HOWARD CLARKE and MÁIRE NÍ LAOI
Royal Irish Academy
€50
ISBN 9781802050028
REVIEWED BY Fintan Lane
Fintan Lane is a historian with an interest in the social history of nineteenth-century Ireland.
Since its beginning in 1986, the Irish Historic Towns Atlas (IHTA) series, published by the Royal Irish Academy, has documented the topographical development of 30 towns and cities in Ireland, each project following strict guidelines in order to facilitate comparative study not just on this island but also across Europe. The approach taken means that Irish urbanisation can be studied within a European context and commonalities and differences identified. The city of Cork/Corcaigh is the latest addition to the IHTA series.
Secured within an A3 folder, the atlas of Cork comprises a large-format book and discrete interlinked historical maps and images. The book includes a lengthy essay by the authors and a detailed directory or gazetteer of streets, manufacturing locations, religious and educational buildings and so on, encompassing over 13,000 historical sites. Enclosed with the book are folios of facsimile maps (some 33 in total) and a number of good-quality prints of historical images—paintings, drawings and photographs—of the city through the ages. The maps have been judiciously chosen and range from the Tower map of 1545 to town plans produced in the late nineteenth century; the selection from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is particularly interesting, and the evolution of cartography is a story in itself.
Howard Clarke and Máire Ní Laoi, the authors of this splendid publication, begin their explanatory essay gracefully by conceding that Cork is ‘special’ and ‘unique’—music to this Corkonian’s ears—and pointing out that no other city in Europe ‘has such a high proportion of its administrative, commercial and cultural heart resting on former riverine mudflats and on extensive areas of adjoining marshland on both sides of the river’. Unusually, as the authors explain, the ancient town was built on mudflats claimed from the river over a long period, starting in the late eleventh century, by infilling a reed-swamp with organic silt. The first large mudflat to be turned into hard ground was close to the south bank of the River Lee and the town was built out from there. Low-lying ground in the middle of a broad river was not an obvious choice for urban settlement, something the shopkeepers of flood-prone Oliver Plunkett Street and other parts of the city centre still observe ruefully today.
In fact, Cork began as a monastic site on marshy ground south of the river sometime in the seventh century, before the nearby establishment of a Viking fort in the 840s saw the emergence of a substantial semi-permanent settlement. The authors, however, draw a sharp distinction between these early piratical Viking warriors and the Hiberno-Norse population that had evolved by about 950; the former were raiders, while the later settlement was mixed and made up of craftworkers, who traded with their Irish neighbours. It was the Hiberno-Norse who moved onto the mudflats, creating house plots on the ‘South Island’ along what is now South Main Street.
Clarke and Ní Laoi expertly trace the topographical evolution of the settlement over the following centuries, chronicling the transformation that came with the Anglo-Normans, the emergence of the medieval city and developments during the early modern period. The bombardment and taking of Cork by Williamite forces in 1690 was another important turning-point, after which it changed physically and demographically. During the eighteenth century the city faced more consciously towards the sea, becoming a key Atlantic trading port. Gradually also, as the urban centre expanded, more and more of the river channels were culverted and erstwhile mudflats were seamlessly meshed together. Most strikingly, the Grand Parade, South Mall and Patrick’s Street were created in the late eighteenth century as tideway channels were arched over, eventually shifting the focal point of the city centre eastwards. Simultaneously, the suburbs grew to the north and south of the river. All of this is outlined with commendable clarity by the authors.
The street gazetteer accompanying the explanatory essay contains a tremendous amount of detail and will be forever useful to those exploring the city and its past. Inevitably there are omissions, because puzzling out the streetscapes of any city over many hundreds of years really is an impossible task and at times has to be conjectural. To complicate matters, street names are far from immutable and, of course, laneways, streets and passages—like watercourses—often simply disappear, swallowed up by urban development.
Because of my own research, I noticed a couple of entries that could be augmented. For instance, the entry for the now-extinct North Street, which ran between Fish Street and Merchants’ Quay, omits to mention that it was temporarily known in the late eighteenth century as ‘Dunroche’s Lane’ (see the revised Rocque’s map of 1773), called after the provisions merchant and seafarer Stephen Denroche, who had cellars, stables and a counting-house both there and on the adjacent Fish Street. Incidentally, the latter wasn’t named in recognition of some bygone fish market, which would be tempting to surmise, but after one John Fish, an anchor-maker and blacksmith who had his forge and home there in the early to mid-eighteenth century. As elsewhere in Europe, many early streets and lanes were named for the merchants and worthies who lived there or had premises along the passageway.
Denroche’s lane was later renamed and then disappeared entirely in 1987 (he is, however, still remembered by Denroche’s Cross, where he once had a large house and storage yard). Another location that has disappeared is Windmill Hill, which the authors include in their gazetteer, though they confess themselves unsure of its position, musing that perhaps it was what is now Richmond Hill, north of the river. This is something I once thought myself, and it was certainly on that ridge, but Windmill Hill in fact roughly corelates with the summit of Patrick’s Hill. Indeed, a significant section of the eponymous windmill is extant, having been incorporated into a new-build merchant’s mansion in the 1790s.
But this is minor stuff. The richly detailed gazetteer makes this atlas a key resource for anybody examining the history of Cork city, but the authors have also produced a tremendous essay on the emergence and growth of its urban centre. It is a magnificent achievement that will undoubtedly appeal to both specialist and non-specialist readers. Some of the facsimile maps are quite handsome and would look well in a frame.