Irish Patchwork Society Exhibition,

Cork Institute of Technology Opening, 4 September 2010

Deputising for the Lord Mayor, Cllr Kieran McCarthy

Kieran’s Speech - “Journeys”

Madame Chairperson, ladies and gentlemen, quest lecturer Laura Wazilowski

On behalf of the Lord Mayor, many thanks for the invitation to come and visit and chat to you this afternoon.

I have heard it said that there are three people in this life, those people who make it happene, those people who watch it happen and those people who ask what happened. I am delighted to be on this occasion to be associated with the Irish Patchwork Society Exhibition, a society who has worked hard to make it happen.

They say that art has the power to stop, impress, make one question, wonder, dream, remember, be disturbed, explore and not forget – a whole series of emotions – all of which echo throughout the quilt works here this afternoon.

Walking around one can see the amount of work that has been put in the shapes, patterns and colours of the works on display; What is very evident is the amount of planning, design work, thought, emotion and building work that has gone into these works of art.

While these images speak volumes to the quilt lover, the lavish use of colour give the exhibitor’s work a much broader appeal. Anyone who appreciates design cannot but be drawn in – taken on a journey.

Millennium Hall:

Many years ago, I attended an exhibition on quilts with the theme of Cork in the Millennium Hall, City Hall and I snapped a great quiltwork on a series of Cork’s buildings, which I still show in my slide shows on the history of the city.

For me that piece of work opened my own imagination to the importance of  being creative to expand our ways of seeing-  our own views of the world and in that context the rich buildings that we have in Cork who all have their own lines, contours and outward expression, memories and meanings.

These quilts before us also create new ways of making, expressing and seeing. Each has their own view; they have their own meanings and memories to those who created them and to those who will view them.  Perhaps for the artist they express feelings of confidence, express creativity, and show the importance of the power of making.

Many years, I was involved in a project called the Knitting Map in St Luke’s Church in Montenotte, whereby I interviewed about 70 of its participants for a book on their life’s stories.

There were a number of interesting observations that came out of that project that perhaps are apt to mention here today.

The Knitting Map experience:

During the many days, I spent chatting to the women and men involved, the chat and banter could be heard in every room; in every corner, the culture of Cork, the problems of the world, the meaning of life were all in a sense being discussed.

There were people who came because making was a kind of loving meditation.

There were people for whom making something was once about having very little, and the clothing of a family an ordinary and urgent necessity.

There were people who came to make something that helped them to find their way out of depression, grief and abuse.

There were people who came to make as an act of solidarity with others of this city.

These were people who came to make not for the process of making, but for the laughter.

These were people who came who told the funniest of stories to those who made me choke back my own tears, and wonder at my life.

There were people who came and astonished me with their sheer extraordinary force of life, who walked into The Knitting Map space on a weekly basis with a sense of ownership.

These were people who knitted complexities of cables and honeycombs and lattices without even looking down.

In the afternoons, and mornings of my fieldwork they sat and knitted, and began to talk, everything slowed down. There was time to talk, gossip, rant, muse and long.

One could not but admire their determination, belief and the warmth of their spirit in such a project.

I didn’t not know what to expect today. But I reckon, the same army of like minded makers are here today.   You are all were waiting for the off, like soldiers ready for battle or a revolution.

This project not only gives the Cork person a voice but also others from other parts of Ireland and wider parts of the world, who have been enchanted by quilt making experience. It is very seldom in any city that such a broad community would come together and engage with each other on such a personal level.

This week you will all wait for the viewer, you will sit quietly as in an art gallery, you will reflect on where you’re at in life, you will laugh, rant and then laugh and rant some more. You will re-imagine worlds of other quilters, you will wonder and move forwards confidently and positively this week.

Ladies and gentlemen, in this world, we need more of those traits of confidence, solidarity, freedom to express oneself, determination, force of life – and we need to mass produce these qualities.

Those who exhibit here this week, may you always have an open mind to ideas, people and places and that your talent will grow with each work.

I wish you all the best of luck this week and moving forward into the future.

Go raibh maith agaibh.

Irish United Nations Veterans Association, Post 5 wreath-laying

Fitzgerald’s Park, Cork

Deputising for the Lord Mayor, Cllr. Kieran McCarthy

 Speech

Brigadier General, chairman, veterans, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of the Lord Mayor, many thanks for the invitation to this important event today.

As a child growing up in the 80’s I loved the A-team, they were defenders of everything good and were my heros for many years. the A-team fuelled my imagination – The principal characters all had valuable traits – Hannibal for his ideas, BA for his strength, Murdock for his quirkyness and Face for acquiring the missions and finance

For many of us, keepers of the peace, defenders of human rights are Hollywood heros or Hollywood icons – we see the stories through the medium of television or film.

However, as my own life’s journey progressed I was brought to education and community programmes and I discovered new heros of the uncelebrated kind – those that stand up for their local community.

But in every corner of the world there are heros.

There is the unsung hero not living in an action programme or action movie but living in very real life situations striving forward, pushing forward inch by inch, making a difference – providing a sense of belief and confidence in campaigning for rights and a better world and future.

HEROS

Society needs heros, defenders,

it needs leaders who will justly rule and provide as many opportunities for development as possible

Heroes are special – they are if you break down the letters to reflect ideas – you get words like h for honourable – they stand for something, some important value of human nature.

E is for energy – their energy is usually enormous – charged with ambition, courage and dedication to defend a cause, to make a difference.

R is for the realism that heros debate, write and champion.

Perhaps O is the onus presented to us to listen, empatise and do our part to support a just hero

This memorial in our beautiful Fitzgerald’s Park has many meanings -

There is a power in a sense of place. This memorial is rooted in Cork’s cultural history, in tradition, in continuity, change and legacy; this memorial marks a place of direction and experiment, of dialogue, of ambition and determination, experiences and learning,

In particular as we lay our wreaths today we remember all those who laid down their lives for peace but also all those who served proudly and returned safely.

Defence Forces:

Ireland became a member of the United Nations in 1955. Since 1958, the Defence Forces have a continuous presence on peace support operations, in recent years, Defence Forces personnel have also found themselves in many parts of the globe as peacekeepers.

Each of those individuals continue to form a solid foundation from which to face the challenges posed by the changing nature of international conflict prevention and crisis management.

The foundation of the State’s approach to international peace and security is set out in our Constitution in which “Ireland affirms its devotion to the ideal of peace and friendly co-operation amongst nations founded on international justice and morality”.

Mary McAleese  in her address at the 50^th anniversary of Ireland joining the UN notes that our peace keepers became “a bridge to peace for so many victims of conflict. They were and are the answer to prayers of despair that go up wherever the powerless are overwhelmed by violence and left to wonder whether anyone out there in the wider world cares”.

We need leaders:

Perhaps too often we’re quick to take down the one that steps forward to help to lead.

But in the world we live in we need more good leadership than what appears in several countries in the world.

To defend life, to promote peace requires much energy  - life itself whether physical or on some imaginative plain is complex – sometimes the lines are blurred with participants not knowing any better.

Today we are challenged to  think about all our futures and to debate concerns and issues on life itself – what are we doing in our lives to make a difference?

If anything, our remembering today has the power to stop the passerby, to impress, make one question, wonder, dream, remember, be disturbed, explore and not forget.

I wish to congratulate all those involved in this event and encourage one and all to keep going, plough on and keep remembering the power of memory.

On behalf of the City you may be justifiably proud to be part of the achievements of the Irish contribution and I commend you for your dedication to continuing to support veterans and their families; particularly those who have lost loved ones in the service of their country.

May they rest in peace

Thank you

 Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 2 September 2010

In the Footsteps of St. Finbarre (Part 226)

A Tragedy of Ireland

Leaving Currikippane, the journey along the River Lee valley to Cork City seems to bring one through the history of twentieth century Ireland. Near Currykippane at Kerrypike lies a memorial erected in 1945 to the memory of six young men that were killed near the spot on 23 March 1921.

The event was part of the Irish War of Independence that had been ongoing since January 1919 and which ended in a truce in July 1921. Hence the tragedy at Kerrypike came in the last four months of the guerilla war headed up by Michael Collins against British forces. Much has been written about this era in Ireland’s history. During the final number of months of the war until the Truce of 11 July 1921, there was a spiralling of the death toll in the conflict, with 1,000 people including the RIC police, British military, IRA volunteers and civilians, being killed in the months between January and July 1921 alone.

Entering the newspapers from the perspective of a peaceful 2010 reveals a very unstable county and frightening atmosphere in late March 1921. Ambushes, deaths and the word tragedy appears regularly across its headlines and columns. The official report for the Kerrypike tragedy, as appearing in the Cork Examiner on Thursday  24 March 1921, outlined that six-armed civilians were killed during a hand to hand fight with the Royal Irish Constabulary in the townland of Ballycannon, four miles from Cork.  The police, the report stated, were searching for three known “murderers” who were in hiding in the neighbourhood of a farm at Ballycannon, kept by a man called Cornelius O’Keeffe.

The three wanted men, together with three others, were discovered hiding in a shed on the farm, which was surrounded. The occupants became aware of the cordon and opened fire with revolvers and both sides engaged in a shoot-out. The occupants, the report outlined, finding the outhouse untenable, made a dash for the open and ran right into the police cordon. A number of hand-to-hand combats took place and all six men were killed. The report notes that the young men carried no rifles, but were armed with bombs and revolvers, together with supplies of dum-dum ammunition (several types of modified ammunition for firearms), all of which were captured. The six men killed were Jeremiah O’Mullane of 227 Blarney Street (aged 23), Daniel Crowley of 171 Blarney Street (aged 22), William Deasy of Mount Desert, Blarney Road (aged 20 years), Thomas Dennehy of 104 Blarney Street (aged 21 years), Daniel Murphy of Urrey Hill (aged 24 years) and Michael O’Sullivan of 261 Blarney Street (aged 20 years).

Mrs. O’Keeffe, who lived at the farm in a conversation with a Cork Examiner, told of a number of men in police uniform knocking loudly at her door after four o’clock in the morning. As her husband and herself reached their broken in front door they were met by uniformed men, who stated that they were to search the house. They did so “with courtesy”, Mrs. O’Keeffe noted. They then ordered them all, the household, back to bed, and left taking Mr. O’Keeffe with them. A few minutes apsed and the noise of much firing was heard. At this time, there were seven or eight lorries of crown forces in the neighbourhood. They moved off with Mr. O’Keeffe for questioning and the dead bodies towards Cork.

The funeral of the six men took place on Sunday 27 March 1921. Newspaper reports in the Cork Examiner on the following day revealed that the remains of the deceased lay in the mortuary attached to the North Cathedral after being removed from the military barracks. Their remains were visited by “thousands of mourners”. The following notice was served by the military on the Bishop of Cork Dr. Cohalan and on Canon O’Sullivan the local administrator:

“Headquarters 17^th Infantry Brigade, 27^th March, 1921; Dear Sir – in accordance with instructions issued by the Irish Government concerning the restrictions to be placed on the persons allowed to attend funerals. This Military Government has decided that not than 150 persons will be permitted to take part in the funeral procession of Jeremiah Mullane and others today. These persons will be required to conform to the following regulations: (a) they will not be allowed to march in military formation or allowed to carry out any military exercise, (b) no demonstrations of a kind likely to cause a disturbance will be allowed, (c) no republican flags or I.R.A. badges will be displayed. The republican flag will not be permitted on the coffins. The funeral procession is to proceed via Washington Street and Patrick Street. It is requested that you inform all concerned and do all in your power to see these orders are carried out. A copy of this letter has been sent to the Lord Bishop of Cork – yours truly, B.L. Montgomery, Major, Brigade Major, 17^th Infantry Brigade”.

The notification was duly communicated to those in charge but none of the procession conformed to the regulations. It was not until 2 o’clock after the funeral masss that the first of the coffins were borne from the Cathedral mortuary on the shoulders of the deceased’s companions and preceded to St. Finbarr’s Cemetery.

To be continued…

Captions:

555a. Ballycannon Memorial, August 2010 (pictures: Kieran McCarthy)

555b. Descent from Clogheen into Kerry Pike; Boggeragh Mountains in the distance, August 2010

David McWilliams, economist, has been invited to speak at the first free public lecture in the 2010 Points of View Lecture Series at 6pm on Thursday the 2^nd of September in Millennium Hall, Cork City Hall. He will focus on the economic value of arts and culture, the similarities between the entrepreneur and the artist and how we drive the value of Cork’s cultural heritage on the world stage. The five lecture series, bringing world-renowned artists and cultural entrepreneurs to Cork, aims to give the people of Cork a unique chance to shape the direction of arts and culture in the city.

The other lecturers in the series are - Aidan Connolly, the Executive Director of the Irish Arts Centre in New York, Bob and John Crowley, Cork-born brothers who have pursued award winning careers in theatre and filmmaking in Ireland, London and America, Dragan Klaic, a cultural analyst, theater scholar and lecturer based at the Felix Meritis Foundation in Amsterdam and Raumlabor Berlin, an architectural and artistic collective who specialise in urban renewal.

The Points of View lectures are being run in tandem with the ‘By the Artist’ talks, a series of five talks given by some of Ireland’s leading practicing artists that will examine the role of art in the city. These talks, beginning with writer and director Oonagh Kearney, will give people a look at the reality of working in the arts. Her talk will take place at 1pm on Thursday, 2^nd of September at the Crawford Art Gallery Lecture Theatre.

People can visit www.corkcity.ie for information on the speakers, to register their interest and to give their point of view.

The second year of this festival brought even further success for the Ballinlough Youth Club team who were involved in the organisation in year 1. A great afternoon, laugh, chat, banter & fun was had by all ages. Indeed, we can perhaps say that Ballinlough is alive and very much kicking amidst these long days of economic recovery. Very well done to all. I was very proud to be a Ballinlough man yesterday. Pictures below. Any correspondance to be addressed to myself!

Heritage Hunt, Sunday, 22 August 2010 

Ballinlough Historical Walking Tour, Monday evening, 23 August 2010:

Talk on the history of Turners Cross & Ballyphehane, Tuesday morning, Tory Top Library, 24 August 2010:

History of Cork Theatre talk, Tuesday evening, 24 August 2010:

Kieran’s Lee Valley Photographic Exhibition, Lifetime Lab, Saturday, 28 August 2010:

Kieran’s City Hall historical tour, Saturday afternoon, 28 August 2010:

Gaeltaca Tour of Shandon area, Saturday afternoon, 28 August 2010:

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, Cork Independent,

In the Footsteps of St. Finbarre (Part 225)

Strangers and Shadows

“Outside of here, there must be a world. There’s other places and colours, and there must be cities and towns and villages with people, right? Stories must clash about and finish abruptly or start afresh and live for moments or maybe days even. And these stories must be shapeless and free and twist into new directions and possibilities….and people move from one story to the next, from a moment’s conversation to a whole life’s dialogue, maybe” (Enda Walsh, 2010, Penelope, p.49).

It began as an early day-a 5.30am family funeral. The family dog had died over night. In the early morning daylight and surrealness of being shocked and upset, the back garden unfolded as a funeral home. It became a place of mourning. The enclosing hedgerow and garden shed provided a setting for the grave of the 13 year old terrier, Sandy, who had been suffering from heart problems for a number of weeks. A grave was dug and the dog covered and laid to rest in a space she knew really well as her home turf.

However, in those early morning hours, it struck me that here was a private space in a sense invaded by death and its devastating wake. This place apart from being bounded by its history seems to be bound up with the mind as well. The meanings and memory of places can change according to circumstances. Currykippane which the column has discussed and its story been scratched at, has human emotion in abundance. Through the signs and symbols on gravestones, it is a place for memory to thrive. However, with such a place, not only is sincerity and loss very much present but also a form of playfulness with memory or some kind of rich power attempting to pull time and forgetting apart.

Hours later after the funeral, my planned holiday was upon me. Cork Airport is a place of coming and going and a place of beginnings of discoveries and explorations; a place that always seems to begin with one situating yourself  - whether that be looking at the clock, plane number or even finding the gate. The people waiting with me for my Paris flight were engaging with a range of activities. Ipods, Harry Potter books, newspapers all brought people to other worlds and imaginative destinations. The two kids on the floor in front of me, playing with ‘dinky’ cars had a whole racecourse set up complete with car crashes and adventure until their mum stepped in and crushed their story as passengers negotiated their race car track or maybe even town or city they had made.

An hour and twenty minutes later on a plane and a thirty minute underground spin, I emerged out the dark landscapes of travel in Paris City Centre. It is believed that a settlement on the present site of Paris was founded about 250 BC by a Celtic tribe called the Parisii, who established a fishing village near the river Seine. Through civil wars, revolutions, kings, emperors, Paris survived the test of time to become a multicultural capital of a modern European state and one of the world’s major global cities. However, what is impressive about the history of this great city is how its history is presented to the public for consumption, monument after monument, memorial after memorial across the city centre.

Reading into the meanings of these memorials reveal many aspects of how people remember them. Every evening of my stay I walked up from my nearby accommodation to the Arc de Triomphe to engage with some of the atmosphere. The Champs-Élysées boulevard, which leads to the monument, seemed to create a public interaction with place as it channels people to the lit up Arc at night. The Arc de Triomphe itself tends to act as both a memorial and an object of pilgrimage. The triumphal arch honours those who fought for France, particularly during the Napoleonic Wars. On the inside and the top of the arc there are all of the names of generals and wars fought. Every night of my visit, people made their way to stand under the structure, admire its height, its lines of architecture and also the most dominant feature the burning light of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I. The monument seems to be both personal and cultural. The monument provided some basis for self reflection as well as communication with others. 

The Arc de Triomphe also serves a space for coming together. It creates an emotionally charged place and is possessed by the ongoing public gaze and the life of its visitors. Perhaps the monumentality of life is also celebrated here. But the most interesting marker I encountered was on a faded message on a tomb in Père-Lachaise Cemetery, which was one of the first landscaped cemeteries in Europe and opened in 1804. It was here that for me another aspect of the power of symbolism and memory were revealed. The most interesting element though is that I saw a similar message at Currykippane in the lovely rural setting of the Lee Valley;“There are days that might outmeasure years that obliterate the past, and make the future, of the colour which they cast”.

Heritage Open Day, this Saturday 28^th , www.corkheritageopenday.ie

Captions:

554a. Arc de Triomphe, Paris (pictures: Kieran McCarthy)

554b. Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Arc de Triomphe

National Heritage Week, is coordinated by the Heritage Council and runs from 21^st – 29^th August.  Kieran McCarthy invites the general public to the following projects he is running for this important week.

Sunday, 22 August, 2pm, “Heritage Treasure Hunt”, A family and fun activity; start point: outside Cork City Library, Grand Parade, Cork, Duration: 1 ¼ hours

Monday, 23 August, 7pm; “Knights, Quarries and Suburban Growth:  A historical walking tour through Ballinlough and environs”, start point: Ballinlough Pitch and Putt car park, opp. Pairc Ui Rinn, Cork, duration: 1 ½ hours

Tuesday, 24 August, 11am; lecture entitled ‘The southern suburbs: a history of Ballyphehane and Turners Cross”, Tory Top Library, Ballyphehane, duration: 1 hour

Tuesday, 24 August, 7.30pm; lecture entitled: “Tales of Theatre and the Arts in Cork’s History”; Civic Trust House, Pope’s Quay, Cork, duration: 1 hour

Friday 25 August, 9-5pm, Kieran’s Lee Valley photographic exhibition for Water Heritage Day at the Lifetime Lab, Lee Road Cork (www.lifetimelab.ie)

Saturday, 29 August, 1.30pm; History and Legacy: A historical walking tour through Cork City Hall, start point: City Hall, Anglesea Street entrance, required booking in advance with heritage office, Cork City Hall, 021 4924018, duration: 1 hour

Pictures from the open day at the Ballincollig Military Cemetery below:

more information at Cork Independent, 1 April 2010, A Soldier’s Grave (Ballincollig Military Cemetery, interview with local historian, Anne Donaldson)

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