Thanks Lord Mayor,
There is a great depth across the activities of the various directorates of the Council. I think all our Directors bring a level of openness, listening and hard work ethic, which is warranted and very welcome in this challenging times.
Despite the cuts, there is still much work being pursued as well as many opportunities being mined.
COVID may have drawn us into a worrying time about finances but has clearly showed the resilience of this organisation.
The turning around of the various government financial stimuli by this organisation in very short time frames has been impressive. Certainly 12 months ago no one was predicting aspects such as the pedestrianisation of 17 streets and urban spaces and the strong ramping up of work on walking and cycling in our city.
We must not let that momentum on improving the urban fabric and environment slow down but keep pressure on, and keep the collaborations with traders and citizens effective and positive.
Perhaps the only certainly that goes with next year is that there will undoubtedly be further financial challenges– but it is important that we advance on preparing part 8s, whether it is for housing or roads, and keep sending such plans to either government or the NTA for approval respectively.
We have three 3 government cabinet Ministers from Cork – and I strongly think that we need a Microsoft Teams meeting with Minister McGrath in DPER to run over this Council’s ambitions in the short term.
What I learned recently from intervening with Minister Ryan on his Teams meeting with us is that we should not assume as a Council that all of the Cabinet are au fait with the Council’s work.
Where the meeting with Minister Ryan was very positive and very open, I was still not content to hear the narrative of bungling Cork in with Galway, Waterford and Limerick as just a mere regional city instead of the country’s second city.
I would like to see a meeting with Minister McGrath set up as soon as possible and that we liase with Minster Ryan early in the new year.
It is important opportunities are seized to realise the stepping stones on the way to achieving our ambitions.
Certainly, if you empower a local authority such as Cork City Council, it will deliver in spades.
Thanks.
Press Release:
Further calls from Independent Cllr Kieran McCarthy to compulsory purchase order the derelict Lakeland’s Bar site on Avenue De Rennes and its carpark have been rejected on the grounds of cost by property officials in City Hall at the recent South East Local Area Meeting. Cllr McCarthy noted; “this site is in a very poor condition and is an eyesore in the area; it is also the key in unlocking the regeneration of the area around it”.
“Cork City Council have acknowledged the poor condition of the Lakelands Bar site and the need for the removal of dereliction and to fill the giant potholes. To this end, a number of solutions have being considered by the Council in particular a full mapping of the landowners on this part of Avenue De Rennes. What has been revealed is a complex network of over a dozen owners of property in a small area. Such a network complicates the short term renewal of this part of Avenue de Rennes. What has become very apparent is the area needs a substantial packet of investment, probably from central government, so that the legal complexities can be began to unpicked, legal titles with liquidated owners gathered, and then new plans drawn up”.
“The look of the Lakelands bar building on the outside is atrocious. The adjacent car park also remains in limbo and is in dire need of resurfacing. The local people of Mahon deserve better than what is currently there. Such conditions completely jar against the very positive work of Mahon Community Centre and the Mahon Community Development Project and the community work of the local schools. On a positive note, the moving ahead of considering a public library in the adjacent secondary school is very welcome news”, concluded Cllr McCarthy.
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,
Cork Independent, 12 November 2020
Remembering 1920: Arise Lord Mayor O’Callaghan
On 4 November 1920, a large public crowd attended at City Hall’s Council Chamber. They were present to witness the special meeting of the Council of Cork Corporation, which was being held with the purpose of electing a successor to Lord Mayor Terence MacSwiney. Councillor Donal Óg O’Callaghan, who acted in his capacity of Deputy Lord Mayor since the arrest of Terence, was unanimously elected to the vacancy.
On the night of Donal’s election, with 34 members of the 56 councilors present due to the ongoing war of Independence, Alderman Professor Stockley was moved to the chair. Fr Dominic occupied a seat alongside the Mayoral chair. On the motion of Cllr Micheál O’Cuill seconded by Alderman Edmond Coughlan, both of whom spoke in Irish, Donal was unanimously elected to the position of Lord Mayor. Some months previously on 10 March 1920 Sinn Féin‘s Donal Óg O’Callaghan emerged as a victor in the first bye-election after the January 1920 local elections for Cork Corporation. Donal was a fluent Irish speaker and was the youngest representative to have ever held the high and important office. He also occupied the Chairmanship of the Cork County Council.
Donal, who was received with applause, then signed his declaration of office and was invested with the Mayoral chain. First speaking in Irish and afterwards in English the new Lord Mayor spoke about his predecessors and the ongoing war with the British Government, and the Republican position of not backing down in their aspirations for Independence; “Our position was that one after another two Republicans who held thechair had been murdered by the British government. That same murder gang, who called themselves a Government, while the remains of Terence MacSwiney still lay over the ground, and while it was still possible for that gang to heap insult on the remains did so, and even then the same gang spread forth its tentacle to seize the next man. However, my position was, and we are are setting it forth this night as clearly and distinctly and glaringly as it could be possibly set forth, that we absolutely refuse to be tyrannised…our demand in the country has been made, and we are not going to flinch no matter what the result or cost might be”.
Following the Lord Mayor’s speech Alderman Tadgh Barry raised the execution of 18-year-old Kevin Barry from Dublin on 1 November 1920, who became the first Republican to be executed since 1916. Kevin Barry was an IRA section Commander who partook in various raids around Dublin city. On 20 September 1920, he participated in a raid where a street gun battle ensued, and three British soldiers were killed. Hiding under a tree Kevin was discovered and brought to Mountjoy Prison, where he refused to reveal the identity of his comrades. New legislation in 1920 had given military authorities greater powers to quell increasing IRA activity. Barry had privately admitted killing one soldier in an ambush and was tried as a soldier under the legislation. He was hanged for his crime. There was vast public outrage at the execution of a young man.
Alderman Tadgh Barry proposed a resolution: “That we the Corporation of Cork place on record our condemnation of the latest abominable crime, perpetrated by the British Government in Ireland in the murder, by hanging of young Kevin Barry, and offer our respectful sympathy to his patriot mother in her sorrow, and congratulations on her support of his refusal to purchase his life by betraying his comrades to his torturer?”. Tadgh’s motion was forwarded to the next meeting of the Council.
However, the deaths of young IRA volunteers continued. On 10 November 1920, 22-year-old Christy Lucey was killed at Túirín Dubh, Ballingeary, He took an active part in his local IRA company and on one evening he slept in the rough on a hillside. As descended the hillside the following morning, Christy was cornered by a group of Auxiliaries of C Company from Macroom and shot dead as he attempted to escape. The Auxiliary who shot him was himself soon executed by the IRA. When the Black and Tan individual returned to Macroom that evening, he entered the Market Bar and began to celebrate but was fatally shot.
Formerly a resident of Pembroke Street in Cork City, Christy was a former member of B Company of the First Battalion (Cork No. 1 Brigade) in Cork city. He was given an imposing funeral in the city and was buried in the Republican Plot in St Finbarr’s Cemetery. Such an event attracted much public interest including intimidating attention from British military forces in Cork city. As the funeral cortege commenced, an armoured car, in convoy with two lorries full of armed soldiers, arrived near the church. The officer in charge served a notice on Rev. J F Murphy, which denoted that only one hundred people would be allowed to take part in the cortege. As the cortege left the South Chapel and emerged into George’s Quay, an armoured car took up a position in the procession immediately before the carriages of the mourners. The coffin was draped in the republican colours and was carried on the shoulders of 4 Volunteers. On route to the cemetery, the paths along the route were filled with spectators.
A day after Christopher Lucey’s murder on 11 November 1920, Lord Mayor O’Callaghan and Father O’Leary, CC, of the South Chapel, received messages from Arthur Griffith, declaring that the Cork Hunger strike was to be ceased at Cork Gaol. To Griffith the prisoners had “sufficiently proved their devotion and fidelity, and that they should now, as they were prepared to die for Ireland, prepare again to live for her”. A small quantity of nourishment has been taken by the hunger strikers and it was hoped that they would recover.
A new book on Lord Mayor Donal Óg O’Callaghan’s life and times by UCC’s Dr Aodh Quinlivan and entitled Forgotten Lord Mayor, Donal Óg O’Callaghan, 1920-1924, will be published by Cork City Council this month.
Captions:
1074a. Lord Mayor of Cork Cllr Donal Óg O’Callaghan 1920 (picture: Cork City Museum).
1074b. Christopher Lucey as a Cork Fianna member in 1916 (picture: Cork City Library).
10 November 2020, “The motion was met with some resistance. Independent councillor Kieran McCarthy told the meeting he couldn’t support it. I just couldn’t support four male statues on Pana,” he said. I just think that the female context is completely forgotten from that time, the Cumann na mBan and all these other elements. There are busts of Mac Curtain, MacSwiney and Collins around the city, and there are places and streets named after them, he added”. Plan for statues of revolutionary figures in Cork vetoed for not including any women, https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/munster/arid-40079303.html
9 November 2020, Independent councillor Kieran McCarthy said it was welcome that the report “reflected upon the enthusiasm expressed in submissions and the issues raised by the submissions”. “Funding now needs to be secured for this Part 8 to progress past this report,” he continued, City Hall gives green light for new pedestrian access to Cork’s Tramore Valley Park, https://www.echolive.ie/corknews/City-Hall-gives-green-light-for-new-pedestrian-access-to-Corks-Tramore-Valley-Park-6b782f19-928d-4872-8f1b-e25cc230fa64-ds
Kieran’s Cork City Council Speech, 9 November 2020:
This part 8 is another very important addition to the story of Tramore Valley Park. I am happy that the Park 8 report has reflected upon the enthusiasm expressed in submissions and the issues raised by the submissions.
It is very important that Half-Moon Lane does not become an additional car park for the Park but a value added pedestrian and cycling access point. Funding now needs to be secured for this part 8 report to progress past this report.
Tramore park is just in its first phase of development and this public consultation on a Half Moon Lane opening is about ensuring that family, community and park life all remains at the heart of the southern suburbs.
Phases two and three of the park, such as a bridge crossing from Grange, are the next elements to chase now for the future and to engage the public on their perspectives.
It is important to acknowledge at public meetings such as this how far the site has come – Over the ten years, the old landfill site of what is now Tramore Valley Park has undergone a €40m decontamination and remediation process – part of which saw the site capped and landscaped, internal roads and walkways constructed, new sports pitches put down, a BMX track developed, and a large multi-use event space created”.
During the last few months in particular Tramore Valley Park was a second home to many people. Great credit is due to the park wardens onsite who are always friendly, as are the recycling staff. Tramore Valley Park has etched itself a jewel in the growing necklace of parks in the city, which are highly significant to the mental and physical health of citizens.
Question to CE:
To ask the CE for the most recent update on progress associated with the re-opening of Daly’s Bridge? (Cllr Kieran McCarthy).
Motions:
That info gathered from the consultation on the Marina’s permanent pedestrianisation be presented to the South East Local Area Committee (Cllr Kieran McCarthy).
In light of ongoing work on Penrose Quay, that the unfinished Cork Main Drainage infrastructure feature upon the quay be finished (Cllr Kieran McCarthy).
Arising from the difficulties with some older buildings within the old medieval core, that a plan be put in place that every single building be inspected from ground to roof on South and North Main Streets, and on Washington Street – and the data be collated and presented to the Planning SPC (Cllr Kieran McCarthy).
That Cork City Council calls upon central government to ensure that local authorities are allocated part funding from the REACT-EU fund or Recovery Assistance for Cohesion and the Territories of Europe Fund (Cllr Kieran McCarthy). This will enable local authorities such as Cork City Council to keep carrying out their work in job creation and in the green and digital transition (Cllr Kieran McCarthy).
Great to see the paths re-opened this week through the woods; I spoke with An Coillte officials on site this morning who are all ready to replant the harvested area with Oak and Beech saplings in January.
