This final episode gathers sections left over from the other installments to tell a varied story of the Lee combining its natural, geographical, cultural, and historical layers. It also includes the main conclusions from the project and recommendations made to Cork City Council.
The opening and closing music is composed and played by Claire Layton; the field recordings are made and edited by Vicky Langan (www.vickylangan.com) and Richard Scriven, narration is provided by Ruth Harrington, Aisling White, Dionne Carroll, and Joe Kiely gave production assistance. Cork is the Lee is co-created by geographer Dr Richard Scriven, with funding from Cork City Council’s Local Heritage Grant 2019. This podcast is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, which means you can remix, tweak, and build upon this work for non-commercial purposes, as long as you credit us and license your new creations under the same terms; save for the materials from Cork Folklore Project who retain the copyright of those sections.
This episode focuses on our connections with the river by experiencing it from on the surface or on the banks. Despite everything else going on around the city – the traffic, the rushing, the noises – the river itself passes, threading its own course. By being on or by the river we can feel affinities to it, a sense that links us with its calming presence.
The opening and closing music is composed and played by Claire Layton; the field recordings are made and edited by Vicky Langan (www.vickylangan.com) and Richard Scriven, narration is provided by Ruth Harrington and Aisling White, and Joe Kiely gave production assistance. Cork is the Lee is co-created by geographer Dr Richard Scriven, with funding from Cork City Council’s Local Heritage Grant 2019. This podcast is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, which means you can remix, tweak, and build upon this work for non-commercial purposes, as long as you credit us and license your new creations under the same terms; save for the materials from Cork Folklore Project who retain the copyright of those sections.
The River Lee and its tributaries are a rich habitat for wildlife and biodiversity running across county Cork and through the city. This episode focuses on nature and wildlife along the river encourages us to (re)appreciate its natural heritage through discussions of otters, fishing, pollution, and birdlife.
The opening and closing music is composed and played by Claire Layton; the field recordings are made and edited by Vicky Langan (www.vickylangan.com) and Richard Scriven, narration is provided by Ruth Harrington and Aisling White, and Joe Kiely gave production assistance. Cork is the Lee is co-created by geographer Dr Richard Scriven, with funding from Cork City Council’s Local Heritage Grant 2019. This podcast is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, which means you can remix, tweak, and build upon this work for non-commercial purposes, as long as you credit us and license your new creations under the same terms; save for the materials from Cork Folklore Project who retain the copyright of those sections and the rendition of The Banks of My Own Lovely Lee.
This episode focuses on the Lee is a cultural force in the life of Cork. It uses historical accounts, art works, and poetry to emphasise the importance of valuing the river. The installment also highlights potential threats to our personal and communal attachment to the river and the need to ensure we foster and encourage appreciations and sustainable uses of the Lee.
View of Cork from Audley Place c.1750 by John Butts from the Crawford Art Gallery collection (Cat. No. 299-P) https://www.crawfordartgallery.ie/pages/paintings/JohnButts.html
Excerpts from The Banks Of My Own Lovely Lee by Dick Forbes and J.C. Flanahan are sung by Seán O’Sé. The opening and closing music is composed and played by Claire Layton; the field recordings are made and edited by Vicky Langan (www.vickylangan.com) and Richard Scriven, narration is provided by Ruth Harrington and Aisling White, and Joe Kiely gave production assistance. Cork is the Lee is co-created by geographer Dr Richard Scriven, with funding from Cork City Council’s Local Heritage Grant 2019. This podcast is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, which means you can remix, tweak, and build upon this work for non-commercial purposes, as long as you credit us and license your new creations under the same terms; save for the materials from Cork Folklore Project who retain the copyright of those sections and the rendition of The Banks of My Own Lovely Lee.
Dr Kathy D’Arcy and I are running a series of summer writing workshops in Cork city using the them theme of pilgrimage. The details are outlined below.
Pilgrimages: Walking and Writing Trail
Dates: Fridays July 19, 26, August 2, 9, 16, 23.
Time: 12.30-2.30pm
Booking is required
This series of guided writing workshops will lead small groups through the streets of Cork city centre connecting pilgrimage sites. Each workshop will be 2 hours long in total, involving walking to locations such as St FinBarre’s Cathedral and the Nano Nagle Centre, supported writing time, and a space to share and discuss in the City Library.* The initiative is being facilitated by Dr Kathy D’Arcy, creative writing teacher and poet, and Dr Richard Scriven, Geographer in UCC, who have expertise in pilgrimages and working with community groups. It is being run in conjunction with Cork City Library. You can attend just one workshop, several of them, or all; however, they will be limited to 10 people, so booking is essential. Participants aged under 18 must be accompanied by an adult. For details and booking contact Kathy D’Arcy gobnait3[at]gmail.com
For walking: Good shoes, raingear, umbrella, sunscreen, sunglasses, comfortable clothes, tissues.
For writing: Sturdy notebooks (one large, one small) and pens, plastic pocket to protect writing.
What to expect? Mostly very easy walking with stops to sit and write/meditate/discuss the routes (we may sit on the ground); quiet, meditative walking and thinking interspersed with periods of writing and discussion; final friendly sharing of work created.
Who is it for? Everyone, all levels of writing experience and none! Participants will need to be able to negotiate the city streets and roads.
*The workshops will not be religious in nature, rather they will involve exploring the historic paths and the creativity they can generate.
I had previously commented on the deteriorating state of Lady’s Well in Cork city. Thanks to works by Cork City Council* the site has been cleaned up and new structures have been put in place around the well. The necessity for grids over the well may be seen as unfortunate, but will not impinge on the well excessively as does not seem to be used for religious-spiritual reasons. These additions will ensure the preservation of the site and perhaps a revival of devotional activity in the future?
*I had raised the matter with one of my local representatives, Kiernan McCarthy (corkheritage.ie), who has done significant work in promoting Cork’s heritage.
Postboxes, once essential pieces of communications infrastructure which connected villages, crossroads and neighbourhoods to the rest of the world, are still noticeable features of landscapes and roadsides. Public postboxes in the Republic of Ireland, administered by the semi-state organisation An Post, are green. While more recent boxes tend to be more functional, older ones had distinct designs such as the hexagonal-sided Penfold or the familiar small box attached to a telegraph pole.
VR for Victoria Regina 1837 – 1901 Greenmount Cork
ER for Edward Rex 1901 – 1910 Douglas Cork
Postboxes also have symbols, representative of the time of their production. Previous to the current An Post there was P&T (Dept. of Post and Telegraphs) and Saorstát Eireann (Irish Freestate). However, there are even older boxes, still in use, which feature the royal insignia from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, when all of the island of Ireland was part of the UK. You can still find boxes with ER (Edwardus Rex) or VR (Victoria Regina) which date from the period 1901 – 1910 and c.1850s-1901 (although Queen Victoria’s reign was 1837 – 1901, postboxes didn’t come to Ireland until at least the c.1850s) respectively. Although rather solid and simple devices, it still is marvelous, if not surprising, that they have survived so long. It is nice to consider the thousands of letters (with the intentions, news, connections and emotions they contained) that would have passed through them.
It is noteworthy that these very clear, albeit ordinary, symbols of the British Monarchy survived in places through times when such things were readily destroyed. While statues, flags and buildings were attacked for nationalistic reasons, these objects survived, possibly being saved because of their very ordinariness or usefulness. Also, when the majority of Ireland transitioned to becoming a Free State, these boxes did pose an issue; however, a rather straightforward, yet clever, and utterly Irish, solution was to paint the red British boxes green. This transformation has lasted for over ninety years. The symbol of British Monarchy, covered over by green paint can be a metaphor for so many features in the Irish state, from Primary Schools to Common Law.
On your travels throughout Ireland, and even in your own neighbourhood, check the postbox, you may find an interesting piece of heritage, geography, symbolism and materiality. However, make sure you get there before 4.30pm .
The Lough (pronounced lock) is one of Cork city’s most well known features. It is a freshwater lake, with a selection of birds and fish, that serves as a centre of recreation. December 2010, when the photo was taken, was first time I’d ever seen it frozen, with the abnormally cold temperatures that winter causing many freak events. Until then, I never thought, I would actually see the Lough like this. The place has been forever changed, maybe enriched, after this, I am always aware of the potential changes that exist within the waters.
Reflecting from a much wilder winter, I am struck at how relatively minor temperature fluctuations have significant impacts on our understandings and experiences of place. Although my preference for human geography has involved me moving away from climatology and meteorology, it is still important to acknowledge the power of physical forces in defining and shaping our worlds.
Lady’s Well is one of the few wells within Cork city. It is located north of the city centre, on the eastern slope of the small valley that leads out to Blackpool. It gave Lady’s Well Brewery, just below the well, its name, while what is now Leitrim Street was formerly called Lady’s Well Street.
The well has had a varied modern history. There seems to have been no record of religious activity on the site and by the 1980s no surface trace of the well existed, although the shrine to the Blessed Virgin Mary was on the site, which was demolished in the later 1990s. A City Council sponsored excavation in 2000 revealed a cast-iron basin surrounding by sandstone flags as being the likely earliest flooring at the well. At that time, the well and grotto were consolidated.
I visited the site on 26th Feb 2012 and again on 24th Feb 2013. When I intended to blog about the site recently, I returned to get more recent photos. On my initial visit I found the site to be untidy and generally a bit run down – in particular, drinks cans allover the site and in the well. This poor state was one of the main motivations for revisiting the site, as it didn’t want to misrepresent its current condition. However, the site was in an even poorer state on my second visit. Messiness and evidence of drinking was compounded by neglect and vandalism. The photos below which compare the site over the two visits clearly illustrate the change, especially in terms of the well itself, which is now inaccessible as the basin is completely filled in with bits of broken paving.
Although, the well is an acknowledged heritage feature and was renovated with community support, it seems to have slowly deteriorated. Its location on a secluded section of the hillside above the brewery but out of site of the houses above means its an ideal location for ‘anti-social’ behaviour, with evidence of drinking, vandalism and fire-lighting.
I am slightly conflicted over what the visits have revealed. Firstly, it is a shame that one of the few examples of a holy well in the city is in this condition; and, as a result, I have contacted one of my local councilors about the issue, who will raise it at the City Council. However, this also presents a study in the decline of a holy well. Many hundreds of the 3,000 holy wells that were believed to have existed across Ireland can no longer be found or have deteriorated beyond recognition. Although, intentional actions are involved here, the site is a metaphor for what has happened to so many sites. Wells which are no longer the focus of devotional activity can fall into disrepair and become unattractive, furthering their demise. It would seem the central reason for the survival of so many wells is the role of devoted people who frequent and upkeep them.
While the physical structures and role of Lady’s Well in the nomenclature of the city ensure the site will remain in the future, what exact form this will take is uncertain. I shall return to the site and the topic.
Two views, one from each visit, looking south at the site: it resembles a mini-amphitheatre, with a curved shape on one side and it is spread over three levels – a back support level with the ground behind it, a middle level with an empty grotto at the far end and the lower level which has the well at its centre.
The well’s poor condition, marked by litter mainly, in Feb 2012 is replaced by one of complete disrepair in Feb 2013, presumably through intentional vandalism.
The view of the site in Feb 2012 from the laneway between Richmond Hill and Leitrim Street.