McCarthy calls for EU Investment Strategy

International, Kieran's Council Work, Uncategorized

Clllr Kieran McCarthy, Plenary of the EU Committee of the Regions, July 2015

   Douglas Road Cork City Councillor Cllr Kieran McCarthy participated in the lively debate on innovation and enterprise in the recent July EU Committee of the Regions plenary in Brussels. Commissioner Carlos Moedas addressed the 350-member committee on the importance of research and development, Cohesion Policy and EU funding. His commission will provide funding to supporting SMEs, R&D and innovation, education, the low carbon economy, the environment, and developing infrastructure connecting EU citizens.

Cllr McCarthy addressing Commissioner Moedas called for each area of investment to be based on a well-defined strategy. “Investment in the field of R&D and innovation needs to be framed within a process of developing a vision and setting strategic priorities. Projects should follow strategies and not the other way around“. Cllr McCarthy also called for more emphasis to be put on soft forms of support, on supporting market-driven research and cooperation with businesses. He noted; “There is a risk of business-as-usual support for SMEs, instead of support being tailored to their needs and growth potential to ensure a more sustainable long term result“.

   The EU’s Committee of the Regions is the EU’s assembly of regional and local representatives from all 28 Member States. Its mission is to involve regional and local authorities in the EU’s decision-making process and to inform them about EU policies. The European Parliament, the Council and the European Commission consult the Committee in policy areas affecting regions and cities. There are 9 Irish members in the Committee of the Regions of which Cllr McCarthy is one.

Caption: Cllr Kieran McCarthy speaking at the recent EU Committee of the Regions July plenary in the European Parliament, Brussels.

Shandon & Blackpool Historical Walking Tours

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

I have two more summer walking tours coming up – this time the focus is on the Shandon and Blackpool area – Friday evening, 24 July is the Shandon historical walking tour; discover the city’s historical quarter; learn about St Anne’s Church and the development of the butter market and the Shandon Street area; meet at North Gate Bridge, 6.45pm (free, duration: two hours). The second walking tour weaves through Blackpool, Thursday evening 30 July 2015; from Fair Hill to the heart of Blackpool, learn about nineteenth century shambles, schools, convents and industries, meet at the North Mon gates, Gerald Griffin Avenue, 6.45pm (free, duration: two hours).

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 16 July 2015

Cork History, Kieran's Council Work, Uncategorized

801a. Mary Harris aka Mother Jones

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent,  16 July 2015

Celebrating a Unique Cork Rebel!

 

     This year coincides with the fourth Mother Jones festival and summer school in Shandon and it takes place from Wednesday 29 July until Saturday 1 August (1 August is now known as Mother Jones’ Day in Cork). Dedicated to her memory and to inspirational people everywhere who press for social justice, the festival will comprise over 30 events such as lectures, films, music, singing, poetry, a garden party, several concerts and a play at venues such as The Firkin Crane and the Maldron Hotel. Speakers in 2015 include, Chris Mullin, Fr Peter McVerry, Theo Dorgan, Alannah Hopkin, Leo Keohane, Ann Matthews, Dave Hopper and many more. Music will be provided by Jimmy Crowley, Two Time Polka Richard T Cooke and the Rokk Choir.

    Mary Harris was born in Cork in 1837 and was baptised by Fr John O’Mahony in the Cathedral of SS Mary’s & Anne on 1 August of that year. As with thousands of other children on Cork’s north side, she was baptised in the 200 year old baptismal font which is still positioned at the entrance to the North Chapel. Her parents were Ellen Cotter, a native of Inchigeela and Richard Harris from Cork city.

    Mary had two brothers, Richard born in 1835 in Inchigeela, and William in 1846, her sisters were Catherine born in 1840, and Ellen in 1845. William later became Dean of St Catherine’s in Toronto and was a noted Catholic author and scholar. The Harris family lived through the Great Famine, which claimed thousands of lives in the slums of Cork City. They then survived the horrors of the coffin ships when the family emigrated to Toronto in the early 1850s.

   By 1860, Mary had qualified as a teacher and was teaching in Monroe, Michigan. She later worked as a dressmaker and married George Jones, an iron moulder, and who was a member of the International Iron Moulders Union. They settled in Winchester Street in Memphis, Tennessee. George and Mary had four children, Catherine in 1862, Elizabeth in 1863, Terence in 1865 and Mary in 1867. After living through the American Civil War, tragedy struck the Harris family and George and his young family was wiped out by the yellow fever epidemic in 1867 in Memphis. Mary survived this appalling horror.

   Mary went to Chicago where she resumed her dressmaking, established a little business. Again disaster struck when on 9 October 1871 the great fire of Chicago destroyed her premises. Little is known of Mary for a decade or more however it seems that she became very active in the growing Labour movement which was then organising for fair pay and decent working conditions in the factories, mills and mines of a rapidly industrialising North America. It was a time of huge labour ferment with rail strikes in 1877 and the 1886 Haymarket incident in Chicago. Mary’s political and social consciousness led her to support the underdog in society and she got involved into active union activity.

   In 1890, the United Mine Workers union was formed; many of the tough union organisers were Irish and Mary too became an organiser. She was nearly sixty years old. As a woman operating in a rough male world of miners and mining pits, she was utterly fearless. She was outspoken and she cut an inspirational figure, being immaculately dressed in her long black dress, bonnet and carrying a handbag amidst the industrial debris of coal pits.

   She witnessed the terrible conditions under which thousands of men, women and young children worked. In this decade she helped miners to demand better pay and conditions in Alabama, West Virginia, Colorado and Pennsylvania. She had become known as “Mother Jones” to countless thousands of workers. In 1903, Mother Jones led the March of the Mill Children from Pennsylvania to New York, in which highlighted the exploitation of young children in the mines and factories in America. By then she had become known as “the most dangerous woman in America”. She also organised women workers and she became one of the most famous women in America being front page news for decades as a result of her union activities.

   In 1905 Mary was the only woman at the inaugural meeting of the Industrial Workers of the World (Wobblies). She became a confident of James Connolly and was arrested and jailed many times in her quest across America for justice for workers. Her cry of “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living” has resonated through the decades. Mother Jones was now in her seventies and remained active in the face of injustice. When she passed away at the age of ninety three in 1930, tens of thousands attended her funeral. Over 50,000 people attended the dedication of her grave memorial on 11 October 1936 at Mount Olive in Illinois.

   A Cork Mother Jones Committee unveiled a monument to Mother Jones in 2012, near the famous Bells of Shandon and organised a festival in her honour. Full details of the festival and summer school can be seen at www.motherjonescork.com or phone 0863196063. My thanks to the festival co-ordinator Ger O’Mahony and the festival committee for the information above.

 Captions:

 801a. Mary Harris/ Mother Jones (source: Robert Shetterly)

 801b. Mother Jones plaque Shandon, unveiled in 2012

Kieran’s Question to the City Manager/ CE and Motions, Cork City Council Meeting, 13 June 2015

Kieran's Council Work, Uncategorized

 Question to the CE/ Manager:

 To ask the CE for an update on the Blackrock regeneration pier project? (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)

 

Motions:

The McCarthy Monument on Blackrock Road is in a terrible condition with small branches growing out of it. Its environs are also in poor unkept state and the boundary walls are loose and need to be stabilised. Enforcement of the keeping of this monument and its surroundings seems to have failed. A plan with the landowners for this site needs to be created before the monument falls to further disrepair (Cllr Kieran McCarthy).

 That the Minister of Health intervene in staffing the unopened adult CF ward in the Cork University Hospital. It is a shame that despite the fact that money for the ward was fundraised, to create the ward, that it now remains closed (Cllr Kieran McCarthy).

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 9 July 2015

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

800a. Altar stone, Gougane Barra, insitu before it was stolen

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 9 July 2015

The Altar Stone of Gougane Barra

 

     I have spent many years admiring the old altar at Gougane Barra. I sat by it for many hours doing survey work four years ago. I interviewed the bones of 100 people who were honest and candid in what they experienced at the site, drawing on their memories and experiences. I often admired the person who picked up a pebble, paused, then carved a cross into the hard limestone slab, and then paused again in silent reflection, almost nodding to the power of the stone. The marks always looked fresh – always looked like a kind of ongoing process – always on top of the last marking – it was an unfinished beautiful artwork –there was no instruction booklet to it but the gut of almost each visitor to the pilgrimage island informed them to mark it with a cross.

   The stone’s recent stealing has disillusioned me. Who could take such a historic object? Who would intentionally in the dead of night (probably) conduct an operation to remove it from Gougane Barra. It’s not just because of its date that grieves me, the potential of being three hundred years – indeed it’s date of origin can be disputed – the actual story of the stone is muted for the most part by the haze of history – it reputedly belonged to an old stone walled church and eight celled pilgrimage complex and lodgings created by a Fr Denis O’Mahony in the early days of the penal laws in the early 1700s and all dedicated to continue the myth and legacy of Cork’s saint Finbarre. Fr O’Mahony countered the penal laws in Ireland through building a pilgrimage site, thus defying the laws himself. The various acts of remembering were widened and reconstructed over several decades by Cork clerics and antiquarians. The erection of an inscribed stone c.1824, at the base of the front of the pilgrimage cell structure sets and lists the ritual via a rounds system of prayers to be completed around the pilgrimage island – a pathway around the small island, linking ideas and thoughts together about the different values offered by the place. Prayers at the old altar was parts of the rounds set.

    In particular I grieve for all those human marks on the stone – the chess board like cross carvings, centimetres deep into the stone. I grieve for all those people who took the time to mark their presence on the island – to carve their voices and as such a piece of their soul, memories and experiences as such into the stone. Whether you’re Christian minded or not, the marking of the stone for me at any rate marked and remembered many concepts – standing out is the celebration of human life, that we all travel the road of life together with all its ups and downs, opportunities and crosses we bear.

     The process of history has a terrible habit of distilling down the voices of the many, in favour of one voice. Cork history is riddled with questions with unknown answers, about the region’s historic development, the story of its people, and the role of Cork identity in regional and national stories. This week’s column is number 800, a long process of weekly writing since autumn 1999 and one which I continue to enjoy the journey and process of. One aspect arising from my research continues to emerge. There are the voices of thousands and thousands of people who lived their life in Cork and whose stories have never been recounted – then there are the stories collected by countless local historians that will never see the light of day. This stone represents a beacon or a lighthouse for the silent voices of the many who came to Gougane Barra in search of many things about themselves – to learn something about themselves and others.

    I can be honest and say that through a recent thesis using Gougane Barra as a case study, for two years, I fell out of love with the place. Like a jilted lover, I learned about what made Gougane Barra and its beauty tick, the raison d’etre behind each monument in the area. I opened its rattle and saw how much of Gougane Barra’s surface scenery in terms of its monuments and trees are all human-made, how all have a political purpose and meaning of sorts. But putting the rattle back together, I began to appreciate how all the parts work with other – how clever and thoughtful the makers were, the early eighteenth century pilgrimage cells, the early twentieth century oratory, the national park, the hotel, the old rounds system- that all have a role to play in invigorating the experience of people and vice versa, the experience of people invigorate these latter sites with a voice and continued and renewed vigour and interest.

    The stone helped in the experience of place in Gougane Barra – aided in the production of a sense of place, the appropriation, re-appropriation, sensing of the place, the acknowledgment and imagination of the place, the yearning for, contestation and identification of the place and much more. There is so much to the old and beautiful altar stone. If anyone knows where it is, please report it to Macroom Garda Station, 026 20590. It is a matter of all the above thoughts and much more – it is a valued part of our cultural heritage.

 

Captions:

800a. Altar stone, Gougane Barra, insitu before it was stolen (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

800b. Gougane Barra in late spring (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

800b. Gougane Barra in late Spring (picture Kieran McCarthy)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 2 July 2015

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

799a. St Marie’s of the Isle and Elizabeth Fort from A description of the Cittie of Cork

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent,  2 July 2015

Cork Harbour Memories (Part 28) 

The Dominicans in Early Cork

 

     Following on from a previous article, by 1721 it is detailed that the Dominican order had moved from St Marie’s of the Isle to Shandon to establish a new church site. By the 1830s they were campaigning and fundraising for the beautiful St Mary’s Dominican Church, Pope’s Quay. It is unfortunate that due to progress, nearly all that remains of the Dominican Abbey has been destroyed. However, in recent years, much archaeological work has been done on the site of the Dominican Abbey, now Crosses Green Apartments. In 1988, test trenches outside the environs of the abbey revealed wattle fencing of thirteenth century in date. This is the earliest evidence, (apart from the Dominicans), of people living outside the walled town on the adjacent marshy islands. In the early 1990s, an archaeological survey of the site revealed information that at least five carved stones belonging to a window and cloister area or the central walking area from the abbey were located at a private residence on Boreenmanna Road in the city.

     It is also believed that the entrance doorway from the Dominican Church formed the entrance to the previous St Finbarre’s Cathedral before the cathedral itself was rebuilt in the 1860s. It is said that it is now built into the boundary wall of the present day St Finbarre’s Cathedral, known as the Dean’s Door.

    The most revealing excavation of the site though occurred in 1993 during the placing of foundations for the Crosses Green Apartment Complex. It was during this construction that large sections of the lower portions of the church, cloister and other domestic buildings were discovered under the watchful eye at the time of former City Archaeologist, Maurice Hurley and Cathy Sheehan (1995, see local studies in the City Library for the insightful excavation report).

    In a a-typical Dominican Abbey, the main focus of the abbey was a church which had a central tower dividing the altar from the public area. The church was at least one storey high. Connected to the church area were various religious and domestic rooms. These included a sacristy, a reading room or chapter room, a kitchen, a dining area or refectory, cellars and dormitories. These rooms would have also encompassed a central walking area or cloister area. In the case of the Dominican Abbey, excavations in 1993 revealed the part of the lower bases of the church, part of the cloister area and some associated domestic buildings. There was also evidence for two distinct phases of construction. The first phase was associated with the construction of the initial abbey while the second phase was associated with several modifications to the physical form of the abbey itself.

   The initial church was found to be rectangular in plan. It was noted in phase two that a tower was added in the fifteenth century along with an extra aisle, after the southern wall of the church was extended. There was no evidence for a formal floor in phase 1 but it is argued through the presence of gritty lime mortar that a tiled surface existed in phase two. The lime mortar would have held the tiles in place. In the case of the cloister area or the claustral range, the excavations revealed evidence of burning of vegetation before the foundation trenches were laid. What is interesting is that the foundation of the wall here was built on wooden planks and in one section, vertically driven planks into the ground could be seen which prevented the wall built on it from subsiding. The walkway or ambulatories around the cloister was seemed to narrow in width when modifications (phase two) occurred in the fifteenth century.

    Regarding the domestic buildings, a small room was found along with the refectory or the dining area. Within the refectory, evidence for stone benches and a well were discovered along with a border of stones which would have been used as foot pace or rests. During the extension phase or phase two in the fifteenth century, the excavations revealed evidence that the refectory was increased in size and certain walls were made thicker in order to strengthen them.  

     The excavations also revealed that most of the walls were limestone in nature and were primarily dressed or smoothened on their outer faces. Nevertheless, there were pieces found that were sculptured in essence that were used in the ornate surrounds of a window or door jambs. What is interesting is that the early architectural stones at Crosses Green were from Somerset in England. Known as Dundry stone, this stone was imported in substantial amounts to Ireland during the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, mainly because it was easy to transport this stone from England by sea rather than transport stone in Ireland by land. Many Anglo-Norman port towns imported this stone to be used in various architectural features. Dundry stone was high quality, durable, easily carved and when fresh gave an attractive yellow colour. In the case of the Dominican Abbey, during the extension phase or phase two, there was a changeover to more hardened limestone. The reason is unknown but it could have been to continue and re-highlight to the local community their commitment in serving and working with it.

 To be continued…

 

Captions:

 799a. St Marie’s of the Isle and Elizabeth Fort from A description of the Cittie of Cork/ Plan of Cork, circa 1602 by George Carew (source: Hardiman Atlas, Library of Trinity College Dublin)

799b. St Mary’s Dominican Church, Pope’s Quay (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

799b. St Mary’s Dominican Church, Pope’s Quay

Kieran McCarthy, PhD in Geography

Arts, Cork History, Improve Your Life, International, Landscapes, Uncategorized

 

Cllr Kieran McCarthy receiving his PhD in arts and geography, National University of Ireland, Cork, June 2015

A River of Memory:

Landscape, Narrative, and Identity in the Lee Valley,

Co. Cork, Ireland

 

Kieran McCarthy, B.A., M.Phil.

Department of Geography, National University of Ireland, Cork

Thesis submitted to the National University of Ireland for the degree of PhD.

 

Abstract:

   In moments of rapid social changes, as has been witnessed in Ireland in the last decade, the conditions through which people engage with their localities though memory, individually and collectively, remains an important cultural issue with key implications for questions of heritage, preservation and civic identity. In recent decades, cultural geographers have argued that landscape is more than just a view or a static text of something symbolic. The emphasis seems to be on landscape as a dynamic cultural process – an ever-evolving process being constructed and re-constructed. Hence, landscape seems to be a highly complex term that carries many different meanings. Material, form, relationships or actions have different meanings in different settings.

   Drawing upon recent and continuing scholarly debates in cultural landscapes and collective memory, this thesis sets out to examine the generation of collective memory and how it is employed as a cultural tool in the production of memory in the landscape. More specifically, the research considers the relationships between landscape and memory, investigating the ways in which places are produced, appropriated, experienced, sensed, acknowledged, imagined, yearned for, appropriated, re-appropriated, contested and identified with. A polyvocal-bricoleur approach aims to get below the surface of a cultural landscape, inject historical research and temporal depth into cultural landscape studies and instil a genuine sense of inclusivity of a wide variety of voices (role of monuments and rituals and voices of people) from the past and present.

    The polyvocal-bricoleur approach inspires a mixed method methodology approach to fieldsites through archival research, fieldwork and filmed interviews. Using a mixture of mini-vignettes of place narratives in the River Lee valley in the south of Ireland, the thesis explores a number of questions on the fluid nature of narrative in representing the story and role of the landscape in memory-making. The case studies in the Lee Valley are harnessed to investigate the role of the above questions/ themes/ debates in the act of memory making at sites ranging from an Irish War of Independence memorial to the River Lee’s hydroelectric scheme to the valley’s key religious pilgrimage site.

    The thesis investigates the idea that that the process of landscape extends not only across space but also across time – that the concept of historical continuity and the individual and collective human engagement and experience of this continuity are central to the processes of remembering on the landscape. In addition the thesis debates the idea that the production of landscape is conditioned by several social frames of memory – that individuals remember according to several social frames that give emphasis to different aspects of the reality of human experience. The thesis also reflects on how the process of landscape is represented by those who re-produce its narratives in various media.

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 25 June 2015, Historical Walking Tours

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

798a. Blackrock Castle, c.1900

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 25 June 2015

Summer Historical Walking Tours

 

  Summer is upon us, time to get out about and explore the city. Check out the historical walking tours below I have on over the next week.

Saturday afternoon, 27 June 2015, 12noon, Historical Walking Tour of St Finbarr’s Hospital, Meet at gate, Douglas Road, in association with the Friends of St Finbarr’s, (free, duration: 1 ½ hours).

   This is an opportunity to explore the early story of the hospital and its workhouse past as well as some local history of the area. It is also an opportunity to share your own memories and knowledge. The site played a key role in the life of the city from 1841 onwards. During December 1841, a new workhouse opened in the Douglas Road to replace an older structure known as the House of Industry in Blackpool. The workhouses built at that time had a distinctive uniformity in terms of their peripheral location, their regular block like appearance, together with their enclosed plan; once inside families became broken up – men from women, boys from girls. Initially, the Douglas Road complex had 3,000 inmates due mainly to the desperate employment situation. In addition, a large number of non-residents were provided with a breakfast.

 Wednesday evening, 1 July 2015, 6.45pm, Historical Walking Tour of Blackrock, Meet at Blackrock Castle (free, duration: 2 hours).

   The original Blackrock fort or castle was built in 1582 by the citizens of Cork to safeguard ships against pirates who would come into the harbour and steal away the vessels entering the harbour. In 1604 Charles Blount Lord Deputy of Ireland defended himself against the citizens of Cork who were rebelling against King James I of England. Over a century later in 1722, the old tower was destroyed by fire and a new one built by the citizens. Apart from functioning as a type of lighthouse, Admiralty Courts were held at Blackrock Castle to legislate over the fishing rights of the citizens. Under various charters granted many centuries ago, the Mayor of Cork enjoyed Admiralty jurisdiction to the mouth of Cork harbour. The history of fishing and fishermen in Blackrock at least dates back to the early 1600s and perhaps is regrettably one of the histories unrecorded in Blackrock. In 1911, 64 fisherman ranging in age from 14 to 70 years of age are listed in the census as living in Blackrock village. At least 40 are heads of households and had their own dwellings. Even more interesting was that this community was lodged in a sense in a middle class culture, a series of big houses complete with estate network and management. Indeed, Blackrock had its own pier, bathing houses, boating club, schools, suburban railway line, and Protestant and Catholic churches.

 Thursday evening, 2 July 2015, 6.45pm, Historical Walking Tour of Ballintemple, Meet in Ballintemple graveyard, Templehill (free, duration: 2 hours).

   Urban legend and writers such as Samuel Lewis in 1837 describe how the Knight’s Templar had a church here, the first parish church of Blackrock: “At the village of Ballintemple, situated on this peninsula, the Knights Templars erected a large and handsome church in 1392, which, after the dissolution of that order, was granted, with its possessions, to Gill abbey. At what period it fell into decay is uncertain; the burial ground is still used”. The graveyard is impressive in its collection of eighteenth century and nineteenth century headstones. It has a series of low uninscribed grave markers in its south east corner. There are also many inscribed headstones with smiling faces with one inscribed with ‘Remember Death’. The graveyard remains an undiscovered corner of the city with much of its family histories unresearched and unpublished.

  The earliest references to the Knight’s Templar church are shrouded in myth in Ballintemple. Perhaps all is known a rough date of dissolution. Michael J Carroll’s book “The Knights Templar and Ireland” describes some of their background in Europe and in Ireland. The Knights Templars or The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon were one of the most controversial organisations in medieval European history. Formed in the early twelfth century in obscure circumstances they were shrouded in secrecy for their 190 year history. Their initial aim was to break with traditional non violent ethos of religious orders and take up arms to protect the recently captured city of Jerusalem. They also vowed to protect Pilgrims visiting holy sites in the Middle East. They became famous initially due to their military exploits but during the crusades but in thirteenth century they gained more fame and in some cases notoriety for creating a medieval Banking empire.

 

Friday evening, 3 July 2015, 6.45pm, Historical Walking Tour of Docklands, Meet at Kennedy Park, Victoria Road (free, duration: 2 hours).

   Much of the story of Cork’s modern development is represented here. The history of the port, transport, technology, modern architecture, agriculture, sport, the urban edge with the river all provide an exciting cultural debate in teasing out how Cork as a place came into being. The origin of the current Docklands is a product of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century.

 

Captions:

797a. Blackrock Castle, c.1900 (source: Cork Museum)

797b. Blackrock Castle, present day (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

798b. Blackock Castle, Present Day