Monthly Archives: March 2018

Severe Weather Advice, Cork City Council

PRESS RELEASE – SEVERE WEATHER ADVICE UPDATE
1 March, 2018, 11am
 
  In the context of the ongoing Red Weather Warning Alert, Cork City Council wishes to advise that it has upgraded its Severe Weather Alert to level 3 status and the Council has activated its Crisis Management Team which is meeting on an ongoing basis to monitor developments in relation to the severe weather event. All Cork City  Council offices and facilities are closed today and tomorrow. Only essential Council services will be available during that period.
 
Should you require assistance in the event of an emergency, you may contact the following numbers:
                                                                                                                        Roads or Flooding issues                  1800 28 30 34
Housing Maintenance                       021-4298710
                                                                                                                        Irish Water                                        1850 27 82 78
    The City Council has been in contact with the emergency housing providers again today to ensure that the needs of those who may require assistance are met during this alert. The City Council has highlighted the need for members of the public to look out for elderly or vulnerable neighbours as the severe weather is experienced.
   Cork City Council continues to monitor the risk of Tidal flooding in Cork City. Further to the information released yesterday there still remains a risk of tidal flooding in the following low lying areas such as Morrison’s Quay, Fr. Mathew Quay, Fr. Mathew Street, Union Quay, Trinity Bridge, South Terrace, Lavitts Quay, Kyrls Street, Kyrls Quay, Crosses Green, Sharman Crawford St and Wandesford Quay.
However weather and surge conditions are not predicted to be as severe as originally expected and thus there is a much lower level of risk of flooding along the South Mall, Lapps Quay, McSwiney Quay, Albert Quay, Kennedy Quay, Proby’s Quay, French’s Quay, Lancaster Quay, Sullivan’s Quay and Lower Glanmire Road.
 
    It is expected that the main impact of the tidal flooding will be confined to traffic movement and parking in the lowest lying areas. Cork City Council continues to advise that residents and businesses in these low lying areas would continue to monitor developments and take necessary precautions. A number of road closures and traffic restrictions will be put in place. Any restrictions will be eased as appropriate.
The situation will continue to be monitored and further advice will be issued.

The natural cycle of High Tides for the following days is predicted for the below times: 

Day 
Date 
Morning 
Evening
Thursday
01/03/2018
17:17
Friday
02/03/2018
05:41
18:02
Saturday
03/03/2018
06.26
18:44
Sunday 
04/03/2018
07.06
19.23
Monday  
05/03/2018
07.45
 
Cork City Council do not propose to issue sandbags. However, there is a limited stock of gel-bags available.  These will be available for collection at the Council Depot at Anglesea Terrace at the following times:
 
Day             
Date 
From
Until
Thursday  
01/03/2018
09:30
13.00
 
As availability is limited, Cork City Council reserve the right to ration or refuse issue of bags and all requests may not be fulfilled.
 
Weather conditions are forecasted to deteriorate significantly from around 4pm this afternoon, with severe blizzards forecasted to hit the southern part of the country. All members of the public are strongly urged not to venture out after 4pm until at the very earliest 12 noon tomorrow as conditions are likely to be extremely dangerous.
 
The City Council will provide regular updates as the situation develops further

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 1 March 2018

935a. Advertisement for T Lyons, South Main Street, 1919

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 1 March 2018

Stories from 1918: Tales from Lyons Clothing Factory

 

     The 28 February 1918 coincided with the forty-sixth ordinary general meeting at T Lyons Clothing Factory on South Main street. The directors of the company were present with the chairman Sir Stanley Harrington, J P, presiding. Mr John Kelleher, managing director, was also present.

    The Chairman highlighted that the business over the previous year had exceeded expectations. Sales had soared to three times the increase of the previous year. This was due to placing orders early in the year, which enabled them to supply certain classes of goods at times when most of the traders throughout the country found it difficult. The total profit for the year amounted to £50,225. The staff got either a bonus or an advance in salary, and many of them got both.

    Circa 1799 Thomas Lyons opened a woollen draper’s shop in Tuckey Street. The shop moved to South Main Street in the early 1800s. Thomas was active in local politics, became an Alderman in Cork Corporation and became the first Roman Catholic mayor of Cork since 1688 after the Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act of 1840 reformed the system of local government. He took a dynamic role in the early 1840s in promoting campaigns by Daniel O’Connell’s on the ongoing repeal movement of the Act of Union and Fr Mathew’s Temperance campaign.

    An article in the Cork Examiner on 26 April 1850 describes his funeral cortege of Thomas Lyons through the city to St Joseph’s Cemetery and in particular the vast respect for him. The business establishments on the route of the funeral procession were completely shut up and business suspended. For hours before the procession moved from the residence of Thomas’s house at Sunville, Glanmire, the Upper, Middle, and Lower Roads were thronged by dense masses of people. The steam vessels belonging to the Cork and Dublin companies, with the other vessels in port, has their flags suspended half-mast. The workmen employed in the Lyons factory at Riverstown, wore white hat-bands and scarfs. Assistants at the South Main Street factory attended along the cortege. The orphans turned out (male and female) of the St Patrick’s schools, who were clothed yearly by the charity of the deceased. The boys of the Christian Brothers’ Schools, to the number of several hundreds, also attended – to which institutions Thomas Lyons had always been a generous contributor.

   Lyons was one of three large warehouses in Cork City for selling clothes. Mr William Fitzgibbon established the Queens Old Castle Company in the 1840s (following the site being used as the city’s courthouse before the one on Washington Street was constructed in the 1830s). Messrs. Alexander & Co, of St Patrick Street was inaugurated in the 1850s under the auspices of Sir John Arnott, who was the pioneer in Ireland of what is designated the “Monster Warehouse” system of trading. After some years Sir John Arnott was joined by Mr Alexander Grant, the title being then altered to Arnott & Co, with Sir John as the managing director.

    In 1873 Mr Victor Beare Fitzgibbon of Queen’s Old Castle, Messrs. Alexander Grant and T Lyons, merged the three business into a limited liability company under the title of T Lyons and Co, Limited. The three businesses formed the principal members of the directorate. They established a trade, which in point of magnitude and volume had never before been equalled in the annals of commercial enterprise in the South of Ireland. All three firms though continued their respective operations.

   By 1892, the firm T Lyons and Co had become a major commercial enterprise. Its frontage on South Main Street, was on the western part of the site of the present-day Bishop Lucey Park, where arched windows still survive. A number of illustrations survive of the factory in late nineteenth century street directories. The company worked over an extensive and conveniently arranged block of buildings, which included an immense warehouse having a total floorage area of 200,000 square feet.

    The warehouse was divided into the various departments, the ground floor being utilised for store, packing, and receiving and despatch rooms. The large sized showrooms on the upper floor provided every accommodation for the large stock held. According to Stratten and Stratten’s commercial review in 1892, these included “muslins, silks, velvets, ribbons, woollens, fancy dresses, merinos, grey and white calicoes, flannels and cords, waterproof clothing, blankets, linens, &c., prints, ginghams, shawls and handkerchiefs, shoe findings, ready-made clothing, trimmings, knittings and fingerings, stationery, flowers, bonnets, hats, furs, feathers, vests and pants, shirts and collars, hosiery, umbrellas, gloves, laces and edgings, felt hats, boys’ and men’s caps,’ haberdashery, Dick’s gutta percha boots, leather boots and shoes and materials”.

The manufacturing departments adjoining included the Cork Clothing Factory. This was a large building replete with all the most improved machinery and appliances for the production on a very extensive scale of the highest quality of gents’ and youths’ ready-made clothing. The services of numerous staff of skilled hands were employed – the total force numbering 200 workpeople. Lyons continued their business until March 1966, when the warehouse was sold on South Main Street.

 

Captions:

935a. Advertisement for T Lyons, South Main Street, 1919, from Cork: Its Chamber and Commerce (source: Cork City Library)

935b. Sketch of T Lyons, South Main Street, 1892 from Stratten and Stratten Commercial Review (source: Cork City Library)

935c. Remains of front wall of T Lyons, South Main Street, adjoining Bishop Lucey Park, present day (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

 

935b. Sketch of T Lyons, South Main Street, 1892 from Stratten and Stratten Commercial Directory

 

935c. Remains of front wall of T Lyons, South Main Street, adjoining Bishop Lucey Park