Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

 Cork Independent, 13 June 2013

Technical Memories (Part 57) – Seán’s Memories

I met Seán Ó Coileáin last year during initial research for the Crawford Municipal Technical Institute. He attended the institute from 1934 for three years. He was originally from Kildorrey in North Cork and moved to Cork City at the age of 15 to live with his uncles so he could further his education. In recent years, he has penned a memoir on his own memories of the city at that time, part of which is a memory of the Crawford Tech. I publish some of his memories this week.

Seán: At the age of 15 [1934], it was decided that something in the artistic line was called for, in deference to my aptitude for drawing. We called first to Sullivan’s Quay, Christian Brothers and Nora, my sister, spoke to the head brother. The upshot was that I was to report there the following week. However it did not stop there and we went on to the School of Art and talked to Hugh C Charde, the principal. After looking at some sample drawings of mine, he said that I was more a draughtsman than an artist. So we proceeded to the Crawford Technical Institute and spoke with the principal John F King. There was no draughtsman course as such, but mechanical drawing would be part of any course. There were three main specialised courses – electrical engineering, motor engineering and building, three year courses and a one year continuation course, which was a kind of introductory course to the three specialised ones. So it was agreed that I would sign for the continuation course. There was an entrance exam, which if passed, by-passed the introductory course, gave a free scholarship into one of the specialised courses. One could save the £1 course fee. It was decided that I should enter for this exam, without any expectation of passing it. The exam took place on 3 September and consisted of Irish, English, arithmetic and freehand drawing.

In the Irish part one question one was to write an essay on “The life of a loaf of bread”, which we had done some time before in Scart NS, which was a big help. The drawing question was to draw a bucket. Next day Nora, my sister, delivered me down to the Tech as I didn’t know the way – over the next three years I got to know every inch of it – up Pouladuff Road, down Evergreen Street, along the Bandon Road, down Pickett’s Lane to Gillabbey, down Bishop Street to Sharman Crawford Street and so to the Tech. I went in the front door to the entrance hall and joined a queue for the principal’s office where on eventual arrival, I faced Mr King across the table. He asked me for my name and informed me that I had a free studentship. I accepted the motor engineering course first but then changed to electrical engineering. The standard in motor engineering was so low that not enough qualified to proceed to second year and a few of the students were transferred to first year electrical at the end of first year.

On Monday 10 December 1934, when I reported at the tech for the start of the course, I found that the whole school was gone to mass at SS Peter’s and Paul’s Church, so I decided I’d better follow. I had not a notion where the church was, and asked directions from someone and repeated the query at every turn and eventually arrived in time to meet the congregation coming out. On returning after lunch, I was directed to an Irish class in a lecture room on the first floor. I wondered what Irish had to do with electricity. Miss Lucey Duggan, a sister of Archdeacon Duggan, and later Professor of Education at UCC was the teacher.  When I gave my name, she noted my exam had gone well and remarked on my ability in the Irish language. The next class was woodwork and again I wondered when we’d be introduced to electricity. We signed on in pairs and you more or less remained paired with your co-signee for the term. One lad W H Barafather, seemed to a very decent kind of fellow, so I signed with him. I remember three clever lads from Cobh, Jim Hennessy, Bill Damery and Mill Buckley. I remember John Lee and Edward Davis, John O’Grady. John Kelleher, Jim Hill, Less than half of the 18 in the class graduated to second year and only three of us in the class managed to graduate to third year. It was a tough course.

At physical training, we used to mingle with the motor engineering class. I can only remember two of them, one with the surname Long and the other a big 6’ guy named Capithorne. I used to enjoy the physical training, twice a week, 5pm to 5.30pm, which was mainly swinging on the parallel bars and I became very agile. It used to be carried on in the yard, the high wall of which cut us off from the Protestant Bishop’s garden.  A few times when the lads were kicking football in the yard, the ball went over the wall and some of the boys went over after it- a procedure the gardener took umbrage at. The physical training instructor was T O’Sullivan who had a gold pocket watch, which chimed on the hour.

To be continued…

Caption:

695a. Seán Ó Coileáin, Mallow, 2012 (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 6 June 2013

Kieran’s City Walking Tours, June 2013

This year I bring the summer walking tours of Cork City centre back during the month of June, on Tuesday evenings (11^th, 18^th, 25^th), and Friday evening, 14^th. The tours begin at the National Monument on the Grand Parade, at 7pm on those evenings and explore the City Centre’s early development on a swamp. The tour costs e.10 per person and children under 12 are free. No booking is required, just turn up on the evening. Further information if needed can be attained from me at 0876553389.

The tour is based on my publication Discover Cork, which was published ten years ago as a guide to the city’s history. In this book I outline the city’s development and it opens with eminent Cork writer Daniel Corkery’s account of the city in his The Threshold of Quiet (1917) which highlights well the physical landscape of Cork City:

“Leaving us, the summer visitor says in his good humoured way that Cork is quite a busy place…as hundrum a collection of odds and ends as ever went by the name of city – are flung higgledy piggledy together into a narrow double-streamed, many bridged river valley, jostled and jostling, so compacted that the mass throws up a froth and flurry that confuses the stray visitor…for him this is Cork”.

One of the distinct questions that arises out of his narrative relates to the query, who could have built such a landscape. It was a combination of native and outside influences, primarily people that shaped its changing townscape and society since its origins as a settlement. The city possesses a unique character derived from a combination of its plan, topography, built fabric and its location. Indeed, it is also a city that is unique among other cities, it is the only one which has experienced all phases of Irish urban development, from circa 600 A.D. to the present day.

The settlement began as a monastic centre in the seventh century, overlooking a series of marshy islands on which the present day city centre grew and flourished; it was transformed into a Viking port and the advent of the Anglo-Normans led to the creation of a prosperous walled town; it grew through the influx of English colonists during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and suffered the political problems inherent in Irish Society at that time; it was altered significantly again through Georgian and Victorian times when reclamation of its marshes became a priority along with the construction of spacious streets and grand town houses; its docks, warehouses exhibit the impact of the industrial revolution; and in the last one hundred years, Corkonians have witnessed both the growth of extensive suburbs and the rejuvenation of the inner city.

Perhaps, the most important influence in the city’s development is the River Lee, an element which has witnessed the city grow from monastic Cork through the Celtic Tiger City of the twenty-first century. Originally, the city centre was a series of marshy islands, which the Irish for the city, “Corcaigh” translated marshes reflects. The river splits into two channels just west of the city centre, and hence flows around the city centre, leaving it in an island situation. The urban centre was built on the lowest crossing point of the River Lee, where the river meets the sea. Built on the surrounding valleysides of the River Lee, the city’s suburbs are constructs of the twentieth century where a spiralling population dictated Cork’s expansion beyond its municipal boundaries.

Spliced with the city’s physical development is the story of its people and their contribution in making Cork a city whose history is rich and colourful. The characters are astute, confident, and are often rebellious, a distinctive trait of Corkonians through the ages and are remembered in Cork songs, statues, street-names and oral tradition. Corkonians make Cork unique. Their characteristics have been noted through the centuries, from visitors to antiquarian writers. All agree that its people are warm and very sociable. Joking is an essential characteristic of Corkonians. As one antiquarian, Byran Cody in 1859 put it, conversational power is the test of intellectual culture in Cork. A Corkonian is a good talker and the conversation is usually seasoned with spicy anecdotes and pleasant bits of scandal.

A walk through St Patrick Street or affectionately known as ‘Pana’ will reveal the warmth of its people, the rich accent, the hustle and bustle of a great city. As Robert Gibbings, poet and writer put it in 1944, “Cork is the loveliest city in the world, anyone who doesn’t agree with me either was not born there or is prejudiced. The streets are wide, the quays are clean, the bridges are noble and people that you have never met in your life stop you in the street for a conversation”. Not only can each person tell you a story about Cork but its streets, buildings and bridges also do. They echo the rich historic and cultural development of the acclaimed southern capital of Ireland.

Back to technical education each week…

Caption:

694a. Bishop Lucey Park in recent sunshine (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 30 May 2013

Technical Memories (Part 56) – Air Raids and Housing

Following on from last week, the city’s preparations for World War II make interesting reading in the Cork Examiner. At a meeting of Cork Corporation on Tuesday evening, 24 October 1939, a report by City Manager, Philip Monahan, was presented to the councillors on possible air raid precautions. These carried an estimated cost of £107,490.

A proposed scheme of precautions divided the city naturally into four sections-(1) medical, (2) engineering, (3) fire prevention and (4) civilian training. Medical precautions involved the securing of additional hospital accommodation and the establishment of first-aid posts and first aid depots. The former were to be for the treatment of casualties and the latter for the housing of first-aid services, such as ambulances and first-aid parties. Engineering precautions involved the establishment of posts for the repair of damaged roads and the creation of posts to decontaminate gas-infested areas. Fire prevention entailed the establishment of additional fire brigade stations and the recruitment of auxiliary firemen. Civilian training involved the establishment of an air warden and messenger service. Air wardens were to patrol small districts under district and area wardens. Their duties were to assist residents in their districts in all air-raid precaution work, such as darkening windows and fitting gas marks.

In the report it was proposed that medical precautions should be under the Corporation’s Medical Officer of Health, engineering precautions under the City Engineer, fire precautions under the Chief Officer of the Fire Brigade and civilian training under the Housing Superintendent, and all being responsible to the City Manager. The Minister of Defence had divided the city into three areas- one south of the North Channel of the Lee, the remainder of the city being divided into two areas by a line running through St Patrick’s Bridge – areas to the north west and north east of St Patrick’s Hill respectively. In each of these areas a depot for each of the four branches of air-raid precaution work was proposed. For the north-west area the depots were to be on MacCurtain Street and between Dillon’s Cross and St Luke’s, while for the South side, the Corporation Yard, Anglesea Street, and the Municipal Baths, Eglingon Street, were to be used.

The different Corporation officers gave an estimate of the cost of their proposals, in total £107,490. The Minister of Defence accepted responsibility for the provision of fire fighting equipment over and above the normal requirements of the city and to pay seven-tenths of cost of other approved expenditure on air-raid precautions. No specific instructions were received as to the construction of air-raid shelters. The estimate included provision of air-raid shelters for 30,000 households in different parts of the city and cost was based on the assumption that steel and timber was not readily available.

The observations by the councillors were multiple but zoned in on the point that the Corporation should not be charged at the full price for the lighting by the ESB as the lighting would be turned off due to curfews. The entire scheme was referred internally again to committees. I’m uncertain as to how much of the above scheme was adopted as I have not managed to trace the outcomes in the media of the time.

There was also an observation by one councillor that if the Corporation were going to spend over £100,000 for putting people safely underground, they should get money as well to house people safely over ground. Corporation housing construction continued apace in the late 1930s with vast slum clearance projects and new Corporation housing schemes being developed in Spangle Hill and Greenmount. Local Studies in the City Library have a great set of aerial photos of the city from 1945 which show the layout of the city and also newly built housing in its suburbs. In one, one can see the Crawford Municipal Technical Institute and just to the north, the Corporation housing scheme of Greenmount.

In the Cork Examiner on 28 October 1937, plans were published for a social housing scheme in Greenmount comprising two hundred and seventy houses occupying thirteen acres of land situated between Green Street, Barrack Street, Tower Street and Friar’s Walk. The area was in the ownership of the Presentation Brothers Order. The Brothers afforded the Corporation the opportunity to acquire the land. Pre to development the land was used as pasture, though there were some 30 farm buildings and old cottages on parts of it. They were cleared as part of the scheme. The new houses were to be of the usual type of Corporation dwelling, complete with bathroom and hot and cold water, and in addition a large size garden front and rear. In addition to two main thoroughfares, there was to be eight cul-de-sac entrances twelve feet wide to the different blocks of houses, ending in a circular turning which was to enable motor cars, horse-drawn carts and other vehicles to turn. The scheme represented the first big scheme, similar to the Gurranabraher and Spangle Hill development, undertaken on the southern side of the city by the Corporation, and was to allow them to proceed with necessary slum clearance nearby.

To be continued…

Caption:

693a. Aerial view of Cork’s southern suburbs in 1945, showing Crawford Municipal Technical Institute in the fore left and the new developed houses at Greenmount in the centre (picture: Cork City Library).