that their particular vehicles were going to have first claim on the garages for tuning up for the road. One of the greatest difficulties of all was that of the supply of batteries; the vast lying-up period made them useless or either through neglect on the part of the owners.

Basic petrol rations were restored to private motorists from 19 November 1945 and an extension carried out of bus services up to 11pm in Cork, Dublin, Limerick and Galway. The monthly ration for private cars was eight gallons, for cars under 10 hp, ten gallon for cars of 10hp and upwards but less than 16 hp and upwards. For motorcycles, the allowance was two gallons for a lightweight bicycle and four gallons for a heavy weight bicycle. Doctors, clergymen and persons who were on special professional allowances were allowed to retain their allowances. Another interesting note comes from a mention on the 22 November 1945 in the Cork Examiner and the work of erecting the first traffic islands in Cork City. The bases of some of the demolished air raids shelters on the Grand Parade formed the foundation for the first of these islands.

In this time of rebuilding there was a need for engineers and for construction personnel right not only across Europe but also across Ireland as the country attempted to plan ahead. Certainly the Crawford Municipal Technical Institute was well placed to respond to these needs.  For example at a Cork Harbour Board meeting on 8 November 1945, discussion took place on the city’s quays and wharves and how they had outlived their “period of usefulness”. It was proposed to embark on a large scheme of reconstruction and re-organisation – it was noted that the methods of handling cargoes were deemed antiquated and obsolete. The chairman, T. O’Shea argued; “we lag behind Dublin, Limerick, and Waterford, and we are a long way behind Belfast. If we are to survive as an overseas port, we must rebuild our deep-water quays. We must be able to swing ships at Cork, and we must have faster and more up-to-date methods for discharging cargoes”. Days later at the annual meeting of the Cork Chamber of Commerce, on 12 November 1945, a proposal was discussed regarding calls to government to build both aerodrome and seadrome facilities to be made available in the neighbourhood of Cork Harbour – as alternatives to those in existence at Rineanna and Foynes on the Shannon Estuary and Collinstown in Dublin.

To be continued…

Caption:

717a. Ration book, 1944 (source: Clare County Library)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 7 November 2013

Technical Memories (Part 60) – Apostles of Education

During late summer before the walking tour season, the column focussed on life in the Crawford Municipal Technical Institute in the 1930s and early 1940s. Like most organisations, World War II had a profound effect on the organisation in terms of funding cutbacks. Despite that, the Institute provided a range of day and nights courses in a variety of subjects. Guy’s Directory of Cork in 1945 lists the following: Engineering – motor car engineering, electrical engineering, chemistry and physics, building construction, carpentry and joinery, cabinet making, plumbing, botany and gardening, Materia Medica, typography, tailors’ cutting, domestic science, machine knitting, shirt-making, telegraphy, telephony, pharmacy, flour milling, power machine work, and continuation courses.

In the archives for the VEC in the Cork City and County Archives, regular conversaziones are listed at the Institute. For example at one of three evenings in October 1945 (15^th, 16^th and 17^th), the principal speaker Professor Alfred O’Rahilly, President of UCC (since 1943) spoke about the importance of vocational education. It is unrecorded what he said but a week earlier as noted in the Cork Examiner Professor O’Rahilly, at the conferring of degrees in UCC, he commented that there were difficult economic times ahead coming out of war torn Europe and that developing professions should concentrate on quality rather than on quantity. With reference to British restrictions on the employment of doctors, the professor argued that there was room in Ireland for more doctors and for a greater medical service and also room for expansion in the other professions. The annual output of medical men from the English and Scottish colleges, he described was about 2,000, and this figure was maintained during the war years. In addition, there were some 20,000 doctors in the British army and it was contemplated that about 8,000 of these would be demobilised before Christmas 1945. Hence, British medical graduates were given preference to jobs. In this light, this made the search for jobs for Irish medical graduates very difficult in Britain.

On the challenge of emigration in the country, O’Rahilly argued that it was not that UCC wished to cater for an export market but that “in a small country like this, the matter was one outside our control; we would wish as far as possible to give preference to our home professions…all we can do here is to equip our graduates not merely with the technical knowledge which they require as professional men and women, but to look to give them as well a proper philosophy of life. So that when they leave this country they will be lay apostles to carry with them something more than mere laboratory or classroom techniques”.

Guy’s Directory of Cork for 1945 lists J F King as the principal of the institute. The committee overseeing it included its chairman, Mr William Ellis as well as members Alderman James Hickey, Alderman Richard S Anthony, TD, Alderman Jeremiah R Connolly, Councillor C Connolly, W Furlong TD, P J O’Brien, Right Rev Dean Sexton PP, Very Rev Dean Babington, Rev Bro H S Byrne, Rev Bro Austin, Michael Egan, James Crosbie, and James Barry. The chaplain was Canon Edward J Fitzgerald who is recorded in the VEC minute books as providing a yearly mass at the start of the September term in the South Chapel for students of the Institute in the 1940s. He was parish priest in the South Chapel from 1924 to 1948. He was the son of Sir Edward Fitzgerald, Lord Mayor of Cork (1901-1903). In May 1955, when the parish of Ballinlough was constituted a separate parish from Blackrock, Canon Fitzgerald became its first parish priest.

One of the Institute’s committee members Dean Sexton, who offered a huge contribution to the Institute died on 20 November 1945. According to the Evening Echo on that evening, the Right Rev Monsignor Patrick Sexton received his early education at the North Monastery and at Christian Brothers’ College, where he was one of the first pupils. He studied for the priesthood at St Finbarr’s Diocesan Seminary and at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, where he was ordained in June 1896. He served at the Dunboyne establishment for about three years where he took out his degree of Doctor of Divinity. His grasp at theology was recognised when he was appointed to All Hallows College, Dublin as Professor of Dogmatic Theology.

Sexton became well known that when the Presidency of Farranferris came up in 1906, and he took the position. During his seventeen years as President he effected many improvements in the college where he took an active interest in every aspect of its welfare. In June 1923 Dr Sexton was appointed Pastor of Blackrock. However after three months, on the death of Rev Dean Shinkwin, Sexton was made parish priest of St Patrick’s Parish and became Dean of Cork. He was in Berlin at the outbreak of World War II, when he was researching German methods of education. On the night war was declared, he was taken into custody but released soon again on condition of reporting to the police every three days. He crossed into neutral Holland four months after his enforced stay in Berlin.

To be continued…

Caption:

716a. Dean Patrick Sexton (source: Cork City Library)