Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 6 December 2018

Stories from 1918: Plans for the Marsh

     Discussions on the influenza epidemic, poverty and housing prevailed across the meetings of Cork Corporation in late November and early December 1918. At the public health committee of Cork Corporation on 26 November 1918 Mr J Horgan (vice-chairman) presided. Dr D D Donovan, Superintendent Medical Officer of Health, reported that the dispensary medical officers had reported 117 cases of influenza in their districts during late November as against 500 cases in previous reports. The spread of influenza still| continued, according to the doctor, in a “mild character”, with a few exceptions. It was visibly on the decline and not in epidemic form. Dr O’Donovan noted: “sporadic, cases, however, must be expected to occur for some time, and I hope that in a week or so the disease will completely disappear”.

     The number of deaths registered from influenza, and pneumonia for the four weeks ending Saturday, 16 November were as follows – 30 deaths occurred from influenza, 17 civil and 13 military and from pneumonia, 14 civil and 5 military. The Vice Chairman said on the whole the report was very satisfactory. He thought that Cork had escaped the worst of the epidemic. Alderman O’Sullivan agreed with the chairman and said the fact that they had escaped so well was due largely to the precautions taken by the committee.

    A joint meeting of the Public Health and Housing Committees of the Corporation was also held on 26 November 1918. Alderman Sir Edward Fitzgerald presided. Alderman P Stack said that during previous years a number of houses had been demolished in the West ward, and all Hanover Street had completely disappeared so far as housing accommodation was concerned, including the lower end of Grattan Street, Portney’s Lane, Broad Lane, Thomas Street, and Bachelor’s Quay. There was no part of the city more in need of housing accommodation than the West Ward and he expressed the need for new housing schemes.

    The Chairman Sir Edward Fitzgerald said he intended to bring before the Committee what he considered was a want left unfulfilled for the previous 30 years. Whenever a housing scheme was on hand the strongest argument in its favour was to get rid of the slums on a proposed site. There was no trouble securing sites outside the city. However, he deemed the flat of the city – the Marsh and the Coal Quay was being forgotten about. There were a number of people living in those localities who could not go to live in proposed places such as Gurranabraher, Mayfield, or elsewhere. He suggested that they should offer a prize of £150 for an accepted design scheme of overhauling the Marsh and Coal Quay districts, and the “rookeries” in the adjoining lanes and alleys. He noted: “The houses should of course be as cheaply built, as possible, but the need was immediate. They could first build a dozen or two, and then continue to build others when they had those completed”.

    The City Solicitor present highlighted the West Ward scheme had not been shelved and was quite as advanced as any other scheme. He detailed that the trouble was that the Corporation were unable to get any information as to the intentions of the Government. He was certain that the moment it became known what the Government meant to do with regard to the financial part of the Housing question, on what terms they could borrow money or what contribution the State was going to make, if any – the Council schemes in Cork could be pushed ahead; “it would not be his fault, or, he was sure, the fault of the Committees, if their schemes were not the most advanced in Ireland”.

    The Chairman said the City Engineer should be directed to make plans in connection with the Marsh site from the Main Street to the Mercy Hospital, with a view to having information of the fullest character preparatory to the holding of an inquiry later on. His suggestion was agreed to. The City Engineer submitted photographs of small open spaces in the city, and the Medical Officer of Health was asked to inspect those, and report whether they were suitable sites. From a development perspective it would take another 30 years before new social housing was developed in the Marsh area of the city.

    Alderman O’Sullivan reported that he attended the Conference of the Irish Municipal Authorities in Dublin. A report presented strived to allocate 1,250 new houses to Cork. It was discussed, and those present maintained that the minimum number of houses should be double that number, namely 2,500 not including the reconstruction of old houses which the City Engineer estimated at 2,000. Mr Cowan, Chief Inspector of the Local Government Board, agreed that the Cork demand for 2,500 new houses was, in his opinion, “reasonable”, and in his report to the Local Government Board he recommended it. Alderman O’Sullivan did not wish to make anything in the nature of political capital out of it, but he thought this scheme demonstrated the necessity of having Irish members in Parliament when the Bill came before the House. When the Bill formerly came before the House it was intended as a purely British measure, but Ireland was included as a result of the continued pressure of the Irish Nationalist Party.

Kieran’s new book, Cork in Fifty Buildings (2018, Amberley Publishing) is now available in Cork bookshops.

Kieran is also showcasing some of the older column series on the River Lee on his heritage facebook page at the moment, Cork Our City, Our Town.

Captions:

975a. Recently renovated house, formerly a residence of mathematician George Boole on Batchelor’s Quay, present day (pictures: Kieran McCarthy)

975b. Wintry perspectives, Banks of the Lee Walkway, from North Mall to the Mardyke, present day

975c. Batchelor’s Quay, c.1900 – former late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century dwellings became slums hosting 15-20 families at a time over a hundred years; many of such buildings were demolished in the early twentieth century.

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 29 November 2018

Cork in 50 Buildings

   My new book for 2018 is entitled Cork in 50 Buildings (Amberley Publishing). It 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. Below I outline some of my favourite buildings in order to plug the book!

Building #6 The Bishop’s Church

    Protestant Bishop of Cork Peter Browne occupied the See of Cork and Ross, 1710-1735, and lived in a house he personally financed in the south west countryside of Cork City. Bishop Browne was buried in a chapel adjacent his mansion on his estate. The little chapel still exists in the heart of Bishopstown. There was a belfry on its eastern side, now gone. The western side also had a small porch ascended by a semi-circular flight of five steps of cut limestone. In the centre of the Court-yard was the Crown and Mitre set in the pavement with a yellow-coloured stone.

Building #8 The Butter Market

   In 1849, an elaborate Roman temple style portico was added to the front of the butter market and this was designed by Sir John Benson. In the late 1800s, there was a distinct decline in the economic fortunes of the city. The profits of the export provision trade of agricultural products such as butter and beef declined. In 1858, 428,000 firkins of butter were been exported per annum and by 1891, this was reduced to 170,000 firkins.

Building #18 The Distillery

   The house at the junction of the North Mall and Wise’s Hill was the residence of the distiller Francis Wise, after whose family the hill is named. The detached five-bay three-storey former house, built c. 1800, is now in use as a university building. The building retains interesting features and materials, such as the timber sliding sash windows, wrought-iron lamp bracket arch, and interior fittings. In the 1870s Francis Wise of Cork owned 9,912 acres in county Cork and 9,636 acres in county Kerry.

Building #33 The Pepperpot Tower

   St Anne’s Church Shandon was built in 1722 with a distinctive tall tower. It was only in 1752 that its famous bells were installed. Indeed, their fame is worldwide especially with the immortal words of Fr Prout’s poem “The Bells of Shandon” echoing behind their history. Fr Prout was the pen name for Fr Francis Mahony who spent many years of his childhood living nearby, listening to the bells in the early half of the nineteenth century.

Building #34 The Philanthropic Spirit

  The Cork Improved Dwellings Company also built housing in the city. This was a group, which favoured the idea of British philanthropic industrialists building workers’ housing.  Established in 1860 through a shareholding idiom, one could speculate and invest, and get a return whilst at the same time providing an escape for many impoverished families from slum ridden areas of the city. The company eventually built almost 420 houses – Prosperity Square & surrounds, Rathmore Terrace on St Patrick’s Hill and Hibernian Buildings on Albert Road became their flagship projects.

Building #39 The Roman Catholic Cathedral

   The present Cathedral of St Mary’s and St Anne’s is the fifth church on the site since the early 1600s (1624, 1700, 1730, and 1808). The story of the present-day structure is as follows. In 1820, an immense fire greatly damaged the fourth cathedral so much so that it was really the skeleton structure of the burned cathedral that survived. However, all was not lost and shortly after, the bishop of that time, John Murphy delegated to architect, George Pain, the rebuilding of the then 12-year-old cathedral, inside and outside. George Pain was also responsible for the design of buildings such as Holy Trinity Church, St. Patrick’s Church and Blackrock Castle.

Building #42 The Shopping Arcade

   The beautiful Winthrop Arcade opened in March 1926. It connects Winthrop Street and Oliver Plunkett Street by a glass covered way and consists of twelve shops. It was the first Arcade constructed in the Irish Free State.

Building #45 The Toll Booth

  The old St Luke’s Toll Booth is a beautiful freestanding octagonal-plan structure, built c.1880 and is the last reference to an ancient system of paying tolls in the city. The toll booths were owned by the Corporation of Cork and leased out to the highest bidder. In the late twentieth century, the highest bidder for the St Luke’s Booth was Mr Michael Hennessy. His father ran a newspaper business from the tiny building with the family having a nearby news agents shop there for several years.

Building #47 The Viewing Tower

The idea for Callanan’s Tower was inspired by the Crystal Palace Exhibition in London, which Michael Callanan visited in 1851. A high limestone tower would be the central point of Callanan’s proposal. The estimated cost of the scheme was £50,000. Ornamental gardens were designed, and the tall tower was constructed approximately, 25 to 30 metres in height, which assumed the shape of a medieval tall castle.

Kieran’s new book, Cork in Fifty Buildings (2018, Amberley Publishing) is now available in Cork bookshops.

Kieran is also showcasing some of the older column series on the River Lee on his heritage facebook page at the moment, Cork Our City, Our Town.

Captions:

974a. Ruined Bishop’s Church, Bishopstown present day (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

974b. Callanan’s Tower, present day (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

974c. Toll booth, St Luke’s Cross, Present Day (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

974d. Front cover of Cork in 50 Buildings by Kieran McCarthy