Kieran’s Heritage Week in Pictures, 17-25 August 2013

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

 A great week of walking tours with great numbers averaging above 60 people most evenings, and some hitting 100; thanks to all those who supported the tours and who added their memories to the various tours.

 

 Crumbling Cork debate, Civic Trust House, 17 August 2013

Crumbling Cork debate with Kieran in Civic Trust House, Cork Heritage Open Day, 17 August 2013

 Eighteenth century Cork, historical walking tour, 18 August 2013

Eighteenth century Cork, historical walking tour with Cllr Kieran McCarthy, as part of Heritage Week, 2013, 18 August 2013

 

Shandon Hsistorical Walking Tour, 19 August 2013

Shandon, historical walking tour with Cllr Kieran McCarthy, as part of Heritage Week, 2013, 19 August 2013

 

 Blackpool Historical Walking Tour, 20 August 2013

Blackpool, historical walking tour with Cllr Kieran McCarthy, as part of Heritage Week, 2013, 20 August 2013

 

 Workhouse in St Finbarr’s Hospital, Thursday 22 August 2013

Workhouse at St Finbarr's Hospital, historical walking tour with Cllr Kieran McCarthy, as part of Heritage Week, 2013, 22 August 2013

 

Mahon Historical Walking Tour, 23 August 2013

Mahon, historical walking tour with Cllr Kieran McCarthy, as part of Heritage Week, 2013, 23 August 2013

 

 Douglas Historical Walking Tour, Sunday 24 August 2013

Douglas, historical walking tour with Cllr Kieran McCarthy, as part of Heritage Week, 2013, 25 August 2013

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article, 22 August 2013

Cork City Events, Cork History, Uncategorized

 705a. Southern battery of Spike Island, 10 July 2013, an event to mark the 75th anniversary of the handing over of Spike Island by the British to the Irish government in July 1938

 

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 22 August 2013

The Spike Island Experience

 

Recently I visited Spike Island on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the handover of the island by the British government to the Irish government. To showcase the island’s heritage, Cork County Council have designed a brochure to give a flavour of the island’s rich and colourful heritage. It focuses on a number of themes, reflecting different aspects of Spike and its uses over a millennium and a half. Spike Island has hosted a monastery, a fortress and a prison within its 104 acres, all of which have left their mark, if not always physically, at least culturally on it public perception.

There is some evidence that a monastery was founded on Spike Island (Inis Pic) in the 7th Century. The well known Saint, St Mochuda or St Carthage, is said to have founded a monastery here in 635AD. Fast forward to the 1770s, during the turmoil of the American War of Independence, Cork harbour replaced Kinsale as the principal royal navy base on the south coast. To strengthen the defences of the harbour a decision was taken to build a fort on Spike Island, it was named Fort Westmoreland and was completed by 26 July 1779. In time, the British military quickly realised the strategic importance of Spike and decided to replace the old fort with a much larger structure. General Charles Vallancey and architect Michael Shanahan were responsible for the new fort and the foundation stone was laid on 6 June 1804. It consisted of six bastions connected by ramparts and surrounded by a dry moat and outer artificial slopes.

The fort also holds the cell of John Mitchel (1815-1875), who was an Irish nationalist activist, solicitor and political journalist. Born near Dungiven, Co Derry, he became a leading member of both Young Ireland and the Irish confederation. He was an outspoken critic of British rule and in 1843, he was convicted of sedition and sentenced to transportation to Bermuda for fourteen years. On 27 May 1848, Mitchel was sent from Dublin on board HMS Scourge to Spike Island where he was incarcerated for three days. On Spike Island, Mitchel met Edward Walsh (1805-1849), the noted poet and schoolmaster of the prison on the island. From Bermuda, Mitchel was sent to the penal colony of Van Diemen’s Land – now Tasmania. It was during this journey he wrote his famous “Jail Journal”. Mitchel escaped from the colony in 1853 and settled in America. He returned to Ireland and was elected to the British House of Commons, only to be disqualified because he was a convicted felon. He died on 20 March 1875 in Newry. The Fort on Spike Island was renamed Fort Mitchel in his honour in 1961.

By 1883 a reduction in the overall number of prisoners led to the closure of the prison and it once again became a purely military complex. However, the island’s days as a prison were not over. In 1916, the captured crew of The Aud, a ship carrying a cargo of arms for Ireland to aid the Easter Rising, was held on the island prior to being transferred to a POW camp in England. During the War of Independence, Spike was used as a prison and internment centre for members of the Irish Volunteers. Up to 500 prisoners were housed in Blocks and in wooden huts. There were two daring escapes during this period including that of three IRA prisoners on 29 April, 1931. The three men, Sean MacSwiney (brother of Terence), Tom Malone and Con Twomey were rescued by motor launch by members of the IRA based in Cobh. From 1972 until 1982 it was used as a military detention centre.

The transfer of Spike to the Irish government took place on 11 July 1938. By 1980, the first Naval Service recruits came to the island in 1980 and in the next five years up to four classes a year were enlisted. In 1985, the government decided to convert the fort into a prison and the order was given for the naval garrison to stand down.

In July 2010, a new phase in Spike Island’s history began as the State, specifically the Department of Justice and Law Reform, officially handed control over to Cork County Council, thus ending over two centuries of institutional use.  Cork County Council entered into a contract with experienced tour operators to conduct walking tours of the island, accessed from Cobh by a license ferry operator. Cork County Council recognises that there is a pent-up demand from people to visit Spike, including people who formerly lived on the island. The County Council is also preparing medium to long-term plans for the development of the island as a tourist attraction including the integration of new uses into buildings both within and outside the star-shaped fort. It is hope that the development of Spike Island as a visitor attraction will help build on the existing tourism and heritage infrastructure in Cork harbour, especially the Queenstown Story experience at the Cobh Heritage Centre and the County Council and Community led Camden Fort Meagher experience. See http://www.spikeislandcork.ie/ for more information.

 

Caption:

705a. Southern battery of Spike Island, 10 July 2013, an  event to mark the 75th anniversary of the handing over of Spike Island by the British to the Irish government in July 1938 (picture: Kieran McCarthy).

Kieran’s Heritage Week, 17-25 August 2013

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

Sunday 18 August 2013 – Branding a City-Making a Venice of the North, exploring eighteenth century Cork (new tour with Cllr Kieran McCarthy), meet at City Library, Grand Parade, 7pm (free, duration: two hours)

 

Monday 19 August 2012 – Shandon Historical Walking Tour  with Cllr Kieran McCarthy, Discover the City’s richly historical quarter, learn about St Anne’s Church and the development of butter market and the Shandon Street area, meet North Gate Bridge, 7pm (free, duration: two hours)

Tuesday 20 August 2013- Blackpool Historical Walking Tour with Cllr Kieran McCarthy, From Fair Hill to the heart of Blackpool, learn about nineteenth century shambles, schools, convents and industries, meet at North Mon gates, Gerald Griffin Avenue, 7pm (free, duration: two hours)

 

Thursday 22 August 2013 – From a Workhouse to a Hospital, The Story of St Finbarr’s Hospital with Cllr Kieran McCarthy, Discover the history of the workhouse, meet at entrance gate, 7pm (free, duration: two hours)

Friday 23August 2013, “Where the future and the past meet, A historical walking tour of Mahon, to mark the 100th anniversary of Dunlocha Cottages” (new tour with Cllr Kieran McCarthy), Blackrock Garda Station, top of Avenue De Rennes, Mahon, 7pm (free, duration: 1 ½ hours)

 

Sunday 25August 2013,  Douglas Historical Walking Tour with Cllr Kieran McCarthy, Discover about the sailcoth and woollen mills, meet at St. Columba’s Church Car Park, Douglas, 2pm (free, duration: two hours)

Blackrock Harbour Square and Park Project

Kieran's Council Work, Ward Events

Cork City Council proposes to redevelop the public realm in the vicinity of Blackrock Harbour. The project aims to build on Blackrock’s unique character as an urban village centre and enhance its potential for increased levels of business, recreation and leisure activity.

 

The project aims to improve the public realm and create a safe, open and attractive pedestrian space. A Public Park will be created within the Ursuline grounds with access provided from Blackrock Road and Church Road. Traffic calming measures will be installed to promote appropriate vehicle speeds. Traffic and parking lanes will be rationalised and new street furniture, lighting etc will be provided.

 

Particulars of the proposal will be available for   inspection at the:-

Reception Desk, Cork City Council, City Hall, Cork from Friday, 28th June 2013 until Monday, 12th August 2013, between the hours of 9.00am and 4.00pm, Monday toFriday.

 

Submissions and observations dealing with the proper planning and sustainable development of the area in which the proposed development is situated, may be made in writing in an envelope clearly marked “Blackrock Harbour Square and Park Project” to the Roads Design/Construction Division, Room 331, City Hall, Cork, before 4.00pm on Monday, 26th August 2013.

NOTICE UNDER PART VIII (

Cork Heritage Open Day, Saturday 17 August 2013

Cork City Events, Cork History, Kieran's Council Work, Landscapes, Uncategorized
Organised by Cork City Council, Cork Heritage Open Day celebrates Ireland’s architecture and heritage by enabling free access to properties & events of interest to the public that are either not usually open to the public, or would normally charge an entrance fee. Details of this year’s events and participating buildings appear on the website www.corkheritageopenday.ie   

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 15 August 2013

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

704a. Former Donnybrook Woollen Mills, built 1866

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent,  15 August 2013

Kieran’s Heritage Week, 17-25 August 2013

 

National Heritage Week is upon us again at the end of next week (17th – 25th August). It’s going to be a busy week. I have set up a number of events. They are all free and I welcome any public support for the activities outlined below.

Sunday 18 August 2013 –Making a Venice of the North, Exploring Eighteenth Century Cork City (new tour), explore a world of canals, and eighteenth century Cork society, meet at City Library, Grand Parade, 7pm (free, duration: two hours).

Monday 19 August 2012 – Shandon Historical Walking Tour, Discover one of the City’s key historical quarters; learn about St Anne’s Church and the development of butter market and the Shandon Street area, meet at North Gate Bridge, 7pm (free, duration: two hours).

Tuesday 20 August 2013- Blackpool Historical Walking Tour, From Fair Hill to the heart of Blackpool, learn about nineteenth century shambles, schools, convents and industries, meet at North Mon gates, Gerald Griffin Avenue, 7pm (free, duration: two hours).

Thursday 22 August 2013 – From a Workhouse to a Hospital, The Story of St Finbarr’s Hospital, Discover the history of the workhouse, meet at entrance gate, 7pm (free, duration: two hours).

Friday 23 August 2013, “Where the future and the past meet, A historical walking tour of Mahon, to mark the 100th anniversary of Dunlocha Cottages” (new tour), meet at Blackrock Garda Station, top of Avenue De Rennes, Mahon, 7pm (free, duration: 1 ½ hours).

Sunday 25 August 2013,  Douglas Historical Walking Tour, Discover about the sailcoth and woollen mills, meet at St. Columba’s Church Car Park, Douglas, 2pm (free, duration: two hours).

The story of Douglas and its environs seems to be in part a story of experimentation, of industry and of people, and social improvement; the story of one of Ireland’s largest sailcloth factories is a worthwhile topic to explore in terms of its aspirations in the eighteenth century;  that coupled with the creation of 40 or so seats or mansions and demesnes made it a place where the city’s merchants made their home it and also these suburban spaces make for an interesting place to study in terms of ambition. Those landscapes that were created still linger in the environs of Douglas Village.

The District of Douglas takes its names from the river or rivulet bearing the Gaelic word Dubhghlas or dark stream. As early as the late thirteenth century King John of England made a grant of parcels of land, near the city of Cork to Philip de Prendergast.  On 1 June 1726, Douglas Sail Cloth Factory was begun to be built. Samuel Perry and Francis Carleton became the first proprietors. The factory is said to have been founded by a colony of Huguenot weavers from Fermanagh. The eighteenth century was a golden age for wooden sailing ships, before the 1800s made steam and iron prerequisites for modern navies and trading fleets.  The era was also a golden age too for maritime exploration, with the voyages of James Cook amongst others opening up the Pacific and the South Seas.

Indeed by 1810, William West in a travelogue of Ireland states that upwards of 1,000 hands were employed in the extensive concern belonging to Messrs Besnard & Sons, who also at a short distance had an extensive ropeworks. They had several grants for sailcloth and spindles through the Napoleonic Wars. In 1817, Peter Besnard (eldest son of Julius) was appointed Inspector General for the provinces of Leinster, Munster and Connaught in succession to Charles Duffin. There were also industries also at Dunmanway and Innishannon where up to 60,000 people were employed in Ireland.

The Besnard family discontinued flax spinning before 1830, but they continued to work in the linen trade. In 1824, Besnard and Herrick with an address in Perry Street, Cork were large shippers of brown and white linen and beetled hollands. The firm was in business until at least 1830, and up to that time were apparently the most influential shippers in Munster.  By 1837, the business had declined owing to English competition, but the manufacture was being carried on, together with a trade in cordage (cords or ropes, especially the ropes in the rigging of a ship), which was held in high repute.

After a gap of 40 years the Patent Hemp Spinning Company of Wallis and Pollock, Douglas introduced mechanised flax-spinning into the area. They established themselves within the former Douglas sailcloth factory, erected scotching machinery and encouraged flax cultivation. They destroyed the eighteenth and nineteenth century buildings and a new multi-storey flax-spinning mill at Donnybrook was designed and built by the Cork architect and antiquarian, Richard Bolt Brash, for Hugh and James Wheeler Pollock in 1866. Its essential design was modelled closely on contemporary Belfast mills. Its main enclosing walls were built with Youghal brick and are externally faced with Ballinhassig (Ballinphellic) Brick.

In 1883, the factory changed production from flax spinning to woollen manufacture become apparent, when the mill was producing Cork tweeds. In 1889, the mill was bought by James and Patrick Morrogh and R A Atkins, the High Sheriff of Cork. In 1903, the mill employed 300 people, many of whom were housed in the 100 company-owned cottages in Douglas.  To learn more, come along on the walking tour!

 

Captions:

704a. Former Donnybrook Woollen Mills, built 1866 (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article, Kieran’s Heritage Week, 17-25 August 2013

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

703a. John Rocque's Map of Cork, 1750

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article, 

Cork Independent, 8 August 2013

Kieran’s Heritage Week, 17-25 August 2013

 

National Heritage Week is upon us again at the end of next week (17th – 25th August). It’s going to be a busy week. I have set up a number of events. They are all free and I welcome any public support for the activities outlined below.

Heritage Open Day, Saturday 17 August 2013 – Historical Walking Tour of Cork City Hall; Learn about the early history of Cork City Council; discover the development of the building and visit the Lord Mayor’s Room, 11am, free but ticketed, contact The Everyman Palace, 0214501673 (duration: 75 minutes). The current structure, replaced the old City Hall, which was destroyed in the ‘burning of Cork’ in 1920. It was designed by Architects Jones and Kelly and built by the Cork Company Sisks. The foundation stone was laid by Eamonn de Valera, President of the Executive Council of the State on 9 July 1932.

Heritage Week:

Sunday 18 August 2013 –Making a Venice of the North, Exploring Eighteenth Century Cork City (new tour), explore a world of canals, and eighteenth century Cork society, meet at City Library, Grand Parade, 7pm (free, duration: two hours).

For nearly five hundred years (c.1200-c.1690), the walled port town of Cork, built in a swamp and at the lowest crossing point of the River Lee and the tidal area, remained as one of the most fortified and vibrant walled settlements in the expanding British colonial empire. The walls served as a vast repository of meanings, symbolism, iconography and ideology, as well as symbols of order and social relationships. However, economic growth as well as political events in late seventeenth century Ireland, culminating in the destruction of the city’s core in 1690, provided the catalyst for large-scale change within the urban area. The walls were allowed to decay and this was to inadvertently alter much of the city’s physical, social and economic character in the ensuing century. By John Rocque’s Map of Cork in 1759, the walls of Cork were just a memory- the medieval plan was now a small part in something larger – larger in terms of population from 20,000 to 73,000 plus in terms of a new townscape. A new urban text emerged with new bridges, streets, quays, residences and warehouses built to intertwine with the natural riverine landscape. New communities created new social and cultural landscapes to encounter, several of which are explored on my tours for this year’s heritage week.

The 1759 Map is impressive in its detail. John Rocque (c.1705–62) was a cartographer and engraver of European repute. He could count among his achievements maps of London, Paris, Berlin and Rome. In Britain, his many projects included plans of great gardens, several county and provincial city maps and a great and a great, highly innovative, survey of London which resulted in a 16-sheet map of London and its immediate hinterland (1746), and an immense 24-sheet map of the city itself (also 1746), laid out at a very large scale close to 200 feet to an inch.

 

The unofficial title of the Venice of the North was given to Cork in the eighteenth century. This was a type of branding exercise, a cultural code in a sense, a reference by native and foreign merchants that Cork was part of several cities in northern Europe (Saint Petersburg, Amsterdam, Bruges, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Hamburg, and Manchester) that contained canals, all compared to the enduring connection with water in Venice, Italy over many centuries. Cork and other cities in northern Europe were to be conditioned by ideas of the ideal city tradition. During the post medieval centuries European artists and engineers began to represent political and social ideas and concepts in graphic terms. In truth, this encouraged planners to imagine the ideal port city as a complete unit of which the river, harbour, or canal was an integral part, conceptually and figuratively. This tour explores these ideas and how they influenced perception and culture in growing eighteenth century ‘Venices of the North’ such as Cork.

Kieran’s other tours are:

Monday 19 August 2012 – Shandon Historical Walking Tour, Discover one of the City’s key historical quarters; learn about St Anne’s Church and the development of butter market and the Shandon Street area, meet at North Gate Bridge, 7pm (free, duration: two hours).

Tuesday 20 August 2013- Blackpool Historical Walking Tour, From Fair Hill to the heart of Blackpool, learn about nineteenth century shambles, schools, convents and industries, meet at North Mon gates, Gerald Griffin Avenue, 7pm (free, duration: two hours).

Thursday 22 August 2013 – From a Workhouse to a Hospital, The Story of St Finbarr’s Hospital, Discover the history of the workhouse, meet at entrance gate, 7pm (free, duration: two hours).

Friday 23 August 2013, “Where the future and the past meet, A historical walking tour of Mahon, to mark the 100th anniversary of Dunlocha Cottages” (new tour), Blackrock Garda Station, top of Avenue De Rennes, Mahon, 7pm (free, duration: 1 ½ hours).

Sunday 25 August 2013,  Douglas Historical Walking Tour, Discover about the sailcoth and woollen mills, meet at St. Columba’s Church Car Park, Douglas, 2pm (free, duration: two hours).

Further details from Kieran McCarthy can be got, if needs be at 0876553389.

 

Caption:

703a. John Rocque’s Map of Cork 1750 (source: Cork City Library)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 1 August 2013

Cork History, Uncategorized

702a. Raising the Irish tricolour, Camden Fort Meagher, 10 July 2013

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent,  1 August 2013

Rescue Camden Fort Meagher

 

It’s hard to imagine that in 2010 community volunteers had to cut their way into Camden Fort Meagher near Crosshaven. The scale of restoration work since then has been remarkable and is a testimony to the spirit and hard work of the whole project team. Passionate and imaginative are perhaps two key terms to describe the work of the community in their ongoing success in re-telling the story of the fort. There are multiple sides in their work from seeing its potential not just for the tourist market but also a way of bringing people together collaboratively and on rebuilding the fort’s sense of place set against the spectacular backdrop of Cork Harbour.

Camden Fort Meagher is internationally recognized as being one of the finest remaining examples of a classical coastal artillery fort in the world. It combines a rich British and Irish military history. I was fortunate recently to be involved in creating a short video on the history of the site driven by the onsite marketing team. Fortifications on this site date back to 1550 and for almost 400 years the fort played an important role as a strong strategic position for the defence of Ireland, the west coast of England and Wales. However, most of what the visitor sees now was built during the 1860s by British Forces and finished around 1871. It has been documented that it took 500 men 40 years to carve out the moat, which goes around three sides of Camden Fort Meagher – as of course on the 4th side one has the harbour.

At the gate to the fort, you can see the original pillars of the fort and they are inscribed with ‘Dun Ni Mhecair’, which is the Irish for Fort Meagher. The fort was named Fort Meagher in 1938 after Thomas Francis Meagher, who was the leader of the Young Irelanders. Ninety years previously in 1848 Meagher and fellow patriot William Smith O’Brien went to France to study revolutionary events there, and returned to Ireland with the new Flag of Ireland, a tricolour of green, white and orange made by and given to them by French women sympathetic to the Irish cause.

A map reproduced for the visitor at the entrance to the fort was originally produced in 1896 by the royal engineer Lieutenant Colonel H. Kirkwood. The fort itself is 45 acres and resources of the fort are 65% underground. There are numerous gunning emplacements that protected the forts on all sides. One of the most interesting facts about the fort is that it once housed one of only eight installations of the Brennan Torpedo worldwide. The Brennan Torpedo was the world’s first practical guided torpedo. Remains of a gunning emplacement show that it housed a heavy mechanical gun and that would have had quite a long range on it. You can also see the remains of pulley bars that would have enabled the pulling and dragging of heavy guns by many men. The bulk of ammunition and shells relevant to each gunning emplacement would have been kept directly underground in a magazine and store.

Further inside the fort, there are the casemated barracks where approximately 240 soldiers would have slept at one time. There were 13 casemated barracks in peace-time and 22 in war time. Some of these rooms have been imaginatively re-used to house exhibitions covering the timelines of British and Irish history at the fort. One of these rooms houses a remarkable photographic exhibition documenting the events of the 9-11 tragedy.

The impressive tunnels, some of which are accessible, were built with a ‘cut and cover’ method, which meant that the workers would dig trenches in the ground, put up support structures, brick over that, then remove the support structures and then fill the earth back over the tunnel. The underground magazine is the biggest chamber in Camden Fort Meagher and was once a store for the forts vast amounts of munitions, approx 30 feet underground. The acoustics in here are intense – this is due to the vaulted ceiling, which was designed to support the weight and stress of the Parade Square which lies above it. You can see the boxes at the gable end here are numbered 2, 3 and 4 – these were light boxes that were secured tightly with glass and putty and would have been lit from an access passage behind the magazine. This kept flames and sparks separate from the munitions for obvious reasons.

The Parade Square at the centre of the fort dates from 1550 right up to 1989. Today the Parade Square is used for re-enactments highlighting different eras and displays. In 1989 the Irish Army handed the fort over to the local authority, Cork County Council. Despite best efforts to restore the fort as a tourism site it became overgrown for almost two decades.  With serious input by a community of volunteers and financial and logistical support from the local authority, Cork County Council has been crucial to the development of the project. Worker placement schemes from FAS and SECAD have also added to this project’s success. Go and visit this great community project.

See www.rescuecamden.ie for more details and opening hours

Caption:

702a. Raising the Irish tricolour, 10 July 2013, an  event to mark the 75th anniversary of the handing over of Fort Camden (now Camden Fort Meagher) by the British to the Irish government in July 1938 (picture: Kieran McCarthy)