Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 19 March 2015

784a. Page from a project on Innishannon National School history from students of fourth class, Innishannon NS

Kieran’s Our City, Our County Article, 

Cork Independent, 19 March 2015

Heritage Awards for Cork Schools 2015

     This year marks the twelfth year of the Discover Cork: Schools’ Heritage Project, which is co-ordinated by myself. This year’s Project culminates with an award ceremony on Friday 20 March for best projects for city-based schools. The Project is open to schools in Cork City and County – at primary level to the pupils of fourth, fifth and sixth class and at post-primary from first to sixth years. A total of 48 schools in Cork (city and county) took part this year. Circa 1550 students participated in the process and approx 220 projects were submitted on all aspects of Cork’s history.

     The subject of local history for many is spoken about at the dinner table in a sense every day as the lives of past family relatives are recounted. Hence the emphasis in the schools is on the personal engagement with the project, what can the student bring to the interpretation of a topic and vice versa, what’s within the topic that can inspire the student to think about it in a different way? Students are challenged to devise methodologies that provide interesting ways to approach the study of their local history. Submitted projects must be colourful, creative, have personal opinion, imagination and gain publicity. In particular students are encouraged to attain primary material through engaging with a number of methods such as fieldwork, interviews with local people, making models, photographing, cartoon creating, making DVDs of their area.

    Students are to experiment with the overall design and plan of their projects. Much of the work could be published as local heritage / history guides to people and places in the region. For example a winning class project this year focussed on the aspect of Cork, now and then. They mapped out several changes to Cork’s built heritage using old postcards and interviewing older people. Students are encouraged to compare and connect the past to their present and their immediate future. Work needs to involve re-imagining what life may have been like. One of the key foundations in the Project is about developing empathy for the past– to think about attitudes and experience in the past. Interpretation is also empowering for the student- all the time developing a better sense of the different ways in which people engage with and express a sense of place and time.

    Every year marks go towards making a short film or a model on projects to accompany history booklets. Submitted DVDs this year had interviews of family members to local historians to the student taking a reporter type stance on their work. Some students also chose to act out scenes from the past. Another group created a short film on University College Cork and Fota House.

    The creativity section also encourages model making. The best model trophy in general goes to the creative and realistic model. This year the best model in the city went to a model of St Anne’s Church, Shandon, complimented by Westminster. The project told the story of the rise of the career of eminent painter Daniel Maclise. In the county, the top model prize went to students from St Columba’s Girls National School who re-created different monuments in their area such as the beautiful 200-year old St Columba’s Church and the fingerpost complete with paper mache flowers.

    Every year, the students involved produce a section in their project books showing how they communicated their work to the wider community. It is about reaching out and gaining public praise for the student but also appraisal and further ideas. Some class projects were presented in nursing homes to engage the older generation and to attain further memories from participants. Students were also successful in putting work on local parish newsletters, newspapers and local radio stations and also presenting work in local libraries. This year the most prominent source of gaining publicity was inviting parents and grandparents into the classroom for an open day for viewing projects or putting displays on in local community centres and libraries.

    Overall, the Discover Cork: Schools’ Heritage Project attempts to provide the student with a hands-on and interactive activity that is all about learning not only about your local area but also about the process of learning by participating students. The project in the city is kindly funded by Cork Civic Trust (viz the help of John X Miller), Cork City Council (viz the help of Heritage Officer Niamh Twomey), the Heritage Council. Prizes are also provided in the 2015 season by Lifetime Lab, Lee Road (thanks to Meryvn Horgan), Seán Kelly of Lucky Meadows Equestrian Centre Watergrasshill and Cork City Gaol Heritage Centre. The county section is funded by myself and students. A full list of winners, topics and pictures of some of the project pages for 2015 can be viewed at www.corkheritage.ie and on facebook on Cork: Our City, Our Town. For those doing research, www.corkheritage.ie has also a number of resources listed to help with source work.

    For the Lifelong Learning Festival Week, I will give a talk on Cork Harbour through old postcards at the meeting room of Church the Real Presence, on Wednesday 25 March, 2.30pm. I will also give a talk on Cork in the 1920s and 1930s in the Cork City and County Archives in Blackpool at 2.30pm on Friday 27 March (all free, all welcome).

 

Caption:

784a. Page from a project on Innishannon National School history from students of fourth class, Innishannon NS (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

784b. Creative project book holder in the shape of the old Farnashesheree Grain Mill, Bandon from students of Ahiohill NS, Bandon (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

784b. Creative project book holder in the shape of the old Farnashesheree Grain Mill, Bandon from students of Ahiohill NS, Bandon

 

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 12 March 2015

783a. Blarney Castle, Present Day

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article

Cork Independent, 12 March 2015

Cork Harbour Memories (Part 14)

Eloquent War Councils at Blarney

 

   The halls of Blarney Castle by the sixteenth century witnessed its fair share of war councils. Rough maps spread on the castle’s central hall table, plotted territory held and tensions and conflicts at play in the Munster region. In our time we can only imagine these worlds of conflict and negotiation. Feuds between rivals the Fitzgeralds and the MacCarthys were on-going and long-standing. These events were punctuated by rebellions against the wider sovereign power. Tales of punishment dished out on all sides in the history books show the extent of legend making and mythologising of this violent period in Irish history. Indeed trying to read up on the multiple genealogies of the MacCarthys, you’re left wondering what is true and what is exaggerated but all are a fascinating read. Even the famous stone of eloquence emerges from the power of this mix of histories and myth, with no one story defining its origins.

  In the year 1521, the head of the Fitzgeralds, James Earl of Desmond, burst with a powerful force into Muskerry. He ravaged, burnt and destroyed the territory until Cormac Oge MacCarthy led out an army against them. Cormac summoned the neighbouring chieftains to his assistance, pursued and overtook the Earl near Mourne Abbey, and inflicted on him what is described by scribes of the day a “severe chastisement”. It was after this that in 1528, Comac Oge attended Parliament as “Lord of Muscry [Muskerry]”.

  The MacCarthys managed to hold their own during the sixteenth century, saved from the fate of the Desmonds, whose vast territories of over half a million acres were confiscated at the close of the century. In 1542, Teige MacCarthy, the eleventh Lord of Muskerry was one among eight chieftains of the country who made an “indenture of submission” to the crown, in which they agreed to refer all disputes between themselves to a commission of arbitration appointed for Munster, and consisting of the Bishops of Cork and Waterford, instead of appealing to the Brehon law or civil law judges of the region.

   In the 1570s, the fourteenth Lord of Muskerry, Sir Cormac McTeige MacCarthy was rewarded for his allegiance. He kept his lands and received large grants of confiscated property. The lord had access to up to 3,000 men. Sir Cormac consented to adopt the royal device for passing down family property – surrender of his lands including Carrignamuck in Dripsey into the hands of the sovereign and to receive the same back by a re-grant. The crown rent was two hawks or £6 13s. 4d.

   Shortly after the re-granting, on 4 August 1580, Sir James Sussex Fitzgerald, youngest brother of the Earl of Desmond, made one of a series of regular attacks hoping to rob cattle from the barony of Muskerry. Donal MacCarthy, the Lieutenant of Carrignamuck, assembled an army and attacked and completely defeated Sir James, with the loss of 150 of his men. Sir James was mortally wounded in the fight and was captured by a black­smith, who hid him in a bush till the fight was ended, and then delivered him. Sir Cormac ordered the confinement of James in Carrigadrohid Castle, three miles to the south west of Carrignamuck. Soon after, the captive was surrendered to Sir Warham St Leger, Com­missioner for Munster, who had him tried for treason. Sir James on his conviction was executed. His head and limbs were affixed to one of the drawbridges that led into the walled town of Cork. Donal, the lieutenant, was also mortally wounded in this action, by an arrow which struck him under the right ear, and penetrated six inches into his neck. He died some time after.

   Donal’s death raised the next brother, Callaghan, then of Castlemore to the title of fifteenth Lord of Muskerry. A year later in 1585, Callaghan had passed the lordship to his nephew Cormac Mór MacDermod MacCarthy. In 1588, Cormac attended the English parliament as Baron of Blarney and because of the unsettled political nature In Ireland in the following year he surrendered his lands and to the crown and obtained a re-grant.

   Fast forward to Charles II, in 1658, he conferred the title of Earl of Clancarthy on the head of this family, the last of whom was dispossessed after the siege of Limerick. Hence the estate, comprising all Muskerry and its castles, were forfeited to the crown for the earl’s adherence to the cause of James II. On the sale of the forfeited lands in 1692, the Hollow Sword Blade Company purchased all the land around this place, and more than 3000 acres in the parish were allotted to a member of the Company, and were held by his descendant, George Putland, Esq., of Dublin. Blarney Castle was purchased in 1701 by Sir James Jefferies, Governor of Cork, who soon after erected a large and handsome house in front of it, which was the family residence for many years. Complete with a mythic stone of eloquence, the story of the MacCarthys took a new course especially as the late nineteenth century progressed and the rise of mass tourism to the castle began.

To be continued…

Kieran’s new book, Cork Harbour Through Time (with Dan Breen) is now available in Cork bookshops.

Caption:

783a. Blarney Castle, Present Day (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

783b. Recounting the legend of the stone, mid twentieth century postcard at Blarney Castle (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

 

783b. Recounting the legend of the stone, mid twentieth century postcard

Kieran’s Talks, LIfelong Learning Festival Week

For the Lifelong Learning Festival Week, I will give a talk on Cork Harbour through old postcards at the meeting room of Church the Real Presence, on Wednesday 25 March, 10.30am. I will also give a talk on Cork in the 1920s and 1930s in the Cork City and County Archives in Blackpool at 2.30pm on Friday 27 March (all free, all welcome).

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 5 March 2015

782a. Map adapted from W F Butler, 1920, Pedigree and Succession of the House of MacCarthy Mór

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article 

Cork Independent, 5 March 2015

Cork Harbour Memories (Part 13)

Fifteenth Century Change in Munster

 

     Henry VII’s charter of 1500 to Cork recognised the potential of the harbour and the idea of possessing it as a territory. However by this year, the old Anglo-Norman feudal manors were collapsing, and even the great Earl of Desmond territory that replaced them was dissipating. The English interest in Munster was much weakened by the Wars of the Roses in England – and Irish clans took back many English castles and territories in Cork and Kerry. The fifteenth century brought civil unrest and geographical and cultural change as new owners emerged over the land holdings of County Cork.

    The Anglo-Norman conquest of Ireland diminished the ancient Gaelic kingdom of Desmond in size to the present County Cork and south County Kerry, the MacCarthys being compelled into the southwest of Munster where they ruled as MacCarthy Mór. Desmond (Des-Mumha) had encompassed southern Munster and included within its boundaries the greater part of present-day counties Limerick, Kerry, Cork and Waterford.

     The rise of the English Earls of Desmond had their origins in 1169AD when Maurice FitzGerald from Wales came to Ireland with the Anglo-Normans. Many scholars have written about the family history of the Fitzgeralds. Burke’s Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry in Britain and Ireland, published in the early nineteenth century, reveals that over eight centuries the Fitzgerald family became one of the most powerful with numerous branches in Ireland. The Fitzgeralds were initially located in Counties Kerry and Kildare. A walk through Tralee town centre and glancing at its historical plaques reveal that a castle was built at Tralee circa 1243 by John FitzThomas FitzGerald. It became the centre of Geraldine power (the House of FitzGerald) in Munster for over 400 years. John’s great grandson son, Maurice FitzThomas or FitzGerald (d.1356), inherited vast estates in Munster and was created 1st Earl of Desmond (South Munster) on 22 August 1329 by King Edward III. Maurice was Captain of Desmond Castle in Kinsale (an earlier structure to what is there now), so-called ruler of Munster, and for a short time Lord Justice of Ireland. He led a rebellion against the Crown, and was suspected of aspiring to make himself King of Ireland, but he was ultimately restored to favour.

     In time, the Fitzgerald family began to amass vast tracts of land in Kerry, North Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Tipperary. In particular, they became very powerful and claimed ascendancy over native Irish lordships such as MacCarthy Mór. Between the years 1329 and 1601, sixteen Fitzgeralds held the title ‘Earl of Desmond’. They were estimated to have owned one million acres of land. One of the nearest territories to the walled town of Cork was within the Cork Harbour region. On 12 June 1438, Robert FitzGeoffrey Cogan granted all his lands in Ireland (being half the old Kingdom of Cork) to James, Earl of Desmond. The heart of these lands was in the western section of Cork Harbour taking in the Carrigaline and Douglas region and westwards to Castlemore in Ovens and beyond.

   Jarring against the Geraldine narrative of expansion, the MacCarthy Mórs, the ancient Kings of Desmond, also held extensive demesne lands scattered throughout the counties of Cork and Kerry. Burke’s Genealogical and Heraldic History details that their principal seats in Kerry were at Pallis Castle, near present-day Killarney, Castle Lough, on the shore of Killarney’s Lough Leane, and Ballycarbery Castle, near present-day Caherciveen.

    As well as the royal sept of MacCarthy Mór (nominal head of all the MacCarthys, and who dominated in south Kerry), there were three other related but distinct branches. MacCarthy Reagh or Riabhach (‘grey’) was based in the Barony of Carbery in southwest Cork; their principal seats were at Kilbrittain Castle, as well as Timoleague Castle. The Duhallow (MacDonough) MacCarthys controlled northwest Cork. Their principal seat was at Kanturk. MacCarthy Muskerry was on the Cork/Kerry border. Over the years of the MacCarthy Mór rule in Desmond, there were a number of sub-septs created for non-successional sons of the King. All these families, slowly but surely, encroached on English lands and secured them for themselves.

    Dermod Mór MacCarthy, a son of Cormac MacCarthy Mór, of the main line was born in the year 1310. In 1353 he was acknowledged and created the first Lord of Muskerry by the English administration. The lands passed down to the ninth Lord of Muskerry, Cormac McTeige MacCarthy Láidir, who succeeded in 1449. He was a great builder and financed the construction of the third (and present day) Blarney Castle, Carrignamuck in Dripsey and Kilcrea in Ovens. All are significant structures in their own way. These tower houses all marked access routes across undulating topography and in areas of tributary rivers. It was also the custom for the Lords of English lands to place some relative in each of their castles. Cormac Láidir’s own brother Eoghan, the chosen relative, was stationed at Carrignamuck. Being only just kilometres from the walled town of Cork, the MacCarthys had a significant role to play in playing political power games in the region, and knowing the potential of taxing goods travelling through their lands bound for export and offering security for the English administration.

To be continued…

Kieran’s new book, Cork Harbour Through Time (with Dan Breen) is now available in Cork bookshops.

Caption:

782a. Map adapted from W F Butler, 1920, Pedigree and Succession of the House of MacCarthy Mór, With a Map, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, vol. 51, p.33; it shows the extent of McCarthy lands taken from Anglo Norman families such as the DeCogans and the Barretts.

782b. Ramparts of Blarney Castle, present day and the kissing of the stone (picture: Kieran McCarthy).

782b. Ramparts of Blarney Castle, present day and the kissing of the stone

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 26 February 2015

 781a. Throwing the Dart ceremony with Mayor and officials, mouth of Cork Harbour, 1855

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent,  26 February 2015

Cork Harbour Memories (Part 12)

Medieval Pomp: Bread Checks and Dart Throwing

       The charters granted to Cork in the Middle Ages created many of the traditions this city still participates in today. Following on from last week, in constructing an identity for the walled town of Cork, Edward II’s charter dated 20 July, 1318 confirmed previous charters and encouraged pomp and ceremony for the election of a mayor. The charter noted that the elected mayor could be sworn before his predecessor in Cork, instead of going to Dublin for the purpose of taking an oath before the Barons of the Exchequer.

     Edward II’s large debts (many inherited) and the Scots’ victory at Bannockburn by Robert the Bruce in 1314 made Edward unpopular. Edward’s victory in a civil war (1321-2) and such methods as the 1326 ordinance (a protectionist measure which set up compulsory markets or staples in 14 English, Welsh and Irish towns for the wool trade) did not lead to any compromise between the King and the nobles. His new regulatory frameworks perhaps also aimed to empower townspeople and those he governed. Such protectionist measures he rolled out in Cork some years previously in the 1318 charter to Cork. It granted to the mayor and bailiffs the assize of bread, which regulated the price, weight and quality of bread, and certain other unrecorded privileges usual in charters of that period. It is the first mention of the regulation of the production of food in the historic records.

        The charters of 1330, 1331 and 1381 reconfirmed previous ones. Fast forward to the next one granted by Edward IV dated 1 December, 1462 and it states that the Mayor and Commonalty took taxation from eleven parish churches in the city and in the wider suburbs. The churches paid a rent of 80 marks annually to the Crown, so long as the suburbs remained undestroyed. A comment was made that in the 1410s, the suburbs had been attacked by what is described as “Irish enemies and English rebels”. The churches were unable to pay their rent and the town paid the taxation to the crown for them. The churches were to pay back their arrears, and were responsible for part payment for maintaining the walls until peace was restored to a one mile circumference of the walled town.  

    The hills and valleys of County Cork were not Edward IV’s only worry. In the wider context two years earlier to the Cork charter in 1460 on the death of his father and brother, in contest for the throne, at Sandal Castle, Wakefield, Edward inherited from his father the Yorkist claim to England’s throne. Edward proved to be an able general, defeating the Lancastrians in February 1461 after which he was proclaimed king in London. He achieved a further decisive victory over the Lancastrians in Yorkshire, on 29 March, Palm Sunday. Fought in a snowstorm, it was to be the bloodiest battle of the Wars of the Roses, with casualties reported to be in the region of 28,000. The victorious Edward, then aged nineteen years of age made a state entry into London in June and was crowned King of England at Westminster.

    Fast forward again and the interest in securing the wider Cork region by the English monarchy especially Cork Harbour was revealed in Henry VII’s charter, dated 1 August 1500. Henry VII ended the dynastic wars known as the Wars of the Roses, founded the Tudor dynasty and modernised England’s government and legal system.The waters of a harbour like Cork was an English highway to move goods, people and ideas around. For Cork Henry confirmed all former charters, and further granted that the Mayor and citizens, and their successors, could enjoy their franchises within the city, the suburbs, and every part of the harbour. The charter reveals the extent of land to be the metropolitan area in a sense in Cork Harbour; “As far as the shore, point, or strand called Rewrawne, on the western part of the said port, and as far as to the shore point or strand of the sea, called Benowdran, on the eastern part of the same port, and as far as the castle of Carrigrohan, on the western side of the said City and in all towns, pills, creeks, burgs, and strands in and to which the sea ebbs and flows in length and breadth within the aforesaid two points, called Rewrawne and Benowdran” (better known by their modern names of Cork Head and Poer Head).

    In time and arising out of the Mayor having jurisdiction over the harbour the ancient ceremony of Throwing the Dart emerged. It is unknown when the ceremony began – maybe circa 1610 – a similar ceremony began in Limerick 1609 and Waterford in 1626. The earliest written record of the custom of claiming the waters in Cork is to be found amongst the archives of the Corporation and transcribed in a very insightful book by Richard Caulfield, entitled the Council Book of the Corporation of Cork published in 1876. Under the date of 30 May 1759, the mayor sought the arrangement of entertainment at Blackrock Castle and he, his officers and Corporation were to go to the mouth of Cork Harbour for the dart ceremony.

To be continued…

Kieran’s new book, Cork Harbour Through Time (with Dan Breen) is now available in Cork bookshops.

Caption:

781a. Throwing the Dart ceremony with Mayor and officials, mouth of Cork Harbour, 1855 (source: Illustrated London News, Vol. 26, 1855, p.531, 2 June 1855)

Our City, Our Town, 19 February 2015

 

780a. Effigy on tomb of Prince John in Worchester Cathedral

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article, 

Cork Independent, 19 February 2015

Cork Harbour Memories (Part 11) –Charters and Governance

 

      If Cork’s maritime connections in medieval times created financial profit and a basis for a settlement, the idea of Cork as a civilised place, a civitas, or a social body of the citizens united by law, was as important. The last few weeks, the column looked at Bordeaux, Lisbon and Southampton to try and tease out an idea that places such as Cork developed in the context of larger maritime traditions and collective ideas of how to be an urban entity. The granting of charters also influenced the walled town’s progressive nature as part of the Anglo-Norman colony. Charters wove new rules and regulations, bye-laws in one sense, for citizens to follow.

      Between the years 1185 and 1900, Cork received no less than seventeen charters. These official records were legally binding. Many were reactions to what was going on within the wider Anglo-Norman colonies at a point in time. The politics, ambitions and interests of various kings who aspired to advance aspects of his governance were also significant. Many encompassed laws that were also brought to bear on other English settlements. In medieval times charters encompassed ideas of controlling those who lived within fortresses such as Cork. Cork charters influenced laws to improve the town walls, augment powers of mayors, carve up living space within the town, make new trading laws and establish new taxation laws. All tried as well to ease tensions amongst citizens, who felt disillusioned with the elite and other reckonings such as the deals struck with Gaelic Irish families to keep them in check. Many of the concessions embodied in these charters contributed in no small measure to build up the confidence and the identity of the city.

     The first Charter granted to the town of Cork appears to have been one from Prince John in the year 1185. It was his brother Richard (the Lionheart) who sent him to Ireland to rule, whilst he was pursuing the Crusades. In time to keep his French barons from rebelling, John increased taxes in the territories he ruled and signed the Magna Carta in 1215 to keep his English barons happy. The 1185 granted to the citizens of Cork gave the same free laws and free customs as the citizens of Bristol enjoyed. It confirmed to the citizens of Cork all their enclosures of land to them and their heirs being entitled to free laws and customs as well. The walled town was to have as part of its functions, that of a fortress. In the early days of the Anglo Norman colony in Ireland, the interest was in securing the land won.

    The next charter was granted by Henry III, dated 2 January, 1242, which focussed on raising taxation from citizens. Twelve years previously, in 1230, the King had attempted to re-conquer the provinces of France that had once belonged to his father, but the invasion was a debacle. In a fresh attempt to reclaim his family’s lands in France, he invaded Poitou in 1242, leading to the disastrous Battle of Taillebourg. All these campaigns cost money – hence unpopular taxes were raised across many towns and feudal estates. The Cork charter of 1242 granted to the citizens the right to hold the City of Cork with its holdings in fee farm, at a rent of four score marks, to be paid annually at the Exchequer. It further granted that citizens and their heirs could have all the duties on wine and the money arising from them providing a certified document was created showing that shippers did pay their dues. The taxation net also encompassed nearby creeks and strands. There was special provision made for some citizens who did not have to pay tolls, customs and for quay space. The head of the Corporation is in this charter is described as the “Provost”.

     A series of other confirmatory charters followed – Edward I, dated 12 June, 1291. Edward I’s charter dated 13 October, 1303 granted murage grants or grants towards defences to the “bailiffs and men of Cork” for a period of six years. The same grant was given to other towns in Ireland for a similar time. Edward I, nicknamed “Longshanks” due to his great height and stature, was one of the most successful of the medieval monarchs. Edward made great strides in reforming government, consolidating territory, and defining foreign policy. He negotiated a peace with France in 1303 and retained those areas that England held before the war. He introduced a Parliament in Dublin and increased commerce in a few coastal towns, but most of the country was controlled by independent barons or Celtic tribal chieftains. Hence defences were important – hence why Cork’s walls and the walls of other towns were granted funding.

    Eroded by the tide and by the run of the river, the walls of Cork would have had to be regularly maintained by the city’s stone masons. The recent excavation book on South Gate Bridge carpark (edited by Maurice Hurley and Ciara Brett) revealed the base of a random rubble town wall construction on timber beams and compacted sand and gravel sitting balanced into the underlining swamp. There were disparities in the fabric of the wall found implying a considerable amount of rebuilding of the upper coarses of the wall.

To be continued…

Kieran’s new book, Cork Harbour Through Time (with Dan Breen) is now available in Cork bookshops.

Caption:

780a. Effigy on tomb of Prince John in Worchester Cathedral (source: Cork City Library)

780b. Effigy on tomb of Henry III in Westminster Abbey

780c. Early fourteenth-century manuscript showing Edward I and his wife Eleanor

780b. Effigy on tomb of Henry III in Westminster Abbey

780c. Early fourteenth-century manuscript initial showing Edward and his wife Eleanor

 

McCarthy at EU Committee of the Regions

    Cllr Kieran McCarthy speaking at the EU's Committee of the Regions, Brussels, February 2015Cllr Kieran McCarthy has been appointed by the Minister of the Environment to the EU’s Committee of the Regions in Brussels, which represents local authorities across Europe and gives opinions to the European Parliament on local and regional issues. The committee meets several times a year over two days. Responding from the floor of the European Parlimaent to a keynote address by the parliamentary secretary for Latvia, a country which currently holds the EU Presidency, Cllr McCarthy’s maiden speech highlighted the economic crisis and the importance of the EU structural funds to small cities:

 

A Uachtarán

A Rúnaí Stáit

Baill do Choiste na Réigiún

    Ba mhaith fáilte mor a chur romhat anseo inniu. Is o thír beag domhsa leis agus is doigh liom gur féidir le tiortha beaga mórán spriocanna a aimsiú taobh istigh den tréimhse gearr atá ar fail.

     Europe is in a crossroads which is worrying people in cities such as my own in Cork but also across the length and breadth of the EU. The unstable situation in Ukraine, the terrible terrorist killings in Paris – have people wondering where Europe as the great peace project we have known it to be. On the other hand the economic crisis still hits people very hard, with many families with not a penny or indeed a cent to spare at the end of a week. People are looking for leadership, they are looking for vision and they are looking for clear action and this is what we hope that you can guide Europe towards in your presidency.

    I will just go into a few specifics of your programme – you say you will will endeavour to ensure timely implementation of European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI). As you are emphasising the role of small and middle size cities, the EA group hopes to have in the Latvian presidency an ally in ensuring accessibility to small scale projects. While we acknowledge that higher return of investments could be higher in metropolitan areas, we don’t want to see middle size, small cities and rural areas left behind; we want the EISF to contribute creating real jobs at local level.

    On energy security, we look forward to the new Energy Union policy to be unveiled shortly and we hope the EU and its member states really progress towards the completion of the energy markets which are still too fragmented.

    We want the EU to exploit all the existing energy mix in the member states (from clean coal to renewable energies) and avoid EU dependence on few sources and providers.

    The EU should seize the opportunity of the oil prices bonanza to invest savings into cleaner energy sources and new promising technologies which could ensure self-sufficient and decentralised energy production systems in the next decades, notably by exploiting the untapped potential of renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, tidal, etc.

   As the Covenant of Mayors witnesses, the commitment of local and regional authorities in voluntarily reducing emissions and adopting sustainable energy planes far exceeds the ambition of member states and the EU as a whole. And we expect the Latvian Presidency to reinforce the Covenant and that more resources are granted to cities and municipalities .

    Finally, I come to my third and final point which I mentioned in my opening remarks: the EU should not forget it was born to bring peace in the continent. While there are for sure a number of other important challenges, we must not take this for granted. Tensions are flaring at the EU’s borders. Stability and prosperity at the EU’s border is reflected in the EU. We are happy to see your Presidency put the Neighbourhood policy and in particular Eastern partnership at the core of the agenda and we hope the recommendation of the assembly of local and regional authorities in the Eastern partnership will be taken on board at the next Riga summit.

   Go n-eirí go geal libh den uachtarántacht agus na dein dearmad go bhfuil baill do Choiste na Réigiún, baill do comhairlí contae, cathracha, réigiún anseo le obair leat do chuid spriocanna a aimsiú.

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 12 February 2015

779a. Romanticised view of Southampton, c.1450

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article, 

Cork Independent, 12 February 2015

Cork Harbour Memories (Part 10)

Cork’s Medieval Woollen Trade

      Apart from large tracts of wine imports into the walled town of Cork in the thirteenth century other imports included various cloths of English and French origin. Foreign spices and vegetables were also imported for consumption amongst the English and native Irish. The ports involved in the latter comprised Bristol, Carlisle, Pembroke and Southampton. Italian Merchant Companies brought in pepper and onions.

     The construction of Cork history has a habit (probably like elsewhere as well) to reduce Cork’s international connections to just lists. Mining into the cities that Cork was connected with does show allow a way of reflecting more on the energy, drive and forces at work in maintaining a city and its urbanity. It would great to go back in a time machine to see the human stories playing out in our city on a swamp. I have always felt that many of Cork’s missing historical jigsaw pieces are to be viewed elsewhere – in the thirteenth century Cork was part of a necklace of North Atlantic cities through which an Anglo-Norman colonies rose, expanded and in time eventually contracted.

    On Cork’s import records, Southampton features alot. In the thirteenth century, Southampton’s offering to Cork was wool. My own research led me to visit this southern English port city of the sea. Much of its medieval heritage was destroyed during World War II – so only bits and pieces of medieval towers, walls and churches survive. With a trip to Southampton library one can trace the development of the city through maps. Size-wise, its medieval town was about Cork’s size. Prominent in the old medieval town and a building that has survived the test of time is one of the old wool houses. The Wool House on Town Quay, which is more than 600 years old, built in 1417, was closed in 2011 and the artefacts moved to the new SeaCity Museum. In the last year, campaigners have criticised the local Council’s decision to approve plans to turn Southampton’s former Maritime Museum into a pub and micro-brewery – one of the description emerged was that it was an emblematic building of the city’s history. Emblematic was a word that stuck with me during my visit that goods can become emblems of a colony and its identity and ultimately legacy.

     History plaques in Southampton’s old medieval core reveal that the wool trade reached its height in the thirteenth century and a majority of townspeople derived their income from it. Southampton’s location was ideal, near to the sheep rearing districts of Hampshire and the Wiltshire Downlands. There are many works on medieval trade in England by scholars. Eileen Power who pioneered the study of the wool trade in Medieval England way back in 1941, a study which many scholars refer to, reveals that wool was an emblem of many aspects of society – control over the land and the construction of social class. England was for a great part of the Middle Ages the largest and most important source of fine wool gave her a key position. The barons of England in 1297 roundly stated that the wool of England amounts to half the value of the whole land. The merchant Ordinance of the Staple called it the “sovereign merchandise” and “jewel of this realm of England”.

    Welsh and Irish wool was imported, but it was coarser, and in some manufactures the use of Irish wool was prohibited. A good part of the Italian cloth industry and almost the whole of the industry of the Low Countries depended on English wool. The English nation, from king to peasant, was intensely wool-conscious and wool helped in its own way in the construction of social hierarchies and identities. The English economy, society and government responded, each in its own way, to variations in the wool trade – its ebb and flow, its shifting associations with the crown, and its continually changing organisation. A wool tax was one of the primary new sources of royal revenue at the end of the thirteenth century.

    Perhaps sheep were also an emblem of landscape control and transformation in any physical environment. The short-woolled sheep was the native of poor pastures, hills, moors and downs. It was found on the Welsh and Scottish borders, Yorkshire moors and chalk downlands of the South. The long-woolled sheep belongs to rich grasslands, marshes and fens in the midlands of England. The Midland wools formed a middle grade, and the chalk downlands of South and South-East England produced mainly coarser grades. Those of Devon and Cornwall, which were too coarse for the foreign market, were not exported at all. Statistics of all the demesne livestock for the four Eastern Counties (Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire) and the four Western counties (Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Dorset) and for one great monastery, Ely Abbey – eight shires – carried some 292,000 demesne sheep. Records for the years 1310–11 record English exports of 35,509 sacks of wool with a percentage of that arriving through King’s and Queen’s Castle of Cork’s medieval docks for sale and distribution.

 To be continued…

 Kieran’s new book, Cork Harbour Through Time (with Dan Breen) is now available in Cork bookshops.

 

Caption:

 779a. Romanticised view of Southampton, c.1450 (source: Southampton City Council)

 779b. Remains of one of the Medieval entrance gates, Southampton (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

 779b. Remains of one of the Medieval entrance gates, Southampton

Kieran’s Question to the City Manager/ CE and Motions, Cork City Council Meeting, 9 February 2015

Question to the City Manager/ CE:

To ask the Manager for an update on the ongoing preparation work for Mahon Library? (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)

 

Motions:

That street signage for the Mardyke be erected; currently the road is not marked by street signs. Historic style signage showcasing the importance of the routeway could be created (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)

 

As per one of the suggestions in the Colliers Report that an entrance archway be created at the top and lower end of Oliver Plunkett Street, to denote it a city street quarter (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)