West Cork Blog

Electrifying West Cork

The traditional Irish village: Lusk, Co Dublin, in 1954 (photo from ESB Archives). Thatched buildings, the village pump, bicycles: a man sitting on the stone smoking his pipe. The intrusions are the poles and the overhead lines bringing the modern world into rural Ireland. Lusk was connected to the new grid close to the beginning of a project that spread out from the major conurbations from the late 1920s, taking some fifty years to embrace the whole state.

Rural Electrification arrives in Dromiskin, Co Louth, in 1949. Cork Electric Supply Co Ltd was in operation in Cork City before 1927. It supplied 4,225 homes and businesses in 1929, rising to 5,198 by March 1930, before being acquired by ESB in April 1930. Close neighbouring communities began to receive connections from 1930 onwards; Skibbereen and Bantry waited until 1937, while Schull and Ballydehob were without until works crept into furthest West Cork in 1952.

Above – family Life in 1950s rural Ireland (photo by Robert Cresswell). When I was a boy in 1950s England, I was probably fortunate to live in a house where electricity had been connected: my parents were quite progressive in that respect. I well remember the brown bakelite switches and plugs (two sizes: small and large). However, I often visited my Granma who lived in a house without any of it. It was a bit like the one above (which is in Kinvara). Gas globes hung from the ceilings: they had to be lit with tapers while pulling down on a lever. Cooking and heating came from a black coal range, and there was one cold tap in the scullery. There was no bathroom or shower, only a toilet outside in a shed. But there was a large wireless set – just like the one shown above. It was powered by an ‘accumulator’ which had to be taken to the shop up the road to be refilled with acid every few weeks. My Granma lived and died without ‘electrics’.

Above – Ballydehob before electrification. The ESB Archives are alive with colourful descriptions of the Rural Electrification works arriving here and in neighbour Schull. Reports from the on-site engineers are droll . . .

Schull Rural Area, April 1952 . . . Mr O’Driscoll opens his post-construction report in almost poetic terms and then to show that he is not bound to one form of art, proceeds to give us a word picture of the terrain in Schull, which is even more realistic than the deepest purples that Paul Henry ever used. We gather that pegging was, at times, a highly arduous and dangerous task and it would appear that among the wonders of the modern world, the greatest (in the view of the pegging team), was how this Area was ever selected for electrification . . .

ESB Archives

‘Pegging’ is a term in common use in the ESB Archives. It refers to the art of raising poles and stringing them with wires across the country. Evidently, the ‘landed gentry’ unkindly described them as “those beastly sticks”. Over 1 million poles were erected eventually, with 78,754km of wire used and a total of 2,280lbs of gelignite consumed during construction. The overall cost was some £36m (equivalent to €1.5bn today).

. . . We had very few wayleave difficulties. Sometimes an argument would develop with a local farmer whether the patch of grass where we put a peg was a field or not. If he convinced us it was a field, which he usually did by showing us the welts on his hand, we shifted the peg. It would seem too much like taking the bread from the mouth of a child to destroy his farm and livelihood by one pole . . .

ESB ARCHIVES

Above – Celebrations came with the connection of the 100,000th premises in 1954. Now we return to our own West Cork:

. . . It is interesting to note, and perhaps might be taken as a headline, that the early switch-in of the villages of Schull and Ballydehob (1952) had an excellent reaction on the more outlying areas and could not be denuded of all credit for the extra consumers eventually connected . . . There was an amusing revival of an ancient rivalry between the two villages. Ballydehob, looking with pride at their 100kVA transformer, were inclined to be scornful of Schull where a 50kVA transformer was erected; but the Schull people not to be out-done, countered by pointing out that there were many more poles in their “Town” than in Ballydehob “Village”. . . Only 8 houses remained to be wired when the gang left the area, 3 of these were parochial property and 4 were under the control of the Board of Works . . .

ESB ARCHIVes

The mention of “parochial property” in the paragraph above – from the ESB Archives – is of significance. The term would be applied to churches and schools, certainly. As outlined in last week’s post, Seán Keating was scornful of his view of the clergy position on Electrification: his Night’s Candles painting shows the priest still reading by the light of a candle while the world moves on around him. We can find differing views on the attitude of the Church.

. . . Throughout the length and breadth of Ireland politicians of all political shades lobbied the ESB for their area to be electrified. It wasn’t just politicians who tried to exert their influence: in July 1957, the parish priest of Ballycroy, County Mayo, wrote to the Rural Electrification Office. He said that his parishioners were anxious and that they believed he could influence decisions at the Dublin head office. “Sometimes people get an idea that the PP isn’t taking any interest in these matters. I need not add that I have a very deep enthusiasm for the light coming to Ballycroy” . . .

The Irish Story.com

Above – celebration in Dublin St Patrick’s Day Parade 1954. Here in Ballydehob I was pleased to hear some reminiscence from retired schoolmaster Noel Coakley pertaining to the ‘parochial property’ which remained to be wired when the gangs left the area:

. . . Having had the luxury of the electric light when growing up in Bantry town in the 1940s and 50s, rural electrification was a subject of which I was blissfully unaware until my first teaching post, 60 years ago next month in Tragumna National School near Skibbereen. Though the building was wired for electricity and rural electrification had already arrived in the area, the school wasn’t connected to the grid. On checking the reason, the reply I received from the then School Manager, the local Parish Priest, was, ‘Why would a school need electricity?’ End of the matter! Indeed, I should have known better because my own alma mater, Bantry Boys’ NS which was on the Hospital Road, wasn’t even wired for electricity. In fact, it wasn’t connected until the autumn of 1970 during the 2 year experiment, 1969-71, on having Summer Time all year round. Back teaching in Bantry by then, teachers and pupils had to endure almost pitch dark classrooms for the first year of the trial. Coming to Ballydehob in February 1971 was going from darkness into light because the school here could even boast of having electric sockets into which we could plug new fangled machines like tape recorders, while Bantry Boys’ had only being upgraded to two 100w single bulbs per classroom. Regarding Rural Electrification in Ballydehob, I think the village was connected around 1954. I do recall that the area around the townland of Knockroe, bordered between Bantry Road and Skibbereen Road, didn’t get connected until the 1970s because the majority of residents refused connection when the rest of the district was being electrified . . .

Noel Coakley, Ballydehob – personal communication

Above – a network of ‘pegs’ crossing the north side of the Mizen today.

Once again, I am grateful to Michael Barry for pointing me in the direction of some of this information, and for switching on the lights for me in respect of the extensive ESB Archives. I also appreciate the contributions of Noel Coakley and Eugene McSweeney, Ballydehob. Are there any other stories out there? More to follow next week!

Night’s Candles are Burnt Out

There’s a wealth of tales to be told about the first decades of independent Ireland. The 1920s and 1930s saw a flourishing of confident projects portraying a nation on the cusp of change, establishing itself in Europe and beyond. One such was the hydro-electric scheme at Ardnacrusha on the River Shannon. Foundations were laid in 1925 and works completed within four years, providing the young country with what was then the world’s largest power station. The intention was to enable everyone in Ireland to avail of the most trendsetting modern commodity: electricity.

The documentary photo above looks like a scene from a science-fiction film: it’s the control station at Ardnacrushsa, shortly after the completion of the project. This, and many other of the illustrations which I will refer to, are taken from the excellent ESB Archives: I am very grateful to them for the use of these. The building of the huge dam and power station was documented in fine detail – and not just in words and photographs. The notoriously outspoken and visionary artist – Seán Keating – chose to record the accomplishments in his own medium, painting.

This is one of Keating’s works from the time: Night’s Candles are Burnt Out. (Thanks to Gallery Oldham). It is, perhaps, the finale of his series drawn and painted during the construction of the works – which he undertook on site under his own initiative and without a sponsor. Art historian (and biographer of Keating) Dr Éimear O’Connor suggests:

. . . Keating went down to Ardnacrusha because he knew that the construction project was emerging history. It was all happening around where he was born and raised. The machinery was going to carve up this landscape that he saw as ‘a medieval dungheap’, that was how he described it in later years. And this was a metaphor for him, the whole thing was all about Ireland moving forward into modernity. Night’s Candles features the dam at Ardnacrusha, but also includes a group of figures in the foreground, all of whom represent different aspects of what Keating saw as the Ireland of the day. When he showed it at the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin, it was called ‘the problem painting of the year,’ which Keating thought was hilarious. They couldn’t get their heads around this idea of what he was trying to do at all . . .

O’Connor: Seán Keating: Art, Politics and Building the Irish Nation, 2013 (Irish Academic Press)

In this detail from the painting we see Keating himself (top right) together with his wife and sons, pointing to the vision of Ireland’s future. On the left of the full painting is Keating again, inspecting a hanging skeleton, perhaps reminiscent of the Famine. Most significantly, perhaps, at the bottom right is a priest reading by the light of the candle. O’Connor is clear about this portrayal:

. . . It tells you an awful lot about Keating and his attitude to the Church at the time. Like many others in the cultural sphere in Ireland, he was disappointed with post-Treaty Ireland, with successive governments and the Church, who were in cahoots, if you know what I mean. He knew well that the whole country was tied up with them, and with that kind of organized religion that was deeply conservative. And Night’s Candles is very much an expression of that disappointment, I think . . .

O’Connor: Seán Keating: Art, Politics and Building the Irish Nation, 2013 (Irish Academic Press)

It’s worth dwelling on this painting a little longer, and viewing Keating’s thought processes, through O’Connor’s eyes:

. . . What Keating was trying to do was reflect upon a country on the brink of change. It was in those years, in the 1920s, that the term ‘gombeen man’ came into being. We all know that it means the kind of businessman or politician who’s making money off the backs of everybody else. And that’s the gombeen man in the middle of the painting. I think it’s quite clear that Keating’s hope was that modernity, as represented by Ardnacrusha, would end all that stage-Ireland paddywhackery that had prevailed for years . . .

O’Connor: Seán Keating: Art, Politics and Building the Irish Nation, 2013 (Irish Academic Press)

Above – posters from the time of the construction work at Ardnacrusha (ESB Archives). It was certainly the most exciting project in Ireland’s young days, and tourism was encouraged. Hand-in-hand with the major works themselves went a crucial publicity campaign to encourage people to embrace the coming of a readily available electricity supply to homes and businesses. The steps taken to try and ‘get the message across’ was an uphill task. Considerable funds were expended – and a large sales force garnered – to tour the country and persuade the population to buy into the project.

The visuals, humour and underlying psychology of this Ardnacrusha construction-era promotional poster really appeal to me. In case you can’t read the ‘small print’, this is the message that’s being pushed:

. . . 90,000 Horse Power of energy will be available from the Shannon Electrical Power Station next year for Irish Industry and Irish homes . . . The American workman is the most prosperous on earth, because he has, on average, three horse-power, the equivalent of thirty human slaves, helping him to produce. No wonder he can toil less and be paid more than the workman of other lands. He is not a toiler, he is a director of machinery . . .

Post-Famine, America was always seen as the ‘golden land of opportunity’ for Irish emigrants. Now, in 1930, we are being told that Ireland will have the capability to match those fabled fortunes!

. . . Shannon Electricity will lift the heavy work of industry from human shoulders to the iron shoulders of machines . . .

The coming of electricity across Ireland opened up markets for retailers to vend a host of innovative gadgets. This mobile electricity showroom from the 1950s (ESB Archives) covers the gamut of lighting, cooking, refrigerating, water supply to sinks using pumps, milking machines and labour-saving devices for farms. In a future post I want to focus on Rural Electrification, which was a long haul: taking poles and wires out into the extensive hinterland. This was – arguably – the most heroic part of the process of electrification, and we can’t help wondering whether the following somewhat iconic ESB print of the first ‘peg’ being raised at Kilsallaghan, on 5 November 1946 was inspired by the famous Iwo Jima Victory photograph taken by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal on February 23 1945 (lower pic). Both portray a moment of triumph.

Many thanks are due to Michael Barry who referred me to material from the ESB Archives covering our own West Cork areas. Watch out for our commentary on this in a forthcoming post!

The Castles of West Cork – a New Menu Page

I’ve been working on a post about one of our storied and stunning West Cork Castles. That post will come next week but, spoiler alert, it’s located on Cape Clear Island.

But as I wrote it struck me that we could do with a specific Menu Page all about castles because we have written so many posts about them and those posts are buried in various paces on our All Pages -Navigation. So here it is – our new Menu Page devoted to The Castles of West Cork. As with all out Navigation pages, you can access it by clicking on the three-bar icon in the banner photo at the top of the blog.

I’ve divided it into a few sections, starting with defining our terms – while archaeologists use the term ‘tower house’ to denoted the tall, rectangular stone towers built here mostly in the 15th and 16th centuries, we just call them castles. Thickly ringing the coastline, and slightly sparser inland, they were potent symbols of the power and wealth of the Irish families and their chieftains who held sway in West Cork – the McCarthys, O’Mahonys, O’Driscolls and O’Donovans.

There’s a special section devoted to the Castles built by the O’Mahonys in what used to be called Ivaha, but is now commonly known as the Mizen Peninsula. We’ve visited them all, and provide as much information as we can of both the history of each castle and how they were constructed.

We’ve also written about non-Ivaha castles: the magnificently reconstructed Kilcoe, the lovingly restored Rincolisky, and Castle Donovan, stabilised by the OPW.

Finally, two posts: one about what followed the tower houses (fortified manors like Coppinger’s Court below) and one about an Anglo-Norman masonry castle in Liscarrol – a jaw-dropping keepless Castle which nowadays houses cattle (final photo).

With well over 1000 posts stretching back ten years, we keep trying to simplify navigation on our site. We hope this new page helps.

A Map of the County of Cork, Part 3

This is the last part (links to Parts 1 and 2 at the end of the post) and I will use it to look at where most people seemed to be living – along the River Lee and the Blackwater/Bride Rivers. Cork is shown, as we know it was and still is, on an island, as a substantial walled town with four towers. Two of the towers guard bridges and are ports of entry, and two guard inlets of the river. There’s a cross in the middle and five buildings outside the walls. 

The buildings to the left of the city (remember, that’s North) are labelled Mogelle, F:barro and M:nellan, while to the right (south) the upper building is unlabelled and the lower one is C:Tanboy?

To see what this is all about, let’s take a look at the earliest map of Cork City, which I showed you in my post Mapping West Cork, Part 2: John Speed. I reproduce that map here. It dates from 1611/12. As I said in the John Speed post, while Speed seems to have based his land maps on earlier work by Mercator . . .

. . . the city maps were all new and it seems that Speed, with one of his sons, actually travelled to the cities he includes in his atlas and paced out the distances, drawing the maps based on these calculations. They are a unique and invaluable record of a time when Ireland had walled cities, especially given that so few intact stretches of those walls remain.

And there is the Market Cross! While that is the only feature inside the city on our map, Speed’s is beautifully detailed, and he provides a key to all important buildings. There are many churches, only two of which, Christ Church and St Francis’s Church, are within the walls. Assuming that Finbarr’s church is labelled F:barro on our Map (although the brown rectangle looks more like a tower house) and St Barrie’s Church on Speed’s, it is shown in different places. St Augustine’s or St Stephen’s may be the uppermost building to the right of the city, but what is the brown pyramid-shaped blob labelled C:Tanboy? Perhaps a true Cork historian can help us out here and figure out what’s what.

Interestingly, there is no sign, on our map, of the large star-shaped fort that Speed labels The New Fort and that subsequently became known as Elizabeth Fort. It was started in 1601 by George Carew (the original owner of this map collection) built of earth, stone and timber.  This supports a pre-1600 date for this map. Elizabeth Fort is still very much part of the Cork landscape, with its massive walls still dominating the south side of the river (above).

As we progress west along the Lee, the land is shown as wooded and there are several establishments by the river and its tributaries. I recognise Kilcrea Castle and Abbey (given here as Kileroye), but I’m sure others, more familiar with this landscape than I am, can add more.

Cork Harbour, as might be expected, has many towers, the main one among them still standing is Barry’s Court (barris courte), soon (we hope) to be re-opened for visitors and also Belvelly (B:vyle), magnificently restored by a private owner. Corkbeg Island and Castle are shown, as well as several other castles on either side of the delta. Cloyne is of course indicated, as it was an important ecclesiastical centre.

Moving now to the Blackwater/Bride River system, we see perhaps as populous and encastellated an area as around Cork, especially along the two rivers, which were navigable for many miles inland. Youghal is shown as a walled town, guarding the mouth of the harbour but also a large commercial and trading centre.

We have written about Youghal before, and specifically about its well-preserved stretches of wall – an unusual feature of Irish towns as very few medieval walls have survived.

I am reproducing below the map from Pacata Hibernia I used in my Youghal’s Walls post. As with Cork, it can help us to understand a bit more about Youghal. Note, for example, the South Abbey clearly shown outside the walls on both maps.

Upriver is Strancally Castle – not the more modern manor house, but the original tower house of which only a vestige remains down by the river. Also easily discernible is Pilltown in modern-day Waterford and Inchiquin, a townland east of Youghal. Inchiquin Castle is now the ruins of a round Anglo-Norman masonry tower which went through tortuous changes of ownership but was eventually occupied by in the fabled  Countess of Desmond who in 1604 died at the age of 140 by falling out of an apple tree. The castle was then seized by Richard Boyle, Great Earl of Cork, who, along with Walter Raleigh, is closely associated with Youghal and the Blackwater River. The drawing of Inchiquin below is by James Healy from his marvellous book The Castles of County Cork.

Boyle’s Castle (it’s still there) was in Lismore, but at this point lesse more is shown as a church on the banks of the Blackwater, not the centre of power it became with Boyle’s ascendance.

Castles, towns and churches line the Bride and the Blackwater, showing how important these rivers were at a time when the best way to traverse the country was by water.

I’m going to leave it there, although I just might come back to this map at some point in the future because, well, it’s so darn interesting and it’s fun to try and puzzle out the names. I hope I have supported my thesis that this map must date to before 1600. It is most likely another of those made for the purposes of identifying property in order to confiscate and carve it up during the Plantation of Munster. Please do visit it for yourself and see what you can find – additions always welcome in the comments section below.

OK – one last image – the source of the Blackwater is shown in this one. What do we call these mountains now?

A Map of the County of Cork, Part 1

A Map of the County of Cork, Part 2

In High Places

Here is a collection of photographs taken in West Cork from some of the high places: ridges, peaks, mountain paths. The pics were all taken around ten years ago, and haven’t been used in our blog posts previously. They serve to show stunning landscapes, of course, and hopefully illustrate the variety of the country which surrounds us here. The header is taken from the peak above Three Castle Head.

The upper pic is looking down on Bantry town from the high ground to the south, while the lower one reminds you of the evening view from Bantry at sea level.

If you leave your car at Galley Cove Beach and walk up the steep track towards Brow Head you will come across this enormous stone row – and you will look back to the peninsula of Crookhaven. Don’t be fooled by the stones: they have been placed on this site fairly recently. They are impressive, nevertheless.

And here is a closer view of Crookhaven.

While turning from this spot and looking west, you will see the end of the coastline at Brow Head. This stone is likely to be more anciently placed. In the distance is Mizen Head with its Napoleonic era signal tower at Cloghane.

Contrasting light effects seen on the footpath that follows the ridge on the Sheep’s Head Way. That’s the spit of land that runs from east to west between the Mizen Head and the Beara Peninsula. There are cairns on the summits, with the remains of a wedge tomb and a Marriage Stone to be seen along the way.

The view north from the heights of the Sheep’s Head takes in the Beara Peninsula and – seen above – the high point of Hungry Hill dominating the distant rugged landscape.

You are never far from the coastline in West Cork. Look out for wild seas constantly sculpting the rocks over millennia.

From our home in Cappaghglass we look out to our own ‘high place’ – Mount Gabriel. This enigmatic tract of land dominates the area and is imbued with legends and folklore. It is also one of the most atmospheric of our peaks at all times of the year.

Another local view for us (above): we face out to Rossbrin Cove on the Mizen Peninsula. Finally, the celestial spectacle (below) finds its pot of gold on the shores of the Mizen.

Derrynablaha and its Rock Art

A bit of a nostalgia trip for Finola and me this week: we spent a couple of days in Kerry and dropped in to Derrynablaha – the iconic valley which has some of Ireland’s most notable Rock Art. These stones were carved on natural rocks on the hillsides many thousands of years ago. To this day, we don’t know what they signify.

Some years ago, Finola and I organised exhibitions showing examples of Rock Art – many taken from Finola’s 1973 University of Cork thesis. The map above was drawn for the exhibitions: you can find Derrynablaha in the centre of the Iveragh Peninsula, left of centre. Below is a rendering of Finola’s thesis drawing showing – arguably – the most significant piece of Rock Art on this island:

Here’s a photo of these rocks which I took on my first visit to this valley, in 2012. It was a dull day! The next photo was taken on a better day three years later. This shows how weather conditions can affect the way that Rock Art motifs are seen:

On our most recent visit – last week – we didn’t have time to scale the steep hillside to view this rock formation, but we enjoyed just taking in the stunning landscapes of the townland.

Above, and in the header picture, you can see the ruin of the cottage, which was once the only dwelling in this valley. It was still lived in when Finola visited to carry out her survey of the Rock Art in 1972 – fifty years ago. Then it was occupied by John O’Sullivan and his sister, May. John’s brother – Daniel – discovered much of the Rock Art in the surrounding landscape and reported this in the 1960s to Michael Joseph O’Kelly, then Professor of archaeology at UCC, and his wife Claire. Subsequently the O’Kellys made some expeditions to Derrynablaha, as did the Italian rock art expert, Emannuel Anati. Daniel had died prior to Finola’s visits and she recalls that the remaining family were excellent stewards of the Rock Art, ensuring that it was preserved and not damaged. She has ‘hazy memories’ of being brought into the house and given cups of tea and brown bread.

After we had published earlier posts about Derrynablaha, Finola was contacted by Faith Rose – the great niece of the O’Sullivans who lived in this cottage in 1969: Faith had visited the valley in that year. She recalls:

. . . I remember their bedroom was downstairs, the staircase to the upstairs being unsafe. There were none of the usual services in the house. There was an old fashioned fireplace where you could cook with a settle at the side. I seem to remember being told it had been built under some government scheme and the original stone farmhouse was to be seen slowly returning to nature close by. I wonder if you recall any of this. My great aunt and uncle were shy people who extended us the best hospitality. To my sister and I it was a magical place, but the hardness of their lives there was clear . . .

Faith Rose 2021

There are the ruins of several other buildings set within this landscape, indicating that the settlement was once significantly more populated in earlier times. Now it is wildly lonely, but impressively beautiful. When Finola carried out her surveys, she recorded 23 pieces of Rock Art. Today it is recognised that there are 26 known examples, with a further 7 stones in the adjacent townland of Derreeny. Long term readers of this Journal may recall that we visited the townland in April of 2015 – together with a small group of enthusiasts – to seek out all the known examples. At that time Ken Williams was using techniques he had developed to photograph the carvings in fine detail. These employed several portable light sources. The following sequence shows one of the rocks (number 12) taken without lighting; Finola’s drawing traced in 1972; then Ken’s technique in action and his results, which are remarkable:

Once again you are reading about the Rock Art at Derrynablaha! There have been several posts on this subject over the years, but we make no apologies: we never tire of the beautiful landscapes of Kerry – and we have seen it in all weathers. It would be good if we could be closer to solving the meanings of these rock carvings; this is unlikely to happen. Over the last 300 years since the phenomenon was first recorded in Ireland (and Britain, and many other places in Europe and the world) there have been varying theories – dozens – put forward for its existence: none of them is conclusive. Think on . . .