Monthly Archives: June 2014

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 26 June 2014

Cork History, Kieran's Council Work, Uncategorized

748a. Sketch drawing for Cork Airport terminal buildings,1961

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 26 June 2014

“Technical Memories (Part 80) – A Symbolic Airport”

 

Continuing on from last week’s article and focussing on the development of an airport for Cork, the Cork Examiner in October 1961 profiled the development of the airport itself. In the late 1930s the idea of a sea plane base at Belvelly and its mudflats faded out of the picture. British Imperial Airways in conjunction with Pan-American Airways campaigned for a new seaplane base to be built at Southampton for a projected experimental air service between England and New York, via Bermuda. This dampened the hopes of a seaplane base in Cork Harbour. The Cork project was finally abandoned when Foynes was opened a few years later.

Meanwhile, in 1934 a group of aviation enthusiasts formed the Cork Aero Club and one of the principal aims of that body was the establishment of a city airport. In that year members surveyed various likely sites around the city and went into every aspect of the problem. They finally settled on Farmer’s Cross and in the same year, permission was granted by the Minister for Industry and Commerce for the use of Farmer’s Cross, as a regional airport. The Cork Aero Club could not finance the construction of an airport, which they regarded as a State or local government responsibility. In those years, the estimated cost of establishing an airport at Farmer’s Cross was £10,000. That airfield, however, was not then fully licensed because it did not have a sufficient runway to meet with commercial air regulation.

The years passed by with scheme after scheme proposed but nothing materialised. Foynes seaplane base prospered; Rinneanna Airport and Dublin Airport were opened but nothing was happening in Cork. The outbreak of the war in 1939 added to Cork’s wait. In the mid 1940s, it began to emerge that Farmer’s Cross was not considered suitable as the site for an airport in Cork. Ahanesk, which had been favoured in preference by the British experts several years previously, came into the news. This location of four to five hundred acres, just one mile west of Midleton, seemed to possess all the necessary requisites and preliminary survey work had been carried out by the County Council in the past.

The Department of Industry and Commerce sent observers to Cork to check on meteorological conditions over a period to determine from that aspect the most suitable site for an airport. They began their work at Ahanesk, avoided Farmer’s Cross and continued at nearby Ballygarvan. During the wait in the 1950s, the Cork Airways Company was established and they took over the Farmer’s Cross airfield from the Cork aero Club. In May 1948, the Farmer’s Cross airfield was officially opened by Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave. With a small set-up the airfield needed funding of £50,000 to extend to create a longer runway space. This finance was not forthcoming.

On 18 January 1954 the Department finally announced that the airport would be located at Ballygarvan, four miles south of the city. Three years later in September 1957, the land commission began to acquire land in the vicinity of Ballygarvan to the extent of approximately 420 acres. Once the formalities of taking over the land had been completed, contracts for the construction were signed and the work began. The top of Lehanagh Hill, six hundred feet above sea level, began to change its appearance as the bulldozers went to work levelling the site, skimming the tops and filling in the troughs. A million cubic feet of earth was shifted and the two 15-feet wide runways, one 6,000 feet and the other 4,300 feet, were laid on their twelve-inch deep bed of re-inforced concrete. A new concrete approach was also laid. The buildings began to be constructed, which included the control tower, offices, terminal building, restaurant, customs hall, and viewing balcony. The design and construction of the airport was entrusted to the Civil Aviation Section of the Department of Transport and power was also granted to them to manage the airport. The high quality graded aggregate and concrete products were supplied by William Ellis & Sons, Ballyvolane.

The first plane landed at Cork Airport on 12 October 1961. She was an Aer Lingus Fokker Friendship, piloted by two of the company’s senior captains, which was on a test flight. Captain Kelly Rogers noted to the press that because the airport was situated on a hill over the city, the approaches were very clear. The object of the flight was to test the route and the landing facilities at the airport, as well as to gain familiarity with the approaches.

Cork airport was opening officially on 16 October 1961 by the Taoiseach, Seán Lemass. He was also on the first plane to land at the new airport. He was greeted on his arrival by the Lord Mayor of Cork, Anthony Barry, TD and the Minister for Transport Erskine Childers. It was a busy day with operationally with twelve flight movements, six in and six outbound. Four of the planes landed were Aer Lingus and two were Cambrian Airways – these being the two operating companies.

To be continued…

 

Caption:

748a. Sketch drawing for Cork Airport terminal buildings, 1961 (source: Fifty Years have Flown, The History of Cork Airport, 2011)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 19 June 2014

Cork History, Kieran's Council Work, Uncategorized

747a. Belvelly Castle, Great Island, Cork harbour overlooking the mudflats

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 19 June 2014

“Technical Memories (Part 79) – A Field of Enterprise”

 

The new airport in Cork symbolises our purpose and will help us in our desire to have the world see us as a modern progressive state, coming rapidly and fully into line with all others in modern equipment and facilities. There are no longer any doubts about the importance of air transport development or about our ability to achieve standards of proficiency as good as the best in any field of enterprise. Both as a symbol of our progress and of our purpose, and as an important contribution to the already buoyant economy of Cork, the coming into operational use of Cork Airport is a proper occasion for celebration (Seán Lemass, Cork Examiner, Tuesday morning, 17 October 1961, p.1).

Returning to exploring technical education and industrial progress in the decade of the 1960s, the opening of Cork City Airport was an enormous symbol of progress. Opening his address at the airport Taoiseach Seán Lemass said the opening would have a stimulating effect on the industry and trade of County Cork. He spoke about the effects to be experienced in every sector of economic activity and about the benefits of tourist traffic. He hoped that in many areas of the county, those engaged in the many businesses, which catered for holiday makers would prepare themselves for the increase in numbers which could be confidently expected. He also noted of a financial stimulus in the form of grants and loans for hotel extensions, some 24 hotels and four guest houses in Cork City and county has extended their accommodation by about 100 additional rooms.

The Cork Examiner in its special supplement the day after the opening related the evolution of the dream towards having an airport. One interesting throwback was presented that back in 1933, Richard O’Connor, one time Cork County Surveyor envisaged Cork Harbour as the obvious choice for a North European terminal airport. Unique in its geographical position as the most westerly harbour in Europe, situated on the track of the north Atlantic steamship routes and equipped to accommodate large liner traffic, the harbour was ideally situated for such a project. In those days, although the Atlantic had been crossed by an aeroplane, commercial crossings existed only in the minds of engineers. The popular belief was that by the late 1930s the crossing of the Atlantic by seaplane services would become an accomplished fact. In the light of those circumstances, it was essential that Cork’s airport should be set up at once if advantage was to be taken of liner traffic, so that air routes would be accomplished before the seaplane crossing of the Atlantic became practical business.

The main objective of the scheme was to gain control of English and continental transatlantic mail services and it was hoped and believed that a proportion of passenger and light goods traffic would, in the ordinary course, follow the mail routes. During those years in the mid-thirties, representatives of many of the principal British and European air lines came to Cobh to meet and board all fast east-bound Atlantic liners. The purpose of these visits was to facilitate American and other air-minded travellers by arranging for air transport to be ready when they landed later at Liverpool, Southampton, Cherbourg, Hamburg or elsewhere. At such places at that time there were fully equipped airports and aerodromes and it was felt that there were exciting prospects if the proposed facilities at Belvelly could save time from one to three days in getting to destinations in Europe.  

Richard O’Connor produced an ambitious plan for an airport to be built on the mud flats of Belvelly from which would radiate air routes to Dublin, Belfast, Glasgow, Liverpool, Hull, Rosslare, Pembroke, London and Cherbourg. The plan regarded it feasible to reclaim an area of 460 acres at Belvelly by constructing dams and suitable tidal sluices. This scheme proposed to construct runway measuring from three quarters of a mile to a mile and a quarter in length. The control buildings were to be on Fota Island where there was ample room for future expansion. The site was examined by land and from the air by several experienced airmen. Travellers disembarking from the liners at Cobh were to be brought the five miles to the airport. Side by side with Belvelly was to be a seaplane base at Cobh, with communication between seaplane and liner by fast motor tender.

In 1934, a sub committee consisting of representatives of the Cork Corporation, County Council was formed which accumulated a lot of data which they forwarded to President DeValera. The Local Authorities Airport Committee was set up and its first task was to engage a British firm of consultants to make a survey of the possibilities and prospects of establishing seaplane and airplane bases in Cork. In 1936, the consultants reported back. The report reiterated the belief that the seaplane would oust the aeroplane and that a good seaplane base might be of “even more ultimate importance to Cork City, where nature afforded the possibilities of such a base, than a good aerodrome which was immediate and permanent requirement”. The project continued to be debated and was never realised due to financial reasons.

To be continued…

 

Captions:

746a. Belvelly Castle, Great Island, Cork Harbour overlooking the mudflats, which were to be the site of an airport in the late 1930s (picture: Kieran McCarthy).

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 12 June 2014

Cork City Events, Cork History, Kieran's Council Work, Landscapes, S.E. Ward Local History, Uncategorized

746a. Walled town of Cork, c.1575

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 12 June 2014

Kieran’s City Walking Tours, 17 & 20 June 2014

 

My summer walking tours of Cork City centre continue and conclude next week Tuesday evening, 17th June and Friday evening, 20th June. The tours begin at the National Monument on the Grand Parade, at 7pm on those evenings and explore the City Centre’s early development on a swamp. The tour costs e.5 per person and children under 12 are free. No booking is required, just turn up on the evening.

One of the aspects of the city’s development addressed on the walking tour is the walled town of Cork. Access into walled settlement was via three entrances; two well-fortified drawbridges with associated towers and an eastern portcullis gate. Access from the southern valley side was via South Gate Draw-Bridge while entry from the northern valley side was through North Gate Draw-Bridge. Various depictions of the walled town show menacing symbols of power at the top of the drawbridge towers where the dismembered heads of executed criminals were placed as a warning to the other citizens contemplating crime. The severed head was placed onto a spike and this was slotted into a rectangular slab of stone. Legend has it that one of the stone blocks still exists and today can be seen at the top of the steps of the Counting House in Beamish and Crawford Brewery on South Main Street. Other methods of execution involved been hung at Gallows Green, a location on the southern valley side near to the southern road leading into town. The site is now marked by Greenmount National School and the Lough Community Centre.

The third entrance overlooked the eastern marshes and was located at the present day intersection of Castle Street and the Grand Parade. Known as Watergate and comprising of a large portcullis gate, this opened to allow ships into a small quay, located within the town. On both sides of this gate, two large mural towers, known as King’s Castle and Queen’s Castle controlled its mechanics. Today, the place-name Castle Street echoes their former presence. In 1996, when new sewage pipes were been put in place on Castle Street, work was halted when Cork archaeologists found two stone rubble portions of the rectangular foundation of Queen’s Castle. A further section was discovered in 1997. Through these excavations, sections of the medieval quay wall were also discovered on Castle Street. The importance of Watergate is also reflected in the city’s contemporary coat of arms, which shows two castles (King’s and Queen’s) and a ship in between, with a Latin insignia, “Statio Bene Fida Carinis”, meaning a safe harbour for ships.

In the last three decades, a substantial amount of archaeological excavations have taken place within the former area of the walled town and many facets of the townscape and society have been revealed. In particular, several sections of the lower courses of the town walls have been discovered along with parts of streets, laneways, housing and even the remains of citizens. The Pacata Hibernia depiction of the medieval town dates to circa 1585-1600 and shows the wall encompassing an oval shaped settlement. The walled defences, 1,500 metres in circumference, were to provide security for its inhabitants up to 1690. In a present day context, if one starts on the corner of the Grand Parade and the South Mall, on the city library side, the walls of the medieval town would have extended the full length of the Grand Parade, along Cornmarket Street, onto the Coal Quay, up Kyrl’s Quay to the North Gate Bridge. From here they would have extended up Bachelor’s Quay as far as Grattan Street, then turning southwards, the walls would have followed the full length of present day Grattan Street as far as present day Clarke’s Bridge. The walls then followed the course of the River Lee back to the starting point. Much of the town wall survives beneath the modern street surface and in some places has been incorporated into existing buildings. The wall was composed of two stone types, limestone and sandstone, types, which have been used down through the ages in Cork buildings from warehouses to churches. Sandstone deposits are common on the northern hills overlooking Cork while limestone deposits are common under the southern hills.

On the wall, at regular intervals were mural towers, which projected out from the wall and were used as lookout towers by the town’s garrison of soldiers. The walled town of Cork extended from South Gate Bridge to North Gate Bridge and was bisected by long spinal main streets, North and South Main Street. These were the primary route-ways and compared to today, these would have been much narrower but followed an identical plan.  In the early half of the life of the walled town, the majority of the houses overlooked the main street and running perpendicular to North and South Main Street were numerous narrow laneways, which provided access to the back gardens or burgage plots of the latter dwellings. Comprised of individual and equal units of property, burgage plots extended from the main street to the town wall. The sizes of these plots were carefully regulated by owners, tenants and borough charters.

More on the walking tour and keep an eye…

 

Caption:

746a. Walled town of Cork, c.1575 (source: Cork City Library)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 5 June 2014

Cork City Events, Cork History, Kieran's Council Work, Landscapes, Uncategorized

745a. Recent re-opening of Fitzgerald's Park, May 2014

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,  5 June 2014

 

Kieran’s City Walking Tours, June 2014

 

This year I bring the summer walking tours of Cork City centre back during the month of June, on Tuesday evenings, 10th, 17th, and Friday evenings, 13th & 20th. The tours begin at the National Monument on the Grand Parade, at 7pm on those evenings and explore the City Centre’s early development on a swamp. The tour costs e.5 per person and children under 12 are free. No booking is required, just turn up on the evening. Further information if needed can be attained from me at 0876553389.

 

The tour is based on my publication Discover Cork, which was published eleven years ago as a guide to the city’s history. In this book I outline the city’s development and it opens with eminent Cork writer Daniel Corkery’s account of the city in his The Threshold of Quiet (1917) which highlights well the physical landscape of Cork City:

“Leaving us, the summer visitor says in his good humoured way that Cork is quite a busy place…as hundrum a collection of odds and ends as ever went by the name of city – are flung higgledy piggledy together into a narrow double-streamed, many bridged river valley, jostled and jostling, so compacted that the mass throws up a froth and flurry that confuses the stray visitor…for him this is Cork”.

 

One of the distinct questions that arises out of his narrative relates to the query, who could have built such a landscape. It was a combination of native and outside influences, primarily people that shaped its changing townscape and society since its origins as a settlement. The city possesses a unique character derived from a combination of its plan, topography, built fabric and its location. Indeed, it is also a city that is unique among other cities, it is the only one which has experienced all phases of Irish urban development, from circa 600 A.D. to the present day.

 

       The settlement began as a monastic centre in the seventh century, overlooking a series of marshy islands on which the present day city centre grew and flourished; it was transformed into a Viking port and the advent of the Anglo-Normans led to the creation of a prosperous walled town; it grew through the influx of English colonists during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and suffered the political problems inherent in Irish Society at that time; it was altered significantly again through Georgian and Victorian times when reclamation of its marshes became a priority along with the construction of spacious streets and grand town houses; its docks, warehouses exhibit the impact of the industrial revolution; and in the last one hundred years, Corkonians have witnessed both the growth of extensive suburbs and the rejuvenation of the inner city.

 

       Perhaps, the most important influence in the city’s development is the River Lee, an element which has witnessed the city grow from monastic Cork through the Celtic Tiger City of the twenty-first century. Originally, the city centre was a series of marshy islands, which the Irish for the city, “Corcaigh” translated marshes reflects. The river splits into two channels just west of the city centre, and hence flows around the city centre, leaving it in an island situation. The urban centre was built on the lowest crossing point of the River Lee, where the river meets the sea. Built on the surrounding valleysides of the River Lee, the city’s suburbs are constructs of the twentieth century where a spiralling population dictated Cork’s expansion beyond its municipal boundaries.

            Spliced with the city’s physical development is the story of its people and their contribution in making Cork a city whose history is rich and colourful. The characters are astute, confident, and are often rebellious, a distinctive trait of Corkonians through the ages and are remembered in Cork songs, statues, street-names and oral tradition. Corkonians make Cork unique. Their characteristics have been noted through the centuries, from visitors to antiquarian writers. All agree that its people are warm and very sociable. Joking is an essential characteristic of Corkonians. As one antiquarian, Byran Cody in 1859 put it, conversational power is the test of intellectual culture in Cork. A Corkonian is a good talker and the conversation is usually seasoned with spicy anecdotes and pleasant bits of scandal.

 

           A walk through St Patrick Street or affectionately known as ‘Pana’ will reveal the warmth of its people, the rich accent, the hustle and bustle of a great city. As Robert Gibbings, poet and writer put it in 1944, “Cork is the loveliest city in the world, anyone who doesn’t agree with me either was not born there or is prejudiced. The streets are wide, the quays are clean, the bridges are noble and people that you have never met in your life stop you in the street for a conversation”. Not only can each person tell you a story about Cork but its streets, buildings and bridges also do. They echo the rich historic and cultural development of the acclaimed southern capital of Ireland.

 

 

 

Caption:

 

745a. Recent re-opening of Fitzgerald’s Park, May 2014 (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

Historical Walking Tour of St. Finbarre’s Hospital, 7 June 2014

Cork City Events, Cork History, Kieran's Council Work, Landscapes, S.E. Ward Local History, Uncategorized, Ward Events

On next Saturday, 7 June 2014, 12noon (meet at gate), Cllr Kieran McCarthy, in association with the Friends of St Finbarr’s Hospital, will give a public historical walking tour of the hospital grounds with particular focus on its workhouse past. The walk is free and takes place to support the summer fete 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”. 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 eight acres, 1 rood and 23 perches 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.