For the forthcoming Lifelong Learning Festival Week, Douglas Road Cllr Kieran McCarthy will give a talk on some of the histories of West Cork through old postcards at the meeting room of the Church of the Real Presence, Curaheen on Wednesday 13 April, 10.30am. Based on his book, West Cork Through Time, Cllr McCarthy noted: “The talk focuses on in selective detail postcards from Cork City museum of the region of West Cork from one hundred years ago. It takes the reader from Bandon to Castletownbere through the changing landscapes and seascapes. This region is a striking section of Ireland’s coastline, over 320 kilometres in length, encompassing a raw coastal wilderness with expansive inlets eroded away by the Atlantic Ocean. The old postcards represent many memories of the landscape, sold to visitors and locals a century ago.”.

Cllr McCarthy will also give a talk on Cork and daily life in 1916 in the Cork City and County Archives in Blackpool at 11am on Saturday 16 April (all free, all welcome). It will form part of the half day seminar entitled Cork and the Easter Rising. Kieran is currently working on a book that takes the year 1916 from the point of view that there were multiple conversations to be heard during the year – a kaleidoscope of ideas which provided the context and framework for revolution – everyday life being one – some led Cork citizens to connect with the Republican mantra at the time and others to just maintain existence, survive and struggle with the bleakness of a national and local economy. Cllr McCarthy noted: “Entering the Cork Examiner on 1 January and progressing page by page one discovers key nuggets about the nature of Cork society, the soul of Ireland’s southern capital, the ongoing conversations about maintaining a contemporary status of being one of Ireland‘s distinguished port cities, and all the advantages and problems that run with that”.