Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 11 September 2014

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

759a. This map published in The Irish Times, 26 May 1965 shows overlapping government regions

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 11 September 2014

“Technical Memories (Part 88) – A Nation of Regions”

 

“The Minister noted that industrial development called for even wider and more varied activity in the educational sphere, and the Cork City Vocational Education Committee had always been conscious of its responsibility to make sound and proper provision for technical and technician training accordingly. It now had provided the means for apprentice tradesmen to get proper training for the important industries of building and furniture” (journalist, Irish Times, 27 February, 1965, p.6).

The years 1963-1965 were key years for economic policy making in Ireland. The first Economic Programme published by the Government in November 1958 was a 50-page document containing general statements of government policy and giving an indication of the aids to production which the government proposed. The first part of the Second Programme for Economic Expansion was published in August 1963 and the second part in July 1964. The policy focused on expenditures for education, with a doubling of expenditures planned, and high production goals for the dairy industry.

The 1960s coincided with a major thrust in the development of technical education with the publication of Investment in Education in 1962 and Training of Technicians in Ireland in 1964. The then Minister for Education, Dr Patrick Hillery, in May 1963 signalled the Government’s intention to arrange with appropriate vocational education committees the provision of a limited number of technical colleges with regional status, the establishment of comprehensive schools and access by students to all public examinations.

In a Dáil Éireann speech on Wednesday, 5 February 1964, Dr Hillery, commented that the regional technical colleges were to provide courses for all three of the following: (a) The Technical Leaving Certificate, (b) Apprentice training and (c) High level technician training. The arrangement was to avoid as far as possible a duplication of staff and equipment. Regional Colleges were to cater on a nation-wide basis for various specialised occupations. The Minister envisaged about ten such colleges. In addition to Dublin (with two centres), Cork and Limerick, the long term was to have colleges at Waterford, Galway, Dundalk, Sligo, Athlone, and Carlow. He noted in the Dáil: “The establishing of these Regional Technical Colleges and courses involves the question of sites, plans, financing, building, syllabuses, staffing and organising generally. Planning in these regards is proceeding as rapidly as possible”.

 

Fast forward by a year and a journalist with The Irish Times outlines on 27 February 1965 the visit of Minister Hillery to Cork to open the Cork School of Building and Cork School of Furniture on Sawmill Street (the previous day). During his speech Dr Hillery outlined plans for various technical trades and commented that his department was committed to broadening the scope of technical education of all levels throughout the country through the provision of regional technical colleges. Minister Hillery noted that the government’s intention was that there would be reasonably large scholarship provision “to enable good students to avail themselves of the courses so that national progress would not be held back because of an inadequate supply of suitable qualified technical personnel”.

A significant factor in the provision of the new colleges was the organisation by An Cheard-Chomhairle of apprentice training. The furniture trades had already become designated trades by a decision of the Chomhairle. This meant that an educational standard had been set for admission to apprenticeships and a training schedule had been drawn up for apprentices, which included a certain amount of school work. The aims of An Cheard-Chomhairle for the raising of the standard of craftsmanship could not be achieved unless the proper facilities for schooling were provided. Government policy noted that for some trades, it was uneconomic and impracticable to have apprentice training facilities at every vocational school or even in every large centre of population. Accordingly, for the furniture trades, three regional centres for apprenticeship training were set up – a school in Cork, a section of Bolton Street College in Dublin, and the School at Navan, Co Meath. They aimed to improve standards of craftsmanship and rates of production. The Minister in Cork remarked of their need and the building activity across the country; “At a time when there were feverish signs of building activity to be seen in every town and village and sometimes also in the open spaces of the countryside, it was scarcely necessary to indicate how desirable and necessary it was to give the soundest possible basic training to young people in the various building trades. The building trades had not yet been declared designated but things were shaping that way”.

By May 1965 and the publication of the first progress report in the second programme for Economic Expansion, plans were advanced for the regional technical colleges. Tenders for the building of some of the colleges were to be invited by the end of that year. In addition, an OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, founded in 1961) survey on investment in Irish education was published to critique what areas of science policy should be advanced. It refers to a detailed and valuable report on “Technology and Technical Manpower” prepared by Cumann na n-Innealteoirí, which was to provide a framework for future engineering courses.

To be continued…

759a. This map published in The Irish Times, 26 May 1965 shows overlapping government regions; the black lines are the borders of the Bord Fáilte regions; the dotted lines represent the physical planning regions; the cities and towns named represent the sites of the new regional technical colleges (source: Cork City Library).

Kieran’s Historical Tours of Fitzgerald’s Park and Old Line

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

 

As part of Cork’s Culture Night on Friday 19 September, Cllr Kieran McCarthy will conduct a walking tour of Fitzgerald’s Park and its environs (new tour, 5pm, free, meet at Park stage, approx 1 hour). The park’s entrance pillars on the Mardyke, the Lord Mayor’s Pavilion, the museum, the fountain in the middle of the central pond dedicated to Fr Mathew and timber posts eroding in the river were once part of one of Cork’s greatest historical events, the Cork International Exhibitions of 1902 and 1903. Just like the magical spell of Fitzgerald’s Park, the exhibitions were spaces of power. Revered, imagined and real spaces were created. They were marketing strategies where the past, present and future merged, Aesthetics of architecture, colour, decoration and lighting were all added to the sense of spectacle and in a tone of moral and educational improvement. The entire event was the mastermind of Cork Lord Mayor Edward Fitzgerald, after whom the park got its name.

 

Interested in finding out more on the Old Cork-Blackrock and Passage Railway Line and its connection to Cork Harbour? Cllr Kieran McCarthy will conduct a tour of the city side of the old line on Saturday evening, 20 September starting at 6.30pm at the entrance on The Marina side adjacent the Main Drainage station of the Amenity Walk. The tour is free (approx 1 1/2 hours, as part of Cork Harbour Open Day) and is open to all. South east Cork City is full of historical gems; the walk not only talks about the history of the line but also the history of the villages and harbour that surround the old line itself.

 

The Cork Blackrock and Passage Railway, which opened in 1850, was among the first of the Irish suburban railway projects. The original terminus, designed by Sir John Benson was based on Victoria Road but moved in 1873 to Hibernian Road. The entire length of track between Cork and Passage was in place by April 1850 and within two months, the line was opened for passenger traffic. In May 1847, low embankments, which were constructed to carry the railway over Monarea Marshes (Albert Road-Marina area), was finished. In Blackrock, large amounts of material were removed and cut at Dundanion to create part of the track there. Due to the fact that the construction was taking place during the Great Famine, there was no shortage of labour. A total of 450 men were taken on for the erection of the embankments at the Cork end of the line. Another eighty were employed in digging the cutting beyond Blackrock. These and other stories feature on Kieran’s tour.

Kieran’s Question to the City Manager and Motions, Cork City Council Meeting, 8 September 2014

Kieran's Council Work, Uncategorized

 

Question to the Manager/ CE:

To ask the manager what is the plan to improve the aesthetics of the trough on either side of the displayed town wall in Bishop Lucey Park; the empty troughs look terrible (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)

 

 

 

Motions:

That Cork City Council carry out the agreement to resurface the rest of the resident’s carparks in Greenhills Estate, as agreed with residents (Cllr Kieran McCarthy).

 

That Cork City Council carry out the agreement to provide adequate traffic calming measures on Boreenmanna Road (as part of recent works) and a safe crossing near the Willow Lawn junction, as agreed with residents (Cllr Kieran McCarthy).

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article, 4 September 2014

Cork History, Kieran's Council Work, Uncategorized

758a. Sean Lemass on Time magazine, 1963

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 4 September 2014

“Technical Memories (Part 87) – A Country Renewed”

 

It was a time of significant change and transformation, culturally and physically in 1950s and 1960s Cork. The last number of weeks has focussed on a number of ‘heavy’ industrial monuments in the region. Sites have been discussed to illuminate Cork’s role in the industrial expansion of Ireland – Whitegate Oil Refinery, Haulbowline Steel Holdings, Verolme Shipyard, ESB Stations, Gouldings Fertilisers, Cork Airport, Fords, Dunlops, developments on Tivoli’s docks, as well as the revamp of the city’s docks.

The Cork sites were encouraged in their development by government through their policy documents. However the Cork industries also bucked the trend moving ahead of the national development curve with great leadership behind them. Between 1945 and 1973, Ireland moved from being a largely agricultural to one increasingly complex global framework.  Ireland could attract mobile capital from national companies. During his tenure as Taoiseach from 1959 to 1966, Sean Lemass of Fianna Fáil focussed on the provision of additional exports, the creation of new export markets and the generation of further employment.  It was also recognised that to acquire expansions various social actors had to be brought together, particularly the trade unions, business interests and farmers’ groups into the economic policy-making process.

A book entitled The Lemass Era (2005) edited by Brian Given and Gary Murphy outlines that between 1951 and 1958, gross domestic product rose by less than one per cent per year. Employment fell by 12 per cent, and the unemployment rate rose. Industrial output expanded at 2.8 per cent yearly while output per farmer grew at a respectable 3.4 per cent due to economic policy reform. However by 1960 the average British worker still earned at least forty per cent more than his Irish counterpart. This low salary structure served as a strong incentive for Irish skilled workers to emigrate even when not threatened by unemployment. Despite industrial progress, Irish Domestic Product was still only 60 per cent of the Western European average. The process of post-war recovery was characterised by intensive industrialisation and the development of a strong export potential. Ireland was on the periphery in both an economic and political sense.

In 1958 T K Whitaker, secretary of the Department of Finance, penned a policy document, entitled Economic Development. Within its introduction, he commented on eliminating restrictive economic policies; “we can no longer rely for industrial development on extensive tariff and quota protection. Foreign industrialists will bring skills and techniques we need, and continuous and widespread publicity abroad is essential to attract them. If foreign industrial investment does not rapidly increase, a more radical removal of statutory restrictions on such investments should take place”. Whitaker outlined two ways to attract foreign corporations: remove restrictions and give incentives for foreign firms to establish bases in Ireland. He suggested that the Control of Manufactures Acts of 1932 and 1934 should be amended and a series of proposals intended to attract outside investors to Ireland should be activated.

Whitaker proposed that the IDA should expand its staff, particularly in North America, and should strengthen and advance its efforts to attract foreign capital. He further recommended that the available capital be increased for outright industrial grants, which  would increase the country’s productive capacity and bring new techniques and methods. Ireland had to become more efficient so that its products could be sold on an increasing scale in export markets. A white paper was drafted from Whitaker’s report with a number of actions solidified. In time, Lemass changed the title of the new act from a “Repeal of the Control of Manufactures Act” to an “Act for the Encouragement of Export”. 

The white paper by the government on Whitaker’s work was published in 1958. This document ushered in an era of official commitment to some form of economic planning. It played a key role in redirecting government thinking and in preparing the way for new economic policies of the 1960s. Lemass completed the process of putting in place a substantial industrial support structure, covering technology, exporting and support for firms such as the IDA. In the same year, Ireland made its first application for membership in the European Economic Community in 1961. 

The first programme covered the years 1959 to 1963. In 1961 during the period of this programme, the volume of GNP rose by over four per cent a year, which was faster than any of the projections put forward in 1958.  Not only did living standards rise by 50 per cent, by 1971, the population had risen by over 100,000. This is also reflected in the suburban expansion of cities across the country and the construction of new houses. In the Cork context, it led to the city’s first development plan in 1969 with a proposed spend of £30m on development and redevelopment and enormous foci on the provision of social housing, drainage and new road structures. Millions more were proposed to be spent on a new regional hospital and a new regional technical college (more on this next week).   

If anyone has stories of attending the Crawford Tech in the 1960s, I would like to hear them.  Unfortunately I lost some phone numbers, so I’d appreciate any info and photos on the Tech, 0876553389.

Caption:

758a. Seán Lemass on Time magazine, 1963 (source: Cork City Library)

Shandon Clock, 3 September 2014

Kieran's Council Work, Uncategorized

Further to recent press coverage concerning repair works to Shandon Clock, Cork City Council wish to clarify that although progress on the mechanism is substantially complete, some final testing work will be necessary over the next two weeks before the Clock becomes fully operational. The repair works have been carried out on programme and within budget and the Council, working with Church of Ireland as owners of Shandon Steeple and local clock specialists Stokes Clocks & Watches Ltd. are committed to ensuring that the future operation and maintenance of Shandon Clock is assured.

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 28 August 2014

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

757a. Map of Dunlops plant, Centre Park Road, Cork, 1960 before expansion

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town,

Cork Independent, 28 August 2014

“Technical Memories (Part 86) – Dunlops of the 1960s

 

“It is obvious that Cork in general and Dunlops and Fords, in particular do not fully share the views of a depressed future for our car-building industry. A very high percentage of Dunlop’s business is supplying original equipment to the assembly industry. All but a tiny fraction of the new vehicles have their wheels shod by tyres made in Cork. In any trading arrangement, which envisages completed cars being imported here with tyres already fitted of course, the consequences must be very serious for Dunlop” (journalist, Irish Press, 15 November, 1965, p.6).

With a £2m capital outlay for expansion revealed by the Irish Dunlop Company in early November 1965, two new giant industrial blocks were to be built in Dublin and Cork. The new office block at Cork comprised 48,000 square feet, spanning across six storeys and sitting on 130 piles into the Centre Park Road swamp. The new and modern-marketed building was to dominate the Marina Estate soaring over the one storey factory units. Irish materials were used in its construction. The Dunlops space was designed so that a computer centre, Cork’s first commercial computer, could occupy the whole of the ground floor. The proposed research staff were to be recruited from Irish universities, and were to begin work in Dunlop’s central division, located near Fort Dunlop, Birmingham. Initially 12 Irish university graduates were to be employed, but when the full programme developed, this figure was to increase to 30 graduates and ten assistants, who were to be located in the research laboratories part of the new administration block at the Marina. The Cork research centre was to carry out basic research for the central organisation.

In 1965, it was stated that the company’s payroll amounted to over £2m per year and total wages and salaries paid out in the previous 30 years exceeded £20 million. Payments by way of taxation, excise duty and local rates, in 1965 had reached a record level of nearly £900,000 (Irish Press, 12 November 1965, p.8). The Dunlops plan unveiled in November 1965 came 24 hours prior, T.J. Brennan, Managing Director of Fords, announced his company’s intention of spending £1 ½ million on major extensions to their assembly capacity (see previous articles).

The policy of the Irish Dunlop Company had always been to purchase its requirements of materials from Irish sources where practicable. On items such as textiles, packing materials and fuel and power, the company paid out almost £1m in 1965 to other Irish producers. The company hoped to increase its tyre exports to over 100,000 tyres – more than double the quantity for 1964. The firm in Cork was to amass a production area of 250,000 square feet and 125,000 square feet of storage. The firm had also just taken over the Irish Rubber Products factory at Waterford.

Fast forward to September 1967 and during a tour of the 17-acre Dunlops Plant at the Marina to journalists, E J Power, General Manager, expressed confidence in the future of the plant. He commented that if the Cork factory was to continue at maximum employment, which ran to more than 2,000 people, they would have to secure increased productivity. This would occur pending an improvement in the Irish economy, and an increase in exports, particularly to Britain where, where he added the motor industry was passing through a poor period. He explained that the Irish tyre market amounted to about one million tyres a year being exported to 58 countries. This was worth £6 ½ m to Dunlops and up to July 1966, Dunlops had 80 per cent of that market. Since then, imported tyres had cut into their business. Power to journalists noted of a large decline: “no one could have foreseen a few years ago, the slackening in world trade and consequently foreign tyre manufacturers had to get rid of their surpluses. Because our tyre market was small any influx of imports was bound to leave its effects…it will be necessary for us to rationalise still further over the next year, particularly in our non-tyre products but we will try and spread this and cushion it as humanly possible”. 

A press conference by Mr William Bailey, Director of European Operations, in early February 1969 and as reported by the Irish Independent (6 February 1969) commented Dunlops had 103 factories worldwide and 20 research units in five continents. In Europe, Mr Bailey pointed out that these were located in Britain, Ireland, France and Germany and, together employed nearly 40,000 people. Referring to the future growth of the market, he detailed that tyres were a growth industry throughout the world and that demand was growing at about 8 per cent per annum and Europe, as one of the major growth areas, accounts for about one-third of the world sales of car tyres and a quarter of truck tyre sales. Domestic European demand in 1967 was 100 million car tyres with probability of expansion by double by 1980.  His operations were planning to invest £40m into the European branches. He announced that a new tyre compounding department was to be built, costing over £1million, and that this would be in operation at Fort Dunlop in Birmingham.  

To be continued…

Caption:

757a. Map of Dunlops plant, Centre Park Road, Cork, 1960 before expansion (source: Claire Hackett).

Kieran’s Heritage Week, 2014

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

          Cork Heritage Open Day, 23 August, www.corkheritageopenday.ie

–          Kieran’s tours for heritage week:

·         Sunday 24 August 2014 – Eighteenth century Cork historical walking tour, Branding a City-Making a Venice of the North, with Kieran; meet at City Library, Grand Parade, 7pm (free, duration: two hours).

·         Monday 25 August 2014 – Shandon Historical Walking Tour with Kieran, meet at North Gate Bridge, 7pm (free, duration: two hours).

·         Tuesday 26 August 2014 – Blackpool Historical Walking Tour with Kieran, meet at the North Mon gates, Gerald Griffin Avenue, 7pm (free, duration: two hours).

·         Thursday 28 August 2014 – Docklands Historical Walking Tour with Kieran, meet at Kennedy Park, Victoria Road, 7pm (free, duration: two hours).

·         Saturday 30 August 2014,  Douglas Historical Walking Tour with Kieran, meet at St. Columba’s Church Car Park, Douglas, 2pm (free, duration: two hours).

Cork Heritage Open Day, Saturday, 23 August 2014

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

Cork Heritage Open Daywebsite, www.corkheritageopenday.ie

Cork Heritage Open Day is organized by Cork City Council as part of Heritage Week in association with The Heritage Council and media sponsors Cork’s  96FM and the Evening Echo. 

This event would not be successful without the participation of the building owners and proprietors.  The organisers would like to thank each of the participating building proprietors for their generosity and fantastic support.

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article, Heritage Week, 21 August 2014

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

756a. Painting a future, Members of Mayfield Community Arts in Bishop Lucey Park, 22 June 2012

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 21 August 2014

Heritage Week, 23-31 August – Carved from a Swamp

 

Cork Heritage Open Day and Heritage Week are looming – a kind of Christmas week – for a heritage fanatic like me. It is great to see the city’s local history and natural heritage being focussed on. Indeed as a city, we need to celebrate it more publicly and more regularly. This city’s growth on a swamp is in itself a story on which a whole series of talks and walks can be based. I am always in awe at the geologists’ reports on beneath this urban space – that below the swamp are multiple tree stumps of a broken down forest flooded out through sea level rise from over 20,000 years ago. The city’s buildings continue to sink into this space -20,000 years in the making – with each generation struggling to carve its own ‘safe harbour’. 

This city is built on a shift-shaping landscape – sand and gravel, rushes and reeds – a wetland knitted together to create a working port through the ages. It is also the multi-faceted narratives that knit this place together. Standing in Bishop Lucey Park, for example, are multiple monuments – remnants of the blocks of the town walls, the arches for the old Corn Market gates (once behind City Hall), the smiling shawlie within Seamus Murphy’s statue, and the swans of the fountain representing Cork 800. The fountain was placed there in 1985, a nod to the city’s celebration of  800 years since the city’s first charter in 1185. Then there is the imposing sinking tower of Christ Church and its ruinous graveyard to the ghostly feel of the buildings that once stood at the park’s entrance. Along the latter stretch, living memory has recorded Jennings furniture shop, destroyed by fire in 1970; the toy shop of Percy Diamond who was cantor (a singer of liturgical music) at the Jewish synagogue; and the Fountain Café over which the famous hurler Christy Ring had a flat for a time. Of course when I mention just these strands, there are other layers I have not mentioned. The layered memories at times and their fleshed out contexts are endless and often seem timeless.

The presence of all these monuments in the Park often play with my own mind on every walking tour – there is so much one can show and say. These urban spaces seem to slide between the past and present, between material and symbolic worlds. The mural by Mayfield Community Arts on the gable end of the shop next door to the park, entitled “connecting our imagination, how do we imagine a positive future” is apt. The past does play on the imagination; it interconnects between spaces and times into our present and future. It creates at many times, when studying this city, partial memories that the scholar can only reconstruct in part and tentatively in the mind. Memories flow and bend across the story of the development of this North Atlantic big hearted small city.

The kept town walls are a space as a city we need to keep even better. Sometimes we don’t mind these spaces enough. The green rusty plaque on it indicates its age of thirteenth century. During its excavation shards of pottery from Normandy, from the Saintonge region of France, from England, and from other parts of Ireland were also found during the excavation of the wall. For nearly 500 years (1170s to 1690), the town wall symbolised the urbanity of Cork and gave its citizens an identity within the town itself. The walls served as a vast repository of symbolism, iconography and ideology, as symbols of order and social relationships. Indeed the same can be said of all the buildings and spaces the public learn about on this Saturday and next week across talks and walks.

The former town walls like this city were rebuilt in parts by inhabitants through hundreds of years. The river and the tide eroded at their base taking away the various sandstone and limestone blocks and perhaps re-shaping the more resistant ones. The surviving section in Bishop Lucey Park invites the visitor to reflect on life and resistance within the town and how layered the city’s story is. There is wear and tear on the stones presented, which cross from the era of the walled town to the modern city. It invokes the imagination and if anything the wear and tear on our built heritage allows our minds to wonder and reflect about the life and times of people of the past and offers us ideas to take into our future world.  

–          Cork Heritage Open Day, 23 August, www.corkheritageopenday.ie

–          Kieran’s tours for heritage week:

·         Sunday 24 August 2014 – Eighteenth century Cork historical walking tour, Branding a City-Making a Venice of the North, with Kieran; meet at City Library, Grand Parade, 7pm (free, duration: two hours).

·         Monday 25 August 2014 – Shandon Historical Walking Tour with Kieran, meet at North Gate Bridge, 7pm (free, duration: two hours).

·         Tuesday 26 August 2014 – Blackpool Historical Walking Tour with Kieran, meet at the North Mon gates, Gerald Griffin Avenue, 7pm (free, duration: two hours).

·         Thursday 28 August 2014 – Docklands Historical Walking Tour with Kieran, meet at Kennedy Park, Victoria Road, 7pm (free, duration: two hours).

·         Saturday 30 August 2014,  Douglas Historical Walking Tour with Kieran, meet at St. Columba’s Church Car Park, Douglas, 2pm (free, duration: two hours).

Caption:

756a. Painting a future; members of Mayfield Community Arts in Bishop Lucey Park, 22 June 2012 (picture: Kieran McCarthy)