Launch of Discover Cork: Schools’ Heritage Project 2018-19
The advent of the new school year coincides with the sixteenth year of the Discover Cork: Schools’ Heritage Project. Brochures have been sent to all Cork City schools. Launched again for the new school term, the Project is open to schools in Cork City at primary level to the pupils of fourth, fifth and sixth class and at post-primary from first to sixth years. There are two sub categories within the post primary section, Junior Certificate and Leaving Certificate. A student may enter as an individual or as part of a group or a part of a class entry. The County edition unfortunately will not run this year due to my recent surgery and recovery ahead.
Co-ordinated by myself, one of the key aims of the project is to encourage students to explore, investigate and debate their local heritage (built, archaeological, cultural and natural) in a constructive, active and fun way. Projects on any aspect of Cork’s rich heritage can be submitted to an adjudication panel. Prizes are awarded for best projects and certificates are given to each participant. A cross-section of projects submitted from the last school season can be gleamed from this link on my website, www.corkheritage.ie where there are other resources, former titles and winners and entry information as well.
Students produce a project on their local area using primary and secondary sources. Each participating student within their class receives a visit and workshop in October 2018. The workshop comprises a guide to how to put a project together. Project material must be gathered in an A4/ A3 size Project book. The project may be as large as the student wishes but minimum 20 pages (text + pictures + sketches). Projects must also meet five elements. Projects must be colourful, creative, have personal opinion, imagination and gain publicity before submission. These elements form the basis of a student friendly narrative analysis approach where the student explores their project topic in an interactive and task-oriented way. In particular, students are encouraged to attain material through visiting local libraries, engaging with fieldwork, interviews with local people, making models, photographing, cartoon creating, making DVDs of their area. Re-enacting can also be a feature of several projects.
For over sixteen years, the project has evolved in exploring how students actually pursue local history and how to make it relevant in society . The project attempts to provide the student with a hands-on and interactive activity that is all about learning not only about heritage in your local area (in all its forms) but also about the process of learning by participating students. The project is about thinking about, understanding, appreciating and making relevant in today’s society the role of our heritage, our landmarks, our oral histories, our scenery in our modern world for upcoming citizens. So, the project is about splicing together activity on issues of local history and heritage such as thinking, exploring, observing, discovering, researching, uncovering, revealing, interpreting and resolving. This year as well there is a focus on the theme, The Past, An Inspiration.
The importance of doing a project in local history is reflected in the educational aims of the history curricula of primary and post-primary schools. Local heritage is a tool, which helps the student to become familiar with their local environment and to learn the value of it in their lives. Learning to appreciate the elements of a locality, can also give students a sense of place in their locality or a sense of identity. Hence the Project can also become a youth forum for students to do research and offer their opinions on important decisions being made on their heritage in their locality and how they affect the lives of people locally. I know a number of students who have been involved in the project in schools over the years who have took their interest further and have gone on to become professional tour guides, and into other related college work.
The project is open to many directions of delivery. Students are encouraged to engage with their topic in order to make sense of it, understand and work with it. Students continue to experiment with the overall design and plan of their work. For example, and in general, students who have entered before might engage with the attaining of primary information through oral histories. The methodologies that the students create provide interesting ways to approach the study of local heritage. Students are asked to choose one of two extra methods (apart from a booklet) to represent their work. The first option is making a model whilst the second option is making a short film. It is great to see students using modern up todate technology to present their findings. This works in broadening their view of approaching their project.
This project in the City is free to enter and is kindly funded by Cork City Council (viz the help of Niamh Twomey, Officer) Prizes are also provided by the Old Cork Waterworks Experience, Lee Road, Learnit Lego Education, and Sean Kelly of Lucky Meadows Equestrian Centre, Watergrasshill (www.seankellyhorse.com). Overall, the Schools’ Heritage Project for the last fifteen years has attempted to build a new concerned generation of Cork people, pushing them forward, growing their self-development empowering them to connect to their world and their local heritage. Spread the word please with local schools. Details can be found on my website, www.corkheritage.ie
Kieran’s new book, Cork in 50 Buildings (2018, Amberley Publishing) is also now in Cork bookshops.
Captions:
963a. Project page on the local history of Albert Road from Our Lady of the Lourdes NS student 2018.
963b. Model on the local history of Albert Road from Our Lady of the Lourdes NS student 2018.
“A promised design to the public must be carried through. The Blackrock village playground is part of the Blackrock Pier redevelopment. The current plans seen by local residents need to be carried through by the City Council”, according to Independent Cllr Kieran McCarthy.
In response to an recent motion by Cllr McCarthy on the Blackrock playground, Director of Services of Cork City Council Valerie O’Sullivan has highlighted the most suitable location for a state of state of the art playground to serve Blackrock, Ballintemple and the South Docklands is Marina Park. A site has been identified within the park. Development of the playground, which is identified for Marina Park Phase 2. Phase 1 works are scheduled to commence in October. Detail design for phase 2 including the playground will commence when the necessary resources are available.
According to Ms O’Sullivan, Cork City Council is committed to the enhancement of the Ursuline Convent Ground and will explore options to finance same under the Urban Regeneration Development Fund. City Council is still awaiting final transfer of the lands from the receiver of this development.
Cllr McCarthy noted:
“In recent months the narrative from the Council has been for just one major playground for the area in Marina Park in Docklands. However, the original plans for Blackrock Village included a small playground and a park on the Old Ursuline Convent front lawn, which slopes down to the regenerated pier area. It is crucial that agreements are honoured with local residents. The Pier area has become a great central focus but is only part of a bigger picture proposed”.
“I am excited about Marina Park and the proposed playground. The more the Council provide family foci like playgrounds the better. I will continue my lobbying for the Council to finish the Blackrock pier project. Marina Park is another super planned space, which needs lobbying for too”, noted Cllr McCarthy.
Audley Place green at the top of St Patrick’s Hill could be easily landscaped to provide more flower beds around the seats with interpretative material of views, according to Independent Cllr Kieran McCarthy. The green has become more popular with locals and tourists the last year. It appeared regularly in the recent The Young Offenders series and appears regularly in tourist literature and social media on Cork.
Cllr McCarthy noted: “for me the top of the hill it is one of the core viewing spaces of the city- for me I honesty feel that the green is taken for granted with rusty seats, graffiti, neatless paths, no information panels. The old Fever Hospital Steps are in a poor state as is Our Lady’s Well. The tourist offices and the branded Victorian Quarter are bringing more of a focus to lower St Patrick’s Street and St Patrick’s Hill. Everyday visitors to the city are making the climb to the top. It has the making of a great visitor attraction using flower beds and story telling the view. This area is the equivalent to the Spanish Steps in Rome. It should be given the landscaping it deserves”.
Question to CE:
To ask the CE for an update on the opening of Tramore Valley Park? (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)
Motions:
That the Council put in place a significant tree planting programme within the 2019 budget (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)
At the meeting of the passing of the Morrison’s Island Part 8 it was tentatively agreed by some Party Whips that a review of the overall proposed OPW Lower Lee scheme be implemented. I am calling that a review be discussed again at a Party Whips meeting with a view to possible implementation (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)
My new book Cork in 50 Buildings aspires to celebrate some of Cork’s built heritage. The sunshine rays this summer lit up many of the city’s grey limestone and red sandstone buildings. Cork’s topography is made up of a series of alternative east-west limestone and sandstone strata. The limestone elevations of the St Anne’s Church Shandon face ‘limestone country’ to the south and west while the northern and eastern facades face traditional ‘sandstone country’. The colours of these materials have long been recognised as the colours of Cork.
Whilst researching the book, it struck me that much more research needs to be conducted on the nature of the quarries, the masons, on the architects, their work, and the symbolism they deployed on the outside and inside of buildings (much kudos to the Cork Mason’s Historical Society on their work).
Old geological studies of the city and region from the early twentieth century exist in local studies the City Library. These do offer insight into some of the quarries. The sandstone quarried had two varieties. The first and widely utilised was the Kiltorcan formation, green, grey and red at Brickfield Quarry, Sunday’s Well, and the Lee Road. A minor fine-grained sandstone was quarried at Richmond Hill and the Back Watercourse Road. The ordinary grey limestone that constitutes the chief building stone of the city, especially for public buildings was worked in numerous quarries around Ballintemple and Blackrock and at Little Island and Midleton. They were also quarried for lime burning to create fertiliser and road mending.
In 1792, when Beamish & Crawford was first established, William Beamish resided at Beaumont House, which was then a magnificent period residence situated on Beaumont Hill. During their tenure at Beaumont House the philanthropic spirit of the Beamish family was well known. The name Beaumont is the French derivative of Beamish meaning a beautiful view from the mountain or a beautiful view. The mansion house continued to have an association with the Beamish family until the 1850s. The house was eventually demolished and since 1968 Beaumont National boy’s and girl’s school (Scoil Barra Naofa) stands on its site.
In the Beamish estate, the famous 120-acre Carrigmore Quarry was opened sometime between 1830 and 1850. The particular high grade of limestone associated with this quarry meant it was widely used in the construction of quay walls, bridges, churches, banks and other public buildings within Cork City. This rock is filled with minute fossils, and these, on account of their crystalline character, weather more slowly than does the amorphous material surrounding them, and thus one gets a beautiful veined appearance.
There is quite an extensive network of caves at the eastern face of the quarry. These caves were first explored in the 1960s by the Cork Speleogical Group and a further survey was conducted by the British Cave Research group in the early 1970s. Some of the cave wall passages were found to be abundant in lower carboniferious fossil sea shells and crinoid steams.
In Cork in 50 Buildings, it intentionally opens with an account of St Finbarre’s Cathedral to reflect on its myriad of stone types and symbolism. In early December 1865, the Cathedral Committee adopted limestone in place of red sandstone in the walling. Red sandstone from the Brickfield quarry in Glanmire was used for invisible walling and for the foundation while limestone quarried from Ballintemple was used in the main structure. Bath stone was used for the rest of the internal dressings. The reddish columns are of Cork red marble. Robert Walker, the appointed contractor for St Finbarre’s Cathedral visited Storeton, in Lancashire, UK, and selected the stone of that quarry for the great piers.
The architect of the present cathedral William Burges was born in London on 2 December 1827. He was the son of a successful civil engineer. He was educated at King’s College London, where he spent five years. At the age of seventeen, he entered the office of Edward Blore as a pupil where he remained for three years. Edward Blore was an avid student of medieval architecture and was involved in the design of the Houses of Parliament of the time. By the end of his time with Blore, William Burges possessed a reputable knowledge and respect for medieval architecture.
The mosaic pavement of the apse was designed by William Burges and made by Burke & Co from Lonsdale’s cartoons in Paris. It is interestingly to note that Italian artists from Udine were employed, using marble segments, reputably mined in the Pyrenees Mountains, between France and Spain.
There were 1,260 pieces of sculpture planned for the cathedral and Burges personally designed each one. Mr Nicholls modelled everyone in plaster, except for the figures in the western portals and the four Evangelistic emblems around the rose window. Everyone was also sculptured insitu by R McLeod and his staff of local stone-masons. Great care was taken to make sure that every piece was of a high standard. This was a process that was to take a decade.
Steeped in folkore, the golden angel, the gift of William Burges adorning St Finbarre’s Cathedral is also an impressive addition. Put there to make one think of the heralding of the end of the world, it also highlights the deeply rooted connection with rich ecclesiastical history on the site.
Cork in 50 Buildings (2018, Amberley Publishing) is now available from Cork bookshops.
Captions:
962a. Beaumont Quarry, present day (picture: Kieran McCarthy)
962b. Postcard of St Finbarre’s Cathedral, early twentieth century (source: Cork City Museum)
962c. Cover of Cork in 50 Buildings by Kieran McCarthy
The Discover Cork: Schools’ Heritage Project is entering its sixteenth year. It encourages students to compile a project on any aspect of Cork history. It is about exploring and investigating local heritage in a constructive, active and fun way. Interested students can pick any topic on Cork’s local history to research and can participate as individuals, groups or as a class. Students produce a project using primary material such as fieldwork, interviews, making models and short films of their area.
Co-ordinator and founder of the Schools’ Heritage Project, Cllr Kieran McCarthy noted that “The project is about thinking through, understanding, appreciating and making relevant in today’s society the role of our local heritage – our local history, our oral histories, our landmarks in our modern world for upcoming citizens. The annual workshops involve visiting circa 20 schools in Cork City with 25 hours of workshops given overall to classes. The workshops comprise showing students projects from previous years and providing a framework to work to and to encourage colour and creativity”.
The City Edition of the Project is funded by Cork City Council. It is also sponsored by the Old Waterworks Experience, Lee Road, Learnit Lego Education, Sean Kelly of Lucky Meadows Equestrian Centre, Watergrasshill and Cllr Kieran McCarthy. Application forms to express interest and participation have been sent to all principals and history teachers in Cork. Unfortunately due to recent back surgery for Kieran, the County Cork edition of the project will not run this coming school year. Contact Kieran at kieran_mccarthy@corkcity.ie for details or log onto Kieran’s heritage website www.corkheritage.ie
My new book Cork in 50 Buildings (2018, Amberley Publishing) explores the history of this venerable old city through a selection of its greatest architectural treasures, from the St Anne’s Church, Shandon, regarded as a symbol of the city, to more recent additions such as the tower of the County Hall, once the tallest building in Ireland. This book offers a glimpse to explore behind fifty of Cork’s historic buildings.
The city of Cork is a place of tradition, continuity, change and legacy. It is a place of direction and experiment by people of ambition and determination, experiences and learning, of ingenuity and innovation, and of nostalgia and memory. Its extraordinary history is embodied in the buildings that have shaped Ireland’s southern capital.
The biggest challenge for me was to pick a mixture of buildings that should be in this book but also ones, which I do not often get to write about or show on my historical walking tours. Whether or which, this book builds on my previous publications, takes strands of articles from this ongoing local history column, Our City, Our Town. It is also inspired by the annual Cork Heritage Open Day, which is organised by Cork City Council and where over 40 buildings open their doors to the public for one day at the start of National Heritage Week.
This book highlights just some of my favourite buildings and stories that have charmed me. It presents a contextual history of buildings and comments on the buildings’ economic expressions, use of narratives, symbols and metaphors and the social environment. There is a great need to highlight the need for more research on the city’s historic structures, a mapping out of them and to continue to identify new ways of celebrating, managing and championing our built heritage.
Eminent Cork Writer Daniel Corkery’s account of Cork in The Threshold of Quiet (1917) has always resonated strongly with me.
“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 throws up a froth and flurry that confuses the stray visitor…for him this is Cork”.
The words “higgledy piggledy” for me best describes the urban fabric of Cork. The mixed “collection of odds and ends” reflects the manner of the city’s evolution. It was built in a piecemeal way by a combination of native and outside influences, its ever-changing townscape and society shaped by different cultures since its origin as a monastic settlement. Cork possesses a unique character, derived from a combination of its plan, topography, built fabric and location.
It is unique among other Irish cities in that it alone has experienced all phases of Irish urban development, from c.AD600 to the present day. The settlement at Cork began as a monastic centre in the seventh century, founded by St FinBarre. It served as a Viking trading post before the Anglo-Normans arrived and created 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 through Georgian and Victorian times when reclamation of its marshes became a priority, as well as the construction of spacious streets and grand town houses; its quays, docks and 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. Built on the surrounding valleysides of the River Lee, the city’s suburbs are the result of a spiralling population in the twentieth century.
Perhaps, the most important influence on the city’s development was and is the River Lee, which has witnessed the city’s growth from a monastic centre to a cosmopolitan twenty-first-century city. Originally, Cork comprised a series of marshy islands, which the Irish for the city, Corcaigh, or marshes, reflects. Just west of the city centre the Lee splits into two channels, each flowing around the city before meeting again in Cork harbour. This means the city centre is an island, bounded by a north channel and a south channel. The urban centre was built on the lowest crossing-point of the river, where it meets the sea. This situation has given the city a rich maritime history and a strong identification as a port town complete with old warehouses.
With the past of a port city, Cork’s architecture has a personality that is varied and much is hidden amongst the city’s narrow streets and laneways. Much of its architecture is inspired by international styles – the British style of artwork and nineteenth century brick pervading in most cases– but it always pays to look up in Cork and marvel at the Amsterdamesque-style of our eighteenth-century structures on streets such as Oliver Plunkett Street or at the gorgeous tall spires of the city’s nineteenth-century churches. Cork’s most fascinating buildings ranging from the medieval to the military, the civic to the commercial and the educational to the ecclesiastical.
Cork in 50 Buildings by Kieran McCarthy is available online to purchase https://www.amberley-books.com or in any good Cork bookshop. Support local bookshops.
Captions:
961a. Front cover of Cork in 50 Buildings by Kieran McCarthy
961b. Re-enactment at Elizabeth Fort for the recent Cork Heritage Open Day, one of the sites in Kieran’s new book Cork in 50 Buildings (picture: Kieran McCarthy)
National Heritage Week continues at pace this week. The Old Cork Waterworks Experience presents “Water Heritage Open Day” on Sunday 26 August, 11am-4pm. It is a family fun day themed on the industrial heritage and history of Cork’s Victorian Waterworks on Lee Road. Throughout the day the team there will provide guided tours of the impressive engine and boiler rooms, offer an insight into the working day of a waterworks employee and map the role of water supply with the growth of Cork City. There will also be a range of engaging and educational activities available including a puppet show, marine science, giant bubbles as well as launching water rockets and a water science zone.
Officially opened in October 2005, the formerly named Lifetime Lab was a Cork City Council initiative funded by EFTA or the European Free Trade Association, and was a welcome move in protecting and reinvigorating Cork’s heritage stock. The old waterworks on Lee Road, was converted into a “lab” where visitors of all ages, especially children could enjoy a modern interactive exhibition, steam plant, beautifully restored buildings, children’s playground and marvellous views over our Lee Fields.
The buildings, which stand at the old Waterworks site today, date from the 1800s and 1900s but water has been supplied to the city of Cork from the site since the 1760s. A foundation stone today commemorates the building of the first pump-house, which was itself constructed on the Lee Road in the late eighteenth century. It was in 1768, that a Nicholas Fitton was elected to carry out the construction work needed for a new water supply plan. The water wheel and pump sent the river water unfiltered to an open reservoir called the City Basin, which was located on an elevated level above the Lee Road. This water was then pumped from here to the city centre through wooden pipes.
Between the years 1856 and 1857, the Corporation of Cork obtained a sanction from the parliamentary treasury to acquire a loan of £20,000 to upgrade the Lee Road waterworks. In February 1857, John Benson’s plan for a new waterworks was given to several eminent engineers in London for consultation. Much of it was based on Londoner Thomas Wickstead’s 1841 survey and plan for the provision of water to the Cork public in association with the Corporation of Cork. By May 1857, tenders were issued and cast-iron mains were chosen to replace the wooden pipes. They were initially shipped to Cork in 1857 and during the ensuing two years, the pipes were laid down. By February 1859, the pipes from the new waterworks to the military barracks on the old Youghal Road were in place. It was here that a new reservoir was to be constructed. The reservoir itself was to cover one acre and was five metres deep with a capacity of four million gallons.
In 2004-05, the conservation and restoration of the Old Waterworks site was all under the watchful eye of Jack Coughlan and Associates, industrial archaeologist Dr Colin Rynne and Imagination Ltd. Of all the buildings on the site, the steam engine building required the least amount of restoration work. Some water that had seeped through the roof had caused some deterioration of timber work, but in general, the building remained as it was built, one hundred years previously. The roofs were re-slated, with the maximum amount of slate salvaged and re-used. All steel and timber trusses were retained. Two modern interventions were made to this building. Firstly, a viewing gallery was inserted to allow visitors a fully accessible birds’ eye view of the steam engines without the necessity to enter the engine room via the exterior stone steps. Secondly, large glass doors were inserted to the two arches to the boiler house. These openings were originally without doors as the coal to feed the boilers was piled outside the buildings and shovelled by the stokers. The engines and boilers still remain in the buildings today.
The chimney stack, 44 metres in height from the base to the capping, was designed to disperse the exhaust fumes from the boilers and to help create a draught to the boilers. The condition of the chimney stack was first surveyed by steeplejacks and conserved as appropriate. Originally the second engine house with its own boiler room and coal store, was completed in 1863, with the exception of the second engine room to the east, which was completed c.1868. This building had not been used as anything more than a store for many years and had serious problems with the roofs and exterior stonework in particular. The roofs were re-slated and counter battened to allow for insulation.
In April 2018, the Lifetime Lab rebranded itself as the Old Cork Waterworks Experience. In June 2018, the Old Cork Waterworks Experience was been given a major boost as Fáilte Ireland have awarded funding from its new Storytelling Interpretation Grants Scheme to enhance the existing visitor experience. As part of its wider strategy to boost tourism and revenue across Ireland’s regions, Fáilte Ireland launched the scheme last year to improve the quality of animation and storytelling at existing attractions throughout Ireland’s Ancient East. Successful bids such as the Old Waterworks were recognised for their ability to improve the quality of physical interpretation at their sites through a range of innovative resources including audio guides, video and interactive technology.
Water Heritage Open Day at Old Cork Waterworks Experience, Lee Road, Cork, Sunday 26 August, 11am-4pm
Captions:
960a. Cork Waterworks & Sundays Well, c.1900 from K McCarthy & Dan Breen’s Cork City Through Time (2012)
960b. Buildings of Old Cork Waterworks Experience, 2017 (picture: Kieran McCarthy)
