Question to the Manager:
To ask the manager for an update on the revamp of Boole House on Bachelor’s Quay? (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)
Motions:
That this Council work with the Church of Ireland, Shandon to help fix its iconic clock faces (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)
That this Council work with the owner of the site of McCarthy’s Monument on Blackrock Road to clean it up (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)
Thanks to everyone who supported the Docklands tour on Saturday 9 November plus the various public tours of the ward during the year.
Cllr Kieran McCarthy’s tour of Cork Docklands takes place on Saturday 9 November leaving at 2pm from Kennedy Park on Victoria Road (free, two hours). Some of the themes covered in the talk will be the development of such sites as the Marina and the Atlantic Pond and how they came into being, and the historic structures that still exist in the area. Much of the story of Cork’s modern development is represented in their environs. The origin of the current Docklands is a product of centuries of reclamation and negotiation of swampland.
Cllr McCarthy noted: “Ever since Viking age time over 1,000 years ago, boats of all different shapes and sizes have been coming in and out of Cork’s riverine and harbour region continuing a very long legacy of trade. Port trade was and still is the engine in Cork’s development. To complement the growth of the port, extensive reclamation of swampland took place as well as physical infrastructure quays, wharfs and warehouses. I’m a big fan of the different shapes of these wharfs, especially the timber ones that have survived since the 1870s. Perhaps the theme that runs through the new walking tour is connections. The tour explores very interesting sites such as Jewtown, Hibernian Buildings, the old electricity power station, the Gas Works, the Docks, the old City Park Racecourse, the early story of Fords, and Kennedy Park. All these topics are all about connecting the city to wider themes of exportation and importation of goods, people and ideas into the city through the ages”.
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,
Cork Independent, 7 November 2013
Technical Memories (Part 60) – Apostles of Education
During late summer before the walking tour season, the column focussed on life in the Crawford Municipal Technical Institute in the 1930s and early 1940s. Like most organisations, World War II had a profound effect on the organisation in terms of funding cutbacks. Despite that, the Institute provided a range of day and nights courses in a variety of subjects. Guy’s Directory of Cork in 1945 lists the following: Engineering – motor car engineering, electrical engineering, chemistry and physics, building construction, carpentry and joinery, cabinet making, plumbing, botany and gardening, Materia Medica, typography, tailors’ cutting, domestic science, machine knitting, shirt-making, telegraphy, telephony, pharmacy, flour milling, power machine work, and continuation courses.
In the archives for the VEC in the Cork City and County Archives, regular conversaziones are listed at the Institute. For example at one of three evenings in October 1945 (15th, 16th and 17th), the principal speaker Professor Alfred O’Rahilly, President of UCC (since 1943) spoke about the importance of vocational education. It is unrecorded what he said but a week earlier as noted in the Cork Examiner Professor O’Rahilly, at the conferring of degrees in UCC, he commented that there were difficult economic times ahead coming out of war torn Europe and that developing professions should concentrate on quality rather than on quantity. With reference to British restrictions on the employment of doctors, the professor argued that there was room in Ireland for more doctors and for a greater medical service and also room for expansion in the other professions. The annual output of medical men from the English and Scottish colleges, he described was about 2,000, and this figure was maintained during the war years. In addition, there were some 20,000 doctors in the British army and it was contemplated that about 8,000 of these would be demobilised before Christmas 1945. Hence, British medical graduates were given preference to jobs. In this light, this made the search for jobs for Irish medical graduates very difficult in Britain.
On the challenge of emigration in the country, O’Rahilly argued that it was not that UCC wished to cater for an export market but that “in a small country like this, the matter was one outside our control; we would wish as far as possible to give preference to our home professions…all we can do here is to equip our graduates not merely with the technical knowledge which they require as professional men and women, but to look to give them as well a proper philosophy of life. So that when they leave this country they will be lay apostles to carry with them something more than mere laboratory or classroom techniques”.
Guy’s Directory of Cork for 1945 lists J F King as the principal of the institute. The committee overseeing it included its chairman, Mr William Ellis as well as members Alderman James Hickey, Alderman Richard S Anthony, TD, Alderman Jeremiah R Connolly, Councillor C Connolly, W Furlong TD, P J O’Brien, Right Rev Dean Sexton PP, Very Rev Dean Babington, Rev Bro H S Byrne, Rev Bro Austin, Michael Egan, James Crosbie, and James Barry. The chaplain was Canon Edward J Fitzgerald who is recorded in the VEC minute books as providing a yearly mass at the start of the September term in the South Chapel for students of the Institute in the 1940s. He was parish priest in the South Chapel from 1924 to 1948. He was the son of Sir Edward Fitzgerald, Lord Mayor of Cork (1901-1903). In May 1955, when the parish of Ballinlough was constituted a separate parish from Blackrock, Canon Fitzgerald became its first parish priest.
One of the Institute’s committee members Dean Sexton, who offered a huge contribution to the Institute died on 20 November 1945. According to the Evening Echo on that evening, the Right Rev Monsignor Patrick Sexton received his early education at the North Monastery and at Christian Brothers’ College, where he was one of the first pupils. He studied for the priesthood at St Finbarr’s Diocesan Seminary and at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, where he was ordained in June 1896. He served at the Dunboyne establishment for about three years where he took out his degree of Doctor of Divinity. His grasp at theology was recognised when he was appointed to All Hallows College, Dublin as Professor of Dogmatic Theology.
Sexton became well known that when the Presidency of Farranferris came up in 1906, and he took the position. During his seventeen years as President he effected many improvements in the college where he took an active interest in every aspect of its welfare. In June 1923 Dr Sexton was appointed Pastor of Blackrock. However after three months, on the death of Rev Dean Shinkwin, Sexton was made parish priest of St Patrick’s Parish and became Dean of Cork. He was in Berlin at the outbreak of World War II, when he was researching German methods of education. On the night war was declared, he was taken into custody but released soon again on condition of reporting to the police every three days. He crossed into neutral Holland four months after his enforced stay in Berlin.
To be continued…
Caption:
716a. Dean Patrick Sexton (source: Cork City Library)
Kieran’s Our City Our Town Article,
Cork Independent, Thursday 31 October 2013
Docklands Walking Tour
On Saturday 9 November, at 2pm I will conduct a historical walking tour of Cork Docklands (free), meet at Kennedy Park, Victoria Road. The tour will take in the city’s docks, Albert Road/ Jewtown/ Hibernian Buildings and speak about the development of Centre Park Road. One aspect of this area are the old Cork Showgrounds, located there since 1892. In 2010, I was involved in penning a book with the Munster Agricultural Society on its heritage, its old name in the nineteenth century being the County of Cork Agricultural Society.
From 1857 till 1890 the shows of the County of Agricultural Society were held in the ground of the Corn Market (now the site of Cork City Hall). In the early months of 1890, the informality of attaining the Corn Exchange premises from the trustees turned to formality. There was a concern over finances and responsibility over outstanding costs arose between the County of Cork Agricultural Society and the Corn Market Trustees. That was resolved by the Society’s AGM of 22 March 1890 but uncertainty of using the space remained. Those issues were also coupled with lack of space for development. There was sufficient room for an ordinary Cattle Show but when the Society, following the lead of other cities, increased its operations and adopted the idea of holding horse-jumping contest, the enclosure in the Corn Exchange was too limited.
In late February in 1891, double booking occurred at the Corn Exchange on the days of the annual show. As work was already being carried out in terms of advertising and organisation, the committee decided not to move the time but investigate another location. A letter was read from Mr Daly, secretary from the Cork Park Race Committee who stated that their committee would be happy to give the society the use of their premises for which they would charge £25 and that they would even give a donation of £10 toward the show fund. The motion was proposed by Sir George Colthurst and seconded by Captain Newenham. Permission was received from the trustees to open an office at the Corn Exchange to receive entries. A series of temporary buildings were constructed at the Cork Park Racecourse.
At a post show discussion on 1 August 1891 at a general meeting led Mr A Ferguson, former chairman proposed that a permanent show yard be erected in a portion of the Cork Race Park with grounds 20 acres in extent. The general committee agreed to appoint a deputation to discuss the matter with the Corporation of Cork. The deputation comprised General Davies, Sir George Colthurst, A Ferguson, D Ahern, L Beamish, Crawford Ledlig, R.L. Longfield, Jason Byrne and A.J. Warren. The Corporation of Cork was approached as the site was on their land.
Initially, there was no immediate response from the town clerk by mid-September 1891. By October there was some formal discussion between parties. Mr. Bass, the society’s solicitor was instructed to write to the town clerk and inform him that on no account would the society take a lease unless they were given a free hand to use the ground as they sought fit. By early November 1891, there was still no lease forthcoming from the corporation. By 14 November 1891, Mr Bass recommended that the society should form themselves into a limited liability society in order to raise the money required for the erection of the new buildings. A sub-committee was subsequently formed to investigate the matter and reported back on 28 November 1891. By early December 1891, the society decided that the clause with reference to the loan fund should be altered and that the society should not undertake to pay back any part of the money raised by voluntary contribution.
By mid-December 1891, all society members were sent a circular with a copy of the scheme and a request asking for a subscription. A deputation was sent to the Royal Dublin Society asking for a grant towards the new buildings. There was no success there. The secretary was further directed to write to the secretary of the North East Agricultural Society for some information as to the new buildings which they were erecting. Mr S French proposed on 23 January 1892 that a premium of £10 for the best plans for the new show yard be given. The idea was accepted. The three gentlemen nominated to adjudicate on the plans for the new show yard reported that eight plans were submitted for the competition. They selected two marked respectively – “Native Industry” and “Fiat Pistetia Ruat Coelum”. The second (‘Fiat’) was adopted. The author of the successful design was Mr John Leslie O’Hanlon, Darmouth House, Upper Leeson Street, Dublin. He was subsequently invited down to meet the directors of the new company.
On 3 March 1892, the memorandum of agreement between the limited company and the society was adopted and in early 1892, the company obtained a lease from Cork Corporation of 27 acres of reclaimed land and the first stages of the show yard was built. More on the above can be got from my 2010 book on the Cork Showgrounds (available from the Munster Agricultural Society, 021 480 1919).
Captions:
715a. Recent Rebel Cork Week Concert, Cork Docklands, October 2013 (picture: Kieran McCarthy)
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article, Cork Independent,
Eighteenth Century Cork Walking Tour
Thursday 24 October 2013
The weather is still relatively mild, so the next historical walking tour is on Saturday 26 October 2013 –Making a Venice of the North, Exploring Eighteenth Century Cork City, explore a world of canals, and eighteenth century Cork society, meet at Cork City Library, Grand Parade, 2pm (E.5, duration: two hours).
The tour is bound with the demise of the walled town of Cork in the early 1700s. 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. However, economic growth as well as political events in late seventeenth century Ireland, culminating in the Williamite Siege of Cork 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 the mid-eighteenth century, Cork was a prosperous, wealthy city. In 1732, Edward Lloyd, an English travel writer, wrote that the population of the city was 40,000 and that the shops were ‘neatly fitted and sorted with rich goods’. In addition, there were a lot of new buildings being constructed and many others being reconstructed. Lloyd detailed that the city had a large export trade with almost 59,000 barrels of beef exported from Cork per annum – half the full total for Ireland.
A report by two unnamed touring Englishmen in 1748 noted that the economy of Cork was booming and that provisions of all kinds were available at reasonable prices. These included meat, fish, fowl, fruits such as strawberries, and tubers. The main fish sold in the city market was salmon, turbot and crayfish. The main trading exports comprised beef, hides, butter and tallow (animal fat), which were been sent to all parts of the known world. The gentlemen mention that during the previous slaughtering season, between mid-August and Christmas 1747, a total of 90,000 black cattle were killed. Restrictions on exports such as wool were easily circumvented through illegal black-market trading. Their closing remarks on Cork are very interesting – they noted Cork people had no recognizable accent, which points to a great mix of nationalities residing and trading in the city.
Whereas the merchant classes were enjoying the profits of growing trade links, life for the lower classes was not as easy. In 1730, the population was 56,000; by 1790 the population of the urban area had increased to 73,000. This was a significant increase in a relatively short period of time; 100 years earlier, in 1690, the population had been just 20,000.
This population explosion caused many social problems. Crime was a serious issue for the city. In the early 1740s Mayor Hugh Winter employed fifteen watchmen to walk around the city at night between eleven o’ clock and sunrise to protect the citizens. Eleven o’clock was the city’s curfew, and any person caught outdoors after that time faced prosecution or expulsion. Robbery was common, with money and clothing often reported missing. Items such as silk, lead, swords were targeted by thieves too, and the raiding of cellars for food was also common. There were two gaols in the eighteenth-century city, one overlooking South Gate Bridge and the other overlooking North Gate Bridge. These gaols housed debtors and malefactors.
Another huge problem was the number of destitute children left homeless on the streets. On the western side of the south suburbs was a long row of cabins called the Devil’s Drop. Here, the doors were thronged with children with little or no food. The origin of the name Devil’s Drop is unknown, but probably refers to the degrading conditions in which the inhabitants lived. On 12 March 1747, a poor house was opened on what is now Leitrim Street.
Floods were common in the city and caused great damage. Rare high tides and flooding forced the inhabitants of the city to pass from house to house in boats. This had even happened even in the middle of North and South Main Street. Houses and warehouses on the quays had to be protected from flooding every winter by blocking up doors.
In stark contrast to these descriptions of misery, Smith also detailed the expansion of the city in previous decades. In particular, he highlighted the building of the many quays, the most notable being the Custom House Quay (now Emmett Place), the Coal Quay or Ferry Quay, Kyrl’s quay and the North quay (now Pope’s Quay). The largest canal in the city was that which is now covered by St Patrick’s Street – picture the footpaths on this street as the location of the old quaysides and the road as a canal. The Grand Parade was made up of three quays: Tuckey’s Quay (outside Argos), Post Office Quay (outside the City Library) and the Mall (on the site of the old Capital Cineplex).
Caption:
714a. October light at St Finbarre’s Cathedral (picture: Kieran McCarthy)
The weather is still relatively mild, so the next historical walking tour is on Saturday 26 October 2013 –Making a Venice of the North, Exploring Eighteenth Century Cork City, explore a world of canals, and eighteenth century Cork society, meet at Cork City Library, Grand Parade, 2pm (E.5, duration: two hours).
The tour is bound with the demise of the walled town of Cork in the early 1700s. 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. However, economic growth as well as political events in late seventeenth century Ireland, culminating in the Williamite Siege of Cork 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.
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article, Cork Independent
Rebel Cork
Thursday 17 October 2013
Cork Rebel Week, the most talked about event in recent months, is upon us. One of the national flagship projects of The Gathering it focuses on what defines Cork as a place. There are many answers to that and even more questions. The collective memory of the city has many stories that are constantly republished, narrated amongst individuals and communities from legends such as St Finbarr to famous buildings to Cork’s GAA prowess. However perhaps it is the concept of being rebellious in its dealings through the ages that defines the essence of Ireland’s second and always ambitious city. But what does rebel Cork actually mean?
I always think that it’s a city that does not overly market its past despite its role in everything from early Christian Ireland to eighteenth century butter and beef markets to the Irish War of Independence. It always seems that the history of the city is either not ready for public consumption or that as a city we hold back from celebrating it. That being said the sense of place of Cork, a city built on a swamp with steep hills hosting its suburbs, built in the middle of the river adds to the charm of what Cork is all about.
When all is taken into account, perhaps the sense of rebelliousness in the city is bound up with its sense of charm which is written about much in tourist literature and also tends to be a foundation pillar in its history – a city whose keen interest in economics through many centuries created merchants who continually honed their skills to be the best they could and to be imaginative and ambitious in their aims convincing others that this small city had something to offer in the Atlantic corridors of business and empire building and in time empire destruction. Creating a port infrastructure on a swamp, one can still admire buildings like the Port of Cork, the timber wharves, some intact, some crumbling – but for all that heritage, the city is very picky in what should be remembered – the river and the harbour still call for a new sense of re-imagining – rowers and swimmers have shown how the water determines some of the sense of place of the city. I say this maybe because I do feel the city has turned it back on the waterways and the second largest natural harbour in the world.
Many of city’s old buildings, which are derelict, also call for a new re-imagining especially those located in areas where the local history itself is rich. We have all passed areas in our respective neighbourhoods where you’d pass and go I’d wish someone would do that place up and celebrate what an area stands for. Despite the city’s failings, a walk through its different suburbs reveals a place of different layers of history and exciting connections to not just the City’s local history but Irish and European as well.
If a sense of charm is one key pillar, the search for the historic origins of the term Rebel Cork is rooted in a city legend that in 1493 Perkin Warbeck, the Pretender for the English throne, came to Cork. He was well received by the Mayor and then allegedly was crowned as Richard IV of England in Christ Church on South Main Street. The story is bound up with the Wars of the Roses, (1455–85), in English history i.e. a series of violent dynastic civil wars. Fought between the Houses of Lancaster and York for the English throne, the wars were named many years afterward from the supposed badges of the contending parties: the white rose of York and the red of Lancaster. Both houses claimed the throne through descent from the sons of Edward III. In the English magazine History Today, several contributors through several publications note that in the aftermath of the Wars of the Roses, Henry’s position remained precarious, as doubts persisted over his questionable claim to the throne taken after defeating Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth. Perkin Warbeck’s web of deception began when he arrived in Cork, the seventeen-year-old servant of a Breton merchant. His confession alleges that after modelling the elegant silks that his master was selling, some locals insisted he must be Richard of York, the younger of the two princes Richard III was believed to have slain in 1483. Warbeck embarked on a conspiracy against the incumbent Henry VII to take back the crown.
On 5 October, 1497, Perkin Warbeck’s capture in Beaulieu by Henry VII’s troops marked the end of his ‘reign’ as the self-proclaimed Richard IV and revealed him as the imposter he really was. It was then that he finally confessed that he was not Edward V’s brother, as he had declared for six years, but was in fact descended from a Tournai boatman. By pursuing a number of conspiracies intended to oust Henry, Warbeck had been a major thorn in the king’s side ever since he was mistaken – deliberately or otherwise – for the Duke of York in 1491. Where did it all start – Cork and that just one of several intriguing stories that the citizens have woven through the ages.
Caption:
713a. Perkin Warbeck (source: History Today)
Double motions this evening due to the meeting cut short on 23 September
Kieran’s Motions, Cork City Council Meeting, 14 October 2013
Motions:
That the embankment on Convent Avenue, Blackrock be cleaned-up and replanted (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)
That this Council calls for action from the government on Section 9 of the 2008 Intoxicating Liquor Act and that it be signed into Law; if signed into law it would prevent children from shopping in their local Off Licence to purchase sweets if there is no physical barrier between sweets and alcohol Cllr Kieran McCarthy).
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Kieran’s Question to the City Manager and Motions, Cork City Council Meeting, 23 September 2013
Question to the City Manager:
To ask the manager when public submissions for the Draft Tramore Valley Park Plan will be made available to councillors plus when is the likely timescale for the park to open (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)
Motions:
That the City Council extend its Jobsbridge programmes to provide internships in the City Library and City Museum (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)
That a “Welcome to Cork” sign, be provided adjacent the tourist bus stop on St Patrick’s Quay, as well as an interpretative panel – guide to Cork City and map (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)
Thanks to all who supported the Ballintemple historical walking tour on yesterday, Saturday, 12 October 2013
