Category: Heritage - Reading the Signs

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Another Lightning Strike

13/12/2022

Last Sunday, once again, I received the lesson that one is very unlikely to record all of a particular thing – there always is the rick that one exists somewhere I just have not been before. This time is was the E.S.B. Lightning logo.

Castle Avenue in Monkstown was the road not travelled before. And there it was.

It has prompted me to put a webpage together of those that I have encountered and recorded - HERE

Does 164, 165 & 166 get into Top 100?

27/11/2022

Yesterday I spotted that Siobhán Doyle was a guest on Donal Fallon’s podcast Three Castles Burning and it sent my memory recall in all different directions.

On a nice May evening, in 2018, we stopped with friends at O’Connell’s bar in Skryne in Co. Meath. As I was on driving duty, I explored the nearby cemetery, as one does, and the surrounds with the younger generation.

The numbering on the seating in an outside shed did have us puzzled for a while – this is the place where one remembers to turn the lights out, not on.

Returning to the counter, the barman did confirm that these timber planks, with their numbers, did, as we guessed, come from Croke Park – the old one that was demolished.

Christmas advertising is nearly a month old this year already but I do not think that I have yet seen this year the advert showing snow at a closed O’Connell’s.

I have to travel to a meeting on Monday and the Three Castles Burning podcast will be my choice of listening.

It will be a bit longer before I find out if the Smoking Room in Skryne made it into the Top 100 in Siobhán book – this being a Santa’s letter of sorts.

Josephine McCoy

27/11/2022

Yesterday, driving on the Back Douglas Road, I spotted the name of an as yet unfinished development. A U-turn was executed and I returned to what will be Josephine McCoy Mews. This had me intrigued.

Buildings, roads or structures named after females are not that common. If the sub-grouping of female saints is excluded, the number would be very very small.

I remember mentally screaming at the car radio about ten years ago when there was a, what proved to be successful, campaign to name the suspension bridge over the Dublin to Belfast M1 after former President Mary McAleese. Someone on the radio was saying that it would be the first structure named after a women, ignorant of the Cork footbridge erected in 1985 and named after Nano Nagle.

Mary Elmes Bridge, Rosie Hackett Bridge and others have followed since then – but the numbers are still so small that I did return and photograph what will be Josephine McCoy Mews. Heading onwards towards the Nursing Home, I did think as to who Josephine McCoy was and whether I had read of her previously.

As it transpired, I had actually stopped at the grave she shares with her (second) husband. John Borgonovo’s piece on RTE Brainstorm gave the answers – well worth a read.

“ – Aren’t Cork people funny all the same, I said. I mean like see that footbridge there, there are two footbridges along this stretch of the river. This one here was opened by Gerald Goldberg, Cork’s Jewish Lord Mayor, it leads from Goldberg’s office in the heart of the city to the Synagogue on South Terrace and on into the Jew Town of Albert Road; but the funny thing is that bridge is known locally as the Pass-Over. Then we have the other footbridge up by the Quay Co-op. It’s called the By-Pass, ya see Joe McHugh was the City Manager at de time dey were building it, and sur poor aul Joe had to go under the knife with his heart… de By-Pass, gas or wat?”

Passion Play – Cónal Creedon (1999)

Use It …………………………..Or…………………..Lose It

10/9/2022

A few weeks back, I learnt from Eoin’s tweet that his uncle’s butchers stall in The English Market was to close. I spotted the closed stall today and it confirmed once again that not all progress is good.

Stealing some me-time on our holidays, which started with lovely steaks from McCarthy’s of Kanturk, I did receive the task to get some chops for the dinner. I walked the main shopping streets in Tralee but could I see a butchers – not one. This is not surprising as in Cork, outside of the English market, there is only one butchers shop trading in the city centre.

Calling to the workplace of a friend, I received directions to a small butchers shop on the North Circular Road – Waddings. The only regret with the chops purchased was that I didn’t buy enough.

That morning, I got chatting with the two butchers on duty and explained that I did not want a prepacked meat. I wanted meat that was recently carved and open to view on all sides. I learned that, similar to Cork, the number of butchers shops had significantly reduced – trade lost to the supermarkets.

The Butcher's apostrophe

Waddings, Tralee

A few years back, walking on the slopes of Baurtegaum on the Dingle peninsula and meeting a sheep farmer, he told of times past when his family would have had animals ready for killing, a message was sent to the butcher who would collect the animal, cut and sell in their shop. Regulation has done away with many of the butcher/abattoirs but that morning I learned that Waddings believed that they were the only butchers shop in Tralee still buying full beef carcass and doing the butchery themselves – many others buying the joints and cutting them in the shop.

Local shops and newsagents have significantly reduced from when I was younger. I don’t think there is a tobacconist in Cork and only a couple of cobblers. Post Offices are closing. Recently, a chat with a few friends revealed that the many different insurance and life assurance brokers that we all used had all been taken over and subsumed into larger entities and contact is now with a call-centre-type set-up; personal contact and connection is gone.

Last year, an article in the Irish Times reported that ‘ It is one of Ireland’s great culinary treasures to have such a wealth of independent meat shops. And apparently it is a treasure that a new generation of shoppers is rediscovering.’ I do hope that the article spoke the truth. We do enjoy the fare from O’Mahony’s of the English Market but I do fear the future of mass produced sameness and blandness driven by the supermarkets, the mass producers and the regulators.

I do hope we take a turn on the road to the Brave New World………………

One of Cork's last Victuallers

P.S. Bresnan’s is likely to be the end of reference in Cork to Victualler???

Mark of the English at Collins Barracks

4/8/2022

A few months back, I attended a very enjoyable talk at Collins Barracks in Cork by Prof. Tim Hoyt as part of The Irish Civil War National Conference held by U.C.C. .

Collins Barracks was known as Victoria Barracks at the time of the handover, one hundred years ago. It was subsequently named after Michael Collins and retains that name to today. Gerry White’s talk at the conference on the handover is available online, 48:20 minutes in.

I learnt during the conference that when the British Army handed over the barracks, one of the last things that they did was to cut down the flagpole – seemingly this is always done when a stronghold is being vacated, ‘a long British Army tradition’.
Leaving the Officers’ Mess after the talk, I smiled that not all signs of things English had been removed. Looking down, I noted that the manhole cover was manufactured by Ham, Baker & Co of Westminster.

It remains, most probably ignored by the majority who pass by, on the southern side of the Main Square.

p.s.
I have previously blogged on the War Department, Board of Ordnance markers, which also remain.

Recognising The Craftsman

7/6/2021

It was only earlier this year that twitter educated that some of the cast iron grave markers have the name of the manufacturer moulded on the marker – I went to write ‘headstone’ but it did not appear correct when not of stone.

The old cemetery at Drumcliffe in Ennis provider my first experience.

I have seen the work Shannon Foundry underfoot in a variety of iron covers, but their work to remember James Grady was a first for me.

Cork – Remembering the R.I.C. and the British Army

22/5/2021

There is an exhibition running at the Crawford Art Gallery in Cork in which the artist, Dara McGrath, has returned to the locations where people died in the Republican War, or Revolutionary Period, one hundred years ago. The exhibition concerns itself with the period 1919 to 1921 – the War of Independence.

The artist returns to the scene of death a century later and records the current aspect – regularly with people in the photograph who are quite likely oblivious to the past events, such events not being commemorated by a plaque or other memorial.

To promote the exhibition, billboards around Cork city were used with details of the person deceased, how they died, as well as photograph of the location.

Where the Covid-world met the Folklore-world

20/12/2020

On Tuesday, I observed how the modern Covid-world met the folklore-world. Initially, I was surprised, but really I ought not to have been, and should have expected it.

At many of the Holy Wells that I have visited, there has been a Rag Tree, upon which visitors would tie a piece of cloth. As I understand the practice, the visitor rubs the cloth on that part of the body with an affliction prior to fixing the cloth to the Rag Tree hoping to transfer the affliction to the cloth/rag and to leave the affliction behind at the Rag Tree when the visitor departs for home.

Today I listened to the RTE Archive clip on Fr. Moore’s Well which is located just outside Kildare town, on the road to Milltown. On Tuesday, the well had very many items which would have been encountered at other Holy Wells that I have visited – a sign describing how to perform the stations/rounds; a donation box; a memorial card, and, a Rag Tree. Fr.Moore’s Well provided all of these and more. It had a crutch – whether cast aside in hope, in recovery, or, for effect is unknown. But it was the Rag Tree, or more particularly, the rags, that brought the tradition upto the year 2020.

Among the items tied to the tree were, not just one, but two face masks – one was disposal-type of the medical sky-blue colour; the other was a reuseable-type of a bright purple colour with what appeared to be the initials ‘S.Q.’.

A used face-mask is a perfect example of ‘only of value as homage’ and proof of the continuation of tradition.

‘Yet, a large part of the business of visiting a holy well is to come for a cure. Many wells are named specifically for the particular body part or illness they reputedly cured, such as eye wells or wart wells, though many were relatively panaceal (Logan 1980). Linked to this a range of healing rituals emerged, the most prominent of which was the leaving of offerings on rag bushes or trees. This ritual was (and is) a mix of the embodied, symbolic and performative wherein an object that should have touched the body (such as a strip of cloth from a petticoat), was dipped in the well water, rubbed on the affected part and left on the tree to let nature take the now disembodied illness away.’
Ronan Foley - Small health pilgrimages: Place and practice at the holy well

‘At a number of wells the tree (or occasionally a bush) is used to secure a cloth placed there by a pilgrim. The range of trees varies greatly. A.T. Lucas took a closer look at holy well trees. He visited 210 holy wells in Cork in the 1960’s and found whitethorns (103) predominated, with ash (75), oak (7) and a mixture of other species making up the remaining 25.’
Michael Houlihan – The Holy Wells of County Clare.

‘Early in the nineteenth century, a hostile witness wrote a description of a pilgrimage to Devenish Island, Co. Fermanagh. In it he mentioned the holy well dedicated to St. Molaisse
In it people with sore eyes, and back going children wash for a cure making what is called a station (a thing that I know nothing about) and tye a rag on the thorn according to custom.’

The Holy Wells of Ireland – Patrick Logan

‘It is right, on visiting a well, to make offerings of small objects, only as value as homage. Rag offerings are naturally most frequent where there is a ‘blessed bush’ at the well, but they are frequently hung on a bramble, or even, on the Atlantic coast, kept in place by stones. Rags abounded, with other offerings, at Gleninagh, at least till 1899, being tied to the twigs of an elder bush. They were hung in quantities on the stunted old hawthorn at Oughtmama well, and were found at Tobersraheen, at Aglish graveyard at Ogonello, and on the fallen hawthorn near the basin at Kiltinanlea. They were often accompanied by rosaries, religious medals, necklaces and ribbons, broken or whole plaster and china figures and vessels, and glass, buttons, pins, and nails.’
T. J. Westropp – Folklore of Clare

The Gun Runner, The Hermit of The Glen & The Priest’s Car

21/4/2020

Today, there were a number of tweets to remember that on this day in 1916, Roger Casement landed at Banna Strand in Co. Kerry having travelled on The Aud with arms for the planned rebellion of Easter 1916. He was arrested shortly after landing and became the last of the ’16 Men Dead’ when executed in Pentonville Prison in August.

This reminded me of the remnannts of an old and very small cottage that I spotted when travelling the roads around Ballymacelligott, a few years ago. I saw a fingerpost sign for the Captain Monteith 1916 Memorial and went searching.

Whiddy - Remembering The Victims Whose Names Are Known To God Alone

15/1/2020

Last week was the anniversary of the Betelgeuse disaster on Whiddy Island in Bantry Bay. There were a number of tweets reminding of the 51 who died in 1979. I remember that my mother wanted to drive down to Bantry and see what was being shown on the television. The young me thought that wish very odd. The current me is disappointed that she didn’t get there and bring us with her.

In 2018, I visited Bantry graveyard and was well impressed by the monument designed by a J. L. Fontaine, who does not appear on a web search.

I had not realised that two victims were unnamed.

Archaeology Only 6 Inches Deep

10/3/2019

Pothole Reveals the Ghost of the old Blackrock Tram.

I received these two photographs this morning from KH. They are of a pothole on the Blackrock Road between Ashton School and the CRK0001A postbox a bit up the road. But this pothole proves to be a revelation.

As if I was not photographing enough groupings, I have recently started photographing some old railways tracks that remain visible – maybe not for long with the developments in Docklands. So when a railway track is revealed as a ghost from under the tarmac, it was a double win.

I travelled past on the way home from my Irish walk but the rain did not help my photographs. I will be back for more photos.

When tracks were revealed when they were doing the plaza works in Blackrock Village, it was decided to incorporate them into the development. I suspect that the Blackrock tram track will be recovered and not exposed as an item of archaeology.

Chelsea – Down & Soon To Be Out

6/3/2019

Mosaic tiling has been one of the (many) items in Cork that I have been photographing over the past few years. I will get around to grouping together and uploading to the website – but not today or tomorrow.

This afternoon I was lucky enough to spot a mosaic for the first time. Lucky as the builders had the door to the site open as I passed. Extra lucky in that they even brushed the mosaic for the photograph. Extremely lucky as the mosaic is not much longer for this world - a new floor will be poured in the coming weeks.

The bar closed down a good few years ago. The building was subject to a blog post in 2016. Prior to its closing, it was the home of the Cork Branch of the Chelsea Supporters Club – hence the mosaic.

With digital photographs now easy and cheap to store, it has got me thinking that it would be a good idea for all planning applications to include a complete photographic survey to retain a snapshot of what was and what is to be no more – an archaeological time capsule of sorts.

If you need distracting for a while, you could do worse that try to name the locations of some mosaics around Cork.

I have yet to photograph the floor of the Honan Chapel at U.C.C.

Any suggestions as to other mosaics that are missing would be welcome.

Ghosts and Schools

5/3/2019

This Friday sees the official launch of Enda O’Flaherty’s book – The Deserted School Houses of Ireland. On Friday at 6.00, I do hope to be at the Nano Nagle Centre.

When the reminder popped up on my computer, it prompted concentrating this week on school buildings on my daily update for Ghostsigns.

Since the first day of the year, in an effort to get my photographs of Roadside Death Memorials, Postboxes, Street Art and Ghostsigns organised, I have been tweeting one of each every day. Today is Day 64.

Last week’s tweets included the Cork Model School which has been repurposed as Circuit Courthouse.

Today’s tweet is a crest in a terrazzo floor. It greeted me most school mornings for six years of my life so it brought back some memories when I spotted through an open door a while back – neither good, nor bad, just memories.

The ghost most likely has much better, and much worse, memories, for others.

The building was originally the Vincentian School until the transfer in 1888 of seminarians to Farranferris. The Christian Brothers opened the school in 1888. I do not know the date of the terrazzo flooring which from recollection goes all the way up the stairs from MacCurtain Street to above Wellington Road entrance

Cork City
Was Christian Brothers College - Now Residential
Wellington Road
Photos Taken - 18/2/1

Patrick Street, 1872
‘….On the right of the photograph is Carmichael’s drapery store, which would later become Cash & Co. On the skyline in the centre of the photograph is the Scott residence in Sidney Place that would in 1885 become Government House, the residence of the general officer commanding the Cork Military district. To the left below it was the Vincentian Schools building in St Patrick’s Place, later the Christian Brothers College.’

CORK In Old Photographs – Tim Cadogan (2003 Gill & Macmillan Ltd)

Placenames in Skerries

15/1/2019

I have contributed a number of details of field and placenames to Meitheal Logainm – a crowd sourcing of names/nicknames of fields, crossroads and other features around the country.

Having spoken with a few older farmers, every field had a name, or even a number of names, but many names were lost with the selling of farms.

Falla an Chuain - Bay Wall - Skerries

Cúine Walker - Walker's Corner - Skerries

My brother-in-law’s father worked with Irish Sugar and told of a book that he had that he used when visiting farmers every year as to which fields would be given over to beet that year – the high field, Murphy’s acres…….

That book contained the names of very many fields. It was left behind him when he retired and he suspects that it was subsequently consigned to a skip – so much history and lore, lost.

Staying in Skerries overnight, I was delighted to spot that they have plaques erected to record the old names of corners – I only spotted two, my next visit will demand a more extensive walkabout for any more.

The Bug Is In The Detail

12/9/2018

If I only had time to write all the blog posts that are rattling around my brain. There are so many photographs foldered on the drive, just awaiting some words to be uploaded here.

These bugs and creepy crawlies were not even in the foldered category this morning. There were in the large grouping or of 250 days of photographs in the ‘To Be Foldered’ folder – but no longer, thanks to a tweet.

This morning, Look UpLondon’s post was about the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. When I saw the images, it reminded me of the building I went past last December.

The blog post reminded me of everything that impressed at the time and which was photographed:

The entrance door and carved logo over
The metalwork railings adorned with specimens
The names carved in stone at top of façade

I even liked the font and style of the streetname.

To learn about the building, take thyself off to LookUpLondon – it will be time well spent.