Monthly Archives: July 2014

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 31 July 2014

Cork History, S.E. Ward Local History, Uncategorized

753a. Former Dunlops building, Lower Road, Cork, 1927-1934

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 31 July 2014

“Technical Memories (Part 84) –Building a Tyre Empire”

 

“What began as an initial pilot for tyre manufacture grew into a major industrial complex, producing a range of products varying from mattresses to footwear and golf-balls. Along with its neighbouring Marina twin, Ford, have they have become two of the corner-stones of Cork’s prosperity and account for a major portion of the city’s employable pool. Barely 24 hours prior to Mr E J Power’s announcement about Dunlop’s expansion, Mr T Brennan, Managing Director of Fords, announced his company’s intention of spending of £1.5 million to their assembly capacity” (Journalist, Irish Press, Monday 15 November 1965, p.6).

On Thursday 11 November 1965, Irish Dunlop held a press conference. Mr E J Power, Chief Executive outlined the new re-organisation plans for the company – a massive project involving the capital outlay of some £2m and the building of two entirely new giant blocks in Dublin and Cork. This was another enormous investment package into the Cork region like those written about in the column the last couple of weeks.

At the conference, Mr Power traced the history of Dunlop’s contribution to the national Industrial effort beginning back in the mid-thirties when the company undertook large scale, native manufacture of road tyres as a vital contribution to the infant assembly industry and looked after 80 per cent of the country’s tyre needs. Much of Dunlop’s early story in Cork has not been penned. With no social history ever written, its early evolution is tied up with snippets of stories in national and regional newspapers through time.

The story of Dunlops is said to have began with Scots Veterinary John Boyd Dunlop. He established Downe Veterinary Clinic in Downpatrick with his brother James Dunlop before moving to a practice in May Street, Belfast. John, one day on fixing of his son’s tricycle heard his son complaining about the rubber coverings on the wheels of the tricycle. John set about creating a simple invention – the pneumatic tyre. Continuing to experiment, he patented his invention in 1888. However, two years after he was granted the patent Dunlop was officially informed that it was invalid as Scottish inventor Robert William Thomson (1822–1873), had patented the idea in France in 1846 and in the US in 1847. Nevertheless, Dunlop’s idea gripped the public imagination in a big way when racing cyclist, William Hume, using pneumatic tyres, won every cycling event at Queen’s University Sports. Soon businessmen and mps such as Harvey Du Cros and others competed for shares in Dublin – Pneumatic Tyre and Booths Cycle Agency Ltd – to which John Boyd sold his patent rights and of which he became a director. John Dunlop resigned from the company in 1895, and sold most of his shares in the company.

 

In the early 1890s Dunlop Tyres established divisions in Europe and North America. The company established factories overseas. Dunlop partnered with local cycle firms such as Clement Cycles in France and Adler in Germany. The American Dunlop Tyre Company was established in the USA in 1893, with a factory in New York.  In 1893, British manufacture was relocated from Belfast and Dublin to Coventry, which was the centre of the British cycle industry. In 1896 Harvey Du Cros sold the company to the English financier Ernest Terah Hooley for £3 million. Almost immediately, Hooley refloated the company for £5 million as the Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Company.  From 1900, the company began to diversify from cycle tyres and manufactured its first motor car tyre. In 1906, a car wheel manufacturing plant was built. In 1910 Dunlop developed its first aeroplane tyre and golf ball. By 1918, Dunlop was the fourteenth largest manufacturing company in Britain, and its only large scale tyre manufacturer. In the late 1920s, Dunlop had manufacturing subsidiaries in the US, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland and Japan.  By 1930, Dunlop secured an equal market share with its arch rival Michelin in France.

The Dunlop Rubber Company (Ireland) Ltd was incorporated on 24 March 1924. An article in the Cork Examiner, 16 November 1927 reveals that the company found it necessary to open a large distribution depot in Cork for the southern trade. To suit their purpose they erected a large brick and ferro-concrete structure at the Lower Glanmire Road adjacent to Kent Station. The storage space of the building amounted to 9,000 square feet. A hydro-electric solid tyre fitting press was installed, and also a compressor for giant tyres. A full range of pneumatic and solid motor tyres, and all accessories, were stocked. Goods manufactured by the subsidiary companies of the Dunlop group were to be stocked at Dunlop House, which included waterproof garments, rubber goods, and sporting requisites. The distribution depot manager was T W Kerrigan, former assistant Irish manager and Southern representative of the company, who had 25 years connection with the motor and cycle business.

In 1934, the Irish Dunlop Company Limited became a public company and commenced manufacturing at a new factory, leasing a building from Fords on the Marina. The then Minister for Industry Seán Lemass TD made a deal with Dunlops to entice them to set up a factory whereby the company would have an 80 per cent share of tyre production in the Irish Free State.

To be continued…

 

Caption:

 

753a. Former Dunlops building, Lower Road, Cork, 1927-1934 (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 24 July 2014

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

752a. Mary Harris aka Mother Jones

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 24 July 2014

The Spirit of Mother Jones, 29 July-1 August 2014

 

Next week sees the third Spirit of Mother Jones Festival, which remembers the life and times of Cork born woman Mary Harris or Mother Jones. She, according to our autobiography, which can be accessed online as well as some of her speeches and some filmed speeches, was an American schoolteacher and dressmaker who became a prominent labour and community organiser, who helped co-ordinate major strikes and co-founded the Industrial Workers of the World.

The Cork Mother Jones Commemorative committee was established in 2012 to mark the 175th anniversary of the birth of Mary Harris / Mother Jones in Cork. After a highly successful festival marking that anniversary it was decided to make the festival an annual event marking the life and legacy of Mother Jones. Although famous in other parts of the world, especially in the United States of America where she was once labelled “the most dangerous woman in America”, Cork born Mary Jones (née Harris) – or Mother Jones as she is perhaps more widely known – was virtually unknown and not recognised as yet in her native city.  The festivals and activities of this committee have changed that and now the name of Mother Jones is better known in Cork and beyond.

The Cork Mother Jones Commemorative Committee, in conjunction with Cork City Council commissioned Cork Sculptor Mike Wilkins to create a limestone plaque to honour Mother Jones in the Shandon area of the city, near her birthplace.  This plaque was erected near the famous Cork Butter Market and was unveiled on 1 August 2012 which is the 175th Anniversary of her baptism in the North Cathedral.  Her parents were Ellen Cotter, a native of Inchigeela and Richard Harris from Cork city. Few details of her early life in Cork have been uncovered to date, though it is thought by some that she was born on Blarney Street and may have attended the North Presentation Schools nearby.  She and her family emigrated to Canada soon after the Famine, probably in the early 1850s. Later in the United States, after tragic deaths of her husband George Jones and their four children, she became involved in the struggle for basic rights for workers and children’s rights, leading from the front, often in a militant fashion.

Mary is best known for her fiery speeches against the exploitation of miners; she was utterly fearless, travelling all over America to defend workers and their families.  Mother Jones was one of the best and most active union organizers ever seen in America. She became a legend among the coalminers of West Virginia and Pennsylvania; Mother Jones was fearless and faced down the guns and court threats of the mine bosses. In 1905 she was the only woman to attend the inaugural meeting of the Industrial Workers of the World (Wobblies). Later she became an organiser for the Socialist Party and continued her defence of workers in industrial disputes across America. She was arrested and jailed in West Virginia for her activities during the Paint Creek, Cabin Creek strikes, but later released following large demonstrations of her supporters. Between 1912 and 1914 she was involved in the “coal wars” of Colorado which led to the infamous Ludlow Massacre, where 19 miners and members of their families were killed. She was imprisoned many times but always released quickly due to huge local support for her activities.

Described as “the most dangerous woman in America”, her cry of “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living” still resonates through history! Her autobiography was published in 1925. She passed away at the age of 93 in 1930 and is buried at Mount Olive Union cemetery in Illinois, where a museum will be erected to her memory shortly. When she died in 1930, she was a legend in her adopted land.  A magazine (Mother Jones) is still published to this day, along with dozens of books and countless references in US Labour History.  She certainly can claim to be the most famous Cork woman in the history of the United States of America.

The spirit of Mother Jones Festival continues this year with a number of writers, film producers and people associated with Mother Jones in the United States. There are concerts, public lectures and discussions held in the Maldron Hotel and the Firkin Crane centre.  One lecture of real contemporary resonance is on Wednesday afternoon 30th July, at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival, Claire McGettrick, co-founder of Justice for Magdalenes (now JFM Research) will speak at the Firkin Crane in Shandon, Cork,  about the story of the Magdalenes. Claire is an activist, researcher and also co-founder of the Adoption Rights Alliance. She worked as Research Assistant on the project Magdalene Institutions: Recording an Archival and Oral History, which collected the oral histories of 79 interviewees, including 35 Magdalene survivors. The Magdalene Names Project, which is central to Claire’s work with JFM Research, makes use of historical archives to develop a partial, repaired narrative of the lives of some of the women who died behind convent walls, with the aim of creating a lasting memorial to these women.

More information on the Spirit of Mother Jones festival can be seen at:  http://motherjonescork.com/2014-programme/

Caption:

752a. Mary Harris aka Mother Jones (source: Cork City Library)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 17 July 2014

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

751a. Ford Consul Cortina Ad, 1962

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town,

Cork Independent, 17 July 2014

“Technical Memories (Part 83) –Stylising the Landscape”

“Outside the little stream, where the cart wheels were shod I meandered idly by. And the circular platform was still in place. It looked as if the owner had one day got weary of the struggle…then he closed the doors of the little social centre, where the neighbours had met and discussed happenings, far and near, through the generations…some of the craft had survived by adapting their forge to the art of welding and the repair of the new agricultural machinery used in farming: but they were only a minority” (John T Collins, “The Deserted Forge”, Hollybough, 1963).

 

In October 1967, as related in last week’s column, Taoiseach Jack Lynch at the opening of the £2m investment into the Ford Factory on the Marina marked not only change for Ford but also for the motoring population. Lynch during his address related that his government had to cut back on the country’s loss making railway system and spent vast sums on the Irish road networks; “we have had to impose speed limits and complicated systems of traffic control in our towns and cities, while the need to cater for the projected increase in car numbers has been a major factor in the planning of future towns and rural development”. Newspapers like the Hollybough (see above quote), the Cork Examiner and Evening Echo commented on change regularly since the first motor car rolled across the Cork street in the 1910s all the way through to the problem of parking and traffic movement in the 1960s. One I came across recently was the installation of the first set of traffic lights in July 1954 at the junction of Washington Street and the Grand Parade (60 years old since this installation this month). Erected by Messrs Siemens, London, the lights were of a similar type to those being used in some other Irish cities, except that in Cork pedestrian lights were introduced to work in conjunction with the regular lights.

Car dealerships spread and grew with the growth of Irish motoring and there were 87 main Ford dealers in the country in 1966. Fords could record that 11,041 out of 39,546 new car owners chose one of the 12 cars Ford had to offer. The Ford Cortina, introduced in 1962, during its production run was the biggest selling model ever on the Irish market. Next on the range were the Ford Corsair and the Ford Anglia followed by the new range of Ford Zephyr and Ford Zodiac models. The Cork Examiner in October 1967 commented on their affect on the urban and rural landscapes of the country; “Mechanical refinements of independent rear suspension, along with sophisticated styling.. these new cars have become as much of the social scene as their imposing size and impressive appearance would suggest”.

Then there was the sister factory Dagenham in east London, which was the largest motor exporting factory in the world. The first vehicle, a Model AA truck, rolled off its production line in October 1931. In the post war years Dagenham turned its interests to the revolutionary Consul and Zephyr range of cars. Major expansion in the 1950s increased floor space by 50% and doubled production. By 1953 the site occupied four million square feet and employed 40,000 people. An article in the Hollybough in 1954 related that 75 per cent of the Irish in the Dagenham area, circa a total of 3,300 men, were employed there. An old North Monastery boy, Michael J Ronayne, with more than 30 years experience with the company in Cork and Dagenham, was the Chief Engineer in Europe of the Ford organisation. His brother jack was engineer in charge of the building of Gurranabraher and Spangle Hill houses.

As the swinging 60s took hold, Dagenham moved on to a car destined to become one of the favourites – the Ford Cortina. By the time the last Cortina left the line in 1982, the plant had built over three million. In Cork and Dagenham and further afield, Ford technologists, in the search for higher standards, contacted Swedish experts in industrial ventilation and air-handling, Svenska Fläktfabriken. They were world leaders in the complex problems of mining ventilation, they took up a leading role in the equally difficult task of providing the highly specialised conditions for car-body finishing.

The opening of the Cork factory extension in 1967 coincided with ceremonies celebrating the advent of first a tractor factory which sent machines to all parts of the world. With such heritage, service was also of vital importance to the farming community. The ready availability of spare parts from the 38 Ford Tractor Dealers strategically placed throughout Ireland ensured rapid and efficient service for owners and operators of Ford Tractors. In addition, the Agricultural Colleges National Ploughing Championships were initiated in 1966 and sponsored by Henry Ford & Son Ltd., Cork with the intention of stimulating interest in a wider understanding of the skills and values of good ploughing and tillage methods. Prizes of £300 and £150 were awarded to the winners of the Championships. After competitors from all the agricultural colleges had completed qualifying tests under National Ploughing Association rules the successful candidates contested the finals at the National Ploughing Championships.

To be continued…

Captions:

751a. Consul Cortina Ad 1962 (source: Cork City Library)

Kieran’s Question to the City Manager and Motions, Cork City Council Meeting, 14 July 2014

Kieran's Council Work, Uncategorized

Question to the City Manager:

 

To ask the City Manager, what is the future plan for the 9 unsold affordable houses in Kilbrack Grove, Skehard Road? Residents were given assurances at the time of purchase in the estate by the Council that they would be only Affordable housing and that this would not change.  Planning was sought for affordable housing – not social- can this suddenly change? Assurances were given to the residents and local councillors that these would only ever be an Affordable estate- can the council go back on their word? Nine Social houses in an estate of 41 is almost a 25% split- this seems large? This will affect people’s home value significantly- will they be compensated by Cork City Council? (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)

 

 

Motions:

 

That the north west lamp on St Patrick’s Bridge, closest one to Camden Quay, be fixed (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)

That in light of numerous tour buses parking by St Finbarre’s Cathedral, that a tour bus parking bay be re-instated (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 10 July 2014

Cork History, Kieran's Council Work, Uncategorized

750a. An Taoiseach, Jack Lynch cutting the tape with Mr Tom Brennan, Managing Director

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 10 July 2014

“Technical Memories (Part 82) –The Ford Expansion”

 

“For 50 years the Ford Company has been part of the industrial life of this city but of course Fords links with Cork go back much further. The story of Henry Ford, whose father emigrated from Ballinascarty 120 weary years ago is so well-known that much of it is already folklore. Indeed the record of his life and achievements looms large in the history of the development of modern industrial methods, many of which he devised and brought to perfection” (part of speech, An Taoiseach Jack Lynch, Ford Factory, Cork, 11 October, 1967,)

The decade of the 1960s also brought new opportunities to the Ford manufacturing plant in Cork’s Marina. The special supplement in the Cork Examiner in October 1967 describes that it was the post World War II years that really saw the major growth in car assembly. Since 1946, Ford had almost invariably taken around one-third of the car market total and an even higher share of the commercial vehicle figure. Since the 1950s, Ford consistently captured between 25 per cent and 35 per cent of the Irish car market, and between 35 and 40 per cent of the Irish commercial vehicle market. It had an impressive record – taking passenger and commercial vehicles together, it was the best market share of any Ford Company in the world. The Cork Ford Plant turned out the widest range of vehicles under one badge on the Irish market with some 14 different passenger models and a wide selection of commercials. The total Ford area covered 33 acres and the growth of the factory increased more than 200 per cent in the decade between 1956 and 1966. By 1967, it had about 1,000 employees assembling cars and commercial vehicles for use throughout the Republic.

When the Cork plant came to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary in 1967, it was a working celebration. Tom Brennan, who had taken over as Managing Director from John O’Neill in 1959, had persuaded Ford’s European Management to invest £2m in Cork. He believed this was necessary in order to bring car production up to the very highest standards prevailing in Europe. Tom Brennan had first entered the gates of the Ford plant in May 1922, when he was 16 years of age. In his first ten years he worked in various departments in Cork and was transferred to the works in Dagenham in 1932. His top appointment while in England was as Area Sales Manager. He rejoined the firm in Cork in 1955 as General Sales Manager and became Managing Director.

The man Tom Brennan chose to implement the expansion was a fellow Corkman, Paddy Hayes, who, some years later, was to succeed him as Managing Director of Ford of Ireland. The £2m was spent on re-building, re-equipping and modernising the assembly plant, which became not only the largest factory of its kind but also the most modern. Half a million pounds was invested in an ultra modern body-finishing department, with Europe’s largest ‘slipper-dip’ immersion under-coating tank guaranteeing a high-quality base for final paint coatings. The remainder of the assembly plant was completely re-organised, re-equipped and re-housed in new light-alloy, unitary construction buildings covering an area of over 117,000 square feet. This meant two separate final-assembly lines, one for heavy commercial vehicles and the second and major unit for passenger and light commercial vehicles. Incorporated in the new facilities was a parts-and-accessories building holding millions of parts, representing a stock of over 23,000 separate items. The factory extensions virtually reversed the plant orientation since the previous wharf-side entrance was closed and all traffic now entered by Centre Park Road- known locally as Ford’s Road.

The official opening ceremony of the new buildings took place on 11 October 1967. The Taoiseach Jack Lynch, headed the 350 guests at the Marina Plant in the morning and there he cut a tape to symbolise the opening of the modern plant. The plant was blessed by Bishop Lucey. The Taoiseach who was accorded a military guard of honour, and the guests were taken on a short tour of the factory culminating in seeing completed cars driven off the assembly lines. Both were attended to by Thomas Brennan, the Managing Director and Ballincollig born Sir Patrick Hennessy, Chairman of Ford Motor Company, England and Chairman of Henry Ford & Son Ltd. He was educated at Christ Church School in Cork and served in World War I. Joining the new tractor factory in Cork after demobilisation he rose rapidly from his job in the foundry to become production manager and travelled extensively in Europe.

When Fords started in Dagenham Patrick joined them there as Purchase Manager and became General Manager just before the outbreak of the 1939 war. He served on the advisory council of the Ministry of Aircraft Production, and helped in the production of 34,000 RR Merlin engines for the RAF. For his services he was knighted in 1941. When the war ended he joined the board of the Ford Motor Company, became Managing Director in 1948, Deputy Chairman in 1950 and Chairman in April 1956.

To be continued…

 

Caption:

750a. An Taoiseach, Jack Lynch TD cutting the tape with Mr Tom Brennan, Managing Director, and Bishop Lucey on left and Lord Mayor, Pearse Wyse TD on right (source: Cork City Library)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 3 July 2014

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

749a. Albert Quay terminus, Cork City, 1930s

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 3 July 2014

“Technical Memories (Part 81) –An Auld Acquaintance”

 

Whilst Cork Airport was being built to great acclaim in 1960-61 (see last week), other transport routes also came under scrutiny. The Minister for Transport and Power, Erskine Childers, officially opened Cork’s new bus station at Parnell Place on Wednesday 12 October 1961. The building was blessed by Canon Fehily, Parish Priest of SS Peter and Paul’s Church, in the presence of the then Lord Mayor Sean Barrett TD, the architect J R Boyd Barrett and CIE Chairman Dr C S Andrews. The main contractor was P J Hegarty & Sons from Leitrim Street and its Franki piles were installed by the Irish Piling and Construction Company Ltd (Dublin and Cork). The Franki piling system (also called pressure-injected footing) is a method used to drive expanded base cast-in-situ concrete (Franki) piles.

In the course of his address Minister Childers praised CIE’s expansion of its modern road services. He also referred to an end of an era – CIE’s decision to close the railways of West Cork. He said that criticisms of rail closures were often based on sentimentalism and that claims that closure would result in heavy expenditure being placed on the region’s roads were exaggerated. Referring to reports and accounts of CIE for 1959/ 60, he noted that the average number of passengers carried on the West Cork trains was 30 and the average goods train was 45 tons, which were not sustainable to keep the line and its branch lines open.

Well known names were associated with the West Cork lines in times past. There was the famous engineer, Charles Nixon, under whose direction Chetwynd viaduct and the two tunnels on the line (Kilpatrick, near Innishannon and Gogginshill near Ballinhassig) were built. No less eminent was his assistant Joseph Philip Ronayne, who after years of engineering in California, was to become MP for Cork, 1872-1876). He was an Irish language enthusiast years and his home at Rushbrooke was called Rinn Ronain and the first two engines on the Bandon line bore Gaelic titles, Sighe Gaoithe and Rith Tinneagh (Whirlwind and Burning Fire). Noted investors were Major North Ludlow Beamish, the Earl of Bandon, T McCarthy Downing, Sir John Arnott, Lord Carbery, J Warren Payne, Colonel Travers, all of whom in their various times furthered the development of the lines. There were also the great men who staffed the trains – drivers, firemen and guards. The Cork Examiner remarked on the last day of the Cork-Bantry train on Friday 31 March 1961; “Whether it was coaxing a steam engine up the long defile at Gleann, west of Dunmanway, on handling the excited holiday crowds at Baltimore and Courtmacsherry, they did their jobs efficiently and without fuss, in all weathers and under all conditions. Never was there a mere loyal band than the railwaymen of West Cork”.

The Cork Examiner on Saturday 1 April 1961 gave a descriptive sentimental account of the last journey of the West Cork line. A Garda squad car trailed the last train on the West Cork line from Cork to Bantry. They were there to quash any violent protest by local residents served by the line and who were against the closure. On board a squad of uniformed Gardaí also travelled, and at every station the blue uniform was present. However, the media did not record violent demonstrations but sentimental ones. Since the first day in 1849, when the Bandon Railway was opened, this was probably the most unique trip ever made on the 112 old line – and the trip was taken by a strong squad of press reporters and photographers and a gathering of representatives of the Irish Railway Record Society as well as many who were making the sentimental journey.

Hundreds of well-wishers crowded the platform at Albert Quay. Children sought the autographs of the driver Tralee-born Dan Murphy, and the excitement and confusion, which marked the occasion, delayed the start for almost ten minutes. It was just after nine minutes past 6pm when Guard Denis Hannigan waved the green flag and to the double-noted blast of the hooter Dan Murphy eased engine ‘2660-2641’ away from the platform. The Cork Examiner recorded the surrounding fuss; “ Farewell cheers rose, ‘bus rolls’ streamed from the hands of CIE men over the labouring train; the staccato snap of fog signals crushed beneath her wheels, and the mournful wall of locomotive whistles signalled the departure of the last train to West Cork”.

As the train sped through the suburbs the various bridges over-looking the line were thronged. Out then into the country, over the Black Ash bridge, onto the Chetwynd Viaduct, where many a bowl player had been challenged to loft the bridge. Past the picturesque Bandon River through Clonakilty, Desert, Dunmanway, Drimoleague, Aghaville, Durrus Road and journeying onto Bantry. The schedule for the journey was one of continued interruptions by well-wishing local people. Every station was filled to capacity by sightseers, and travellers on this historic occasion and the progress of the train was delayed. On entering Bantry a multitude of fog signals and cheers were heard and as the train pulled out on her solitary lonely trip back to Cork, the hundreds of spectators sang “Should Auld Acquaintance be Forgot”.

To be continued…

 

Caption:

749a. Albert Quay Terminus, Cork City, 1930s, part of West Cork Railway Line (picture: Cork City Library)

Kieran’s Comments, Colliers City Report, Cork City Council Meeting, 23 June 2014

Improve Your Life, Kieran's Council Work, Uncategorized

The Colliers Report is a great plan with some great imagination in it. I think the sense of brain storming in it is something this city needs. Our city is the southern capital and we should accentuate this concept more.

 

A City of Welcomes:

As someone who has been giving walking tours around town for 21 years this summer, we need to develop the city as an experience – it is a city with great charm, pride and heart – one of the aspects that tourists always chat to me about is the charm, heart, feeling welcome and a friendly place, a place you find hard to forget – it’s size means we all have a somewhat good quality of life; in general average commute times are 20 minutes to and from the suburbs – there are traffic hot spots that need to be resolved but not to the extent of other European cities

 

Rebrand as a City of Festivals:

The City centre is significantly losing out to suburban shopping centres; we need to stop this leakage – the city needs to aggressively market itself much more – parking is an issue, upwards rent reviews, rates, dereliction are all problems but so are a wide range of other factors. I always think, we’re not really pulling the marketing of the city across the line –there is need to develop a package/ scheme where citizens want to and need to support the city centre. Even with the city’s 24 festivals – 100 days of festivals per year – some work well and bring masses of people in and others we need to work on and grow. The city needs to rebrand itself as a city of festivals – there is no reason why places like Galway and Dublin are taking much of that kudos as Irish festival capitals if we do as much work and even more in Cork.

2005- ten years on

The city consistently oversees a great quantity and high quality of cultural work – Next year marks ten years on since the European Capital of Culture years. The City needs use this point in time to see how we can market Cork’s culture more on a national and European level.

 

On the Waterfront:

Our waterfront only really becomes animated for four festivals a year – we need more waterfront activities – just compare ourselves to places like Dublin or further afield in Boston, Bristol and Liverpool. I’m not saying to become those places but they’re are ideas out there elsewhere that we can draw on to accentuate on what is already going on and  to showcase perhaps what should be going on in our river and waterfront area

 

We need the National Diaspora Centre:

City does need an international visitor site – this city needs to have the National Diaspora Centre – the city was a major player as a North Atlantic Port City – which we don’t tell the story of enough – the export of goods plus emigration stories are not explored and told enough to the citizen and visitor.

 

On Historic Quarters

We don’t harness our historic quarters enough – Shandon Craft Centre needs to be moved on – my preference is for the Council to work in tandem with the Shandon Area Renewal Association and the local festivals, to turn it into a community building.  In my own ward, Docklands, a quarter of enormous historical wealth, is not mined for its uniquenesses and how it could be used to rebrand the city’s link to the harbour and further afield. The city needs to create more Cork Community Art Links to work within the city and suburbs exploring the senses of places in different area bringing forth the sense of history and culture of what makes Cork different to other cities and why people should live shop and do business here.

 

A Student City:

I think as a city we don’t make enough of the 35,000 students we have here; The city has rightly berated some for their anti-social behaviour but we don’t accentuate enough the positives of how much of a student city we are and how much they contribute to our economy – from accommodation to food to night life. A city that looks after its young, its families and senior citizens are very attractive qualities.