County Cork

“ Crookhaven in the extreme S.W. is of importance as a harbour of refuge, but the chief ports are Cork and Queenstown. The county is divided into east and west ridings, and contains twenty-three baronies and 249 parishes. Assizes are held at Cork, and quarter-sessions at Cork, Fermoy, Kanturk, Kinsale, Mallow, Middleton, and Youghal in the east riding; and Bandon, Bantry, Clonakilty, Macroom and Skibbereen in the west riding. The county is in the Protestant diocese of Cork, and the Roman Catholic diocese 158 of Cork, Cloyne, Kerry and Ross. ”

“ Calling on my friend Collins and his wife before I left the county, I found they had gone with their horse to the funeral of a much-respected neighbor, and as they were so long absent, had doubtless accompanied the funeral to the place of interment, twenty miles. A manufacturer in the county Cork said that the Irish girls in the mills are not greedy enough. They would rather have less wages and more play. They were not indolent, but a bit of fun would call them off. A Quaker lady in Cork said to me, “None of the Irish are thrifty. They do not value their time.” ”

“ It is not instinctive Irish politeness—this is always pure and always abundant; but it is the habit put on and cultivated, by such as having no claim to family or rank, have, mushroom-like, started suddenly from a manure-heap into a little higher business, and having no education that has in the least disciplined the mind, they at once assume the airs of imperious landlords, and keepers of "whisky-shops," as the best means of establishing their advanced standing.
The county of Cork is the largest county in Ireland, and once had four walled towns:—Cork, Youghal, Kinsale, and Bandon. ”

“ A paltry exhibit of coins, antiquities, and fossils forms the Museum. Although Cork County has been one of the richest in Ireland in "finds" of gold and metal work of the ancient Irish, they are absolutely unrepresented.
CORK DISTRICT.
The county of Cork is the largest shire in Ireland. The pleasure seeker, the artist, the antiquary, the sportsman, the invalid, will each find within its broad barriers much to meet his wants. ”

“ Dungarvan Harbour, much frequented for refuge in stormy weather; and Youghal Harbour, partly separating county Waterford from county Cork. The surface of the county is to a large extent mountainous, providing beautiful inland scenery, especially towards the west and northwest. The Knockmealdown Mountains, which attain a height of 2609 ft., form the northern boundary with Tipperary. A wide extent of country between Clonmel and Dungarvan is occupied by the two ranges of the Comeragh and Monavallagh Mountains, reaching a height of 2504 ft. ”

“ The county of Cork on account of its extent, is to be divided conformably to the boundaries for raising the militia into the counties of north and south Cork, for each of which a county constable, high-sheriff and all magistrates above directed are to be appointed. ”

“ Perhaps that is due to a considerable degree to the fact that the soil is rich and the harvests are good, and because the farmers are able to get a satisfactory return for their labor and their money. Nearly all the large estates are being broken up, however, and have been purchased by the tenants under the Act of 1903. Very soon County Cork and all the southern section of Ireland will be owned by the men who till the soil. Each farmer will have his own permanent home. ”

“ The Cork Butter Exchange, where classification of the various qualities is carried out by branding under the inspection of experts, was important in the early part of the 17th century, and an unbroken series of accounts dates from 1769 when the present market was founded. There are distilleries, breweries, tanneries and iron foundries in the city; and manufactures of woollen and leather goods, tweeds, friezes, gloves and chemical manure. Nearly six-sevenths of the population are Roman Catholics. The city does not share with the county the rapid decrease of population. ”

“ There is also connexion from this junction with Fermoy, Mitchelstown and county Waterford eastward. The Timoleague and Courtmacsherry line connects these villages with the Clonakilty branch of the Cork, Bandon & South Coast Railway.
Population.—The population (438,432 in 1891; 404,611 in 1901) exhibits a decrease among the most serious of the Irish counties, and emigration is correspondingly heavy. Of the total about 90% are Roman Catholics, and about 70% constitute the rural population. The principal towns are Cork (pop. 76,122, a county of a city) ; Queenstown (7909) , Fermoy (6126) ”

“ Constabulary. We have busy times, too. So far as turkeys, geese, chickens, and eggs, butter and bacon are concerned, we have enough and to spare within protecting range of rifle and revolver, but for fresh beef and mutton and flour we must depend upon Cork. Now the mysterious agent in Cork who sends us the supplies cannot get them carried nearer to the house than the railway station at Kilmallock, the interesting little town at which one of the county members keeps the inn and "runs" the cars, a fact whereof the citizens are not a little proud. ”

“ The Counties, Baronies and Parishes, of Ireland, are now become marvellously unequal, so as some are twenty times as big as others, the County of Cork seeming in respect of people and Parishes to be 1⁄8th of the whole Kingdom, and other Counties not being above the 20th part of the County of Cork; It hath been found very difficult to get fit persons for Sheriffs, and Juries ”

“ The havoc of mankind in the counties of Cork, Limerick, and some adjacent places, hath been incredible. The nation probably will not recover this loss in a century. The other day I heard one from the county of Limerick say, that whole villages were entirely dispeopled. About two months since I heard Sir Richard Cox say, that five hundred were dead in the parish, though in a county I believe not very populous. It were to be wished people of condition were at their seats in the country during these calamitous times, which might provide relief and employment for the poor. ”

“ Climate and Watering-places.—The climate is moist and warm, the prevailing winds being from the west and south-west. The annual rainfall in the city of Cork is about 40 in., that of the whole county being somewhat higher. The mean annual temperature is about 52° F. The snow-fall during the winter is usually slight, and snow rarely remains long on the ground except in sheltered places. The thermal spring of Mallow was formerly in considerable repute; it is situated in a basin on the banks of the Blackwater, rising from the base of a limestone hill. ”

“ And in the case of the county of Cork the county council may contribute a portion of the amount mentioned in sub-section nine of this section towards the maintenance of the North Cork Infirmary situate in the city of Cork upon such terms and conditions, and subject to such restrictions, as may be determined upon by the councils of the county of Cork and county borough of Cork.
(11) No ecclesiastical person shall in right of his dignity or office be entitled to be a governor or trustee of any such infirmary or fever hospital as aforesaid. ”

“ Cork, was born there in 1750, and entered Trinity College, Dublin, about 1768. He graduated B.A. in 1770, and M.A. in 1776. He was incorporated at Magdalen College, Oxford, on 15 April 1776. He took orders, and was given the living of Rosscarbery, co. Cork, where he resided for the rest of his life. His most important work is a ‘Statistical Survey of the County of Cork,’ which was first published in one volume in Dublin in 1810. A second edition of the work, in two volumes, was published in Cork in 1815. ”

“ Youghal, Kinsale, Queenstown, Castletown and Bearhaven are the deep-sea and coast fishing district centres of the county; while the salmon fishing is distributed among the districts of Cork, Bandon, Skibbereen and Bantry. The mackerel fishery is especially productive from mid-March to mid-June. The Blackwater, Lee and Bandon, apart from the netting industry, afford good rod-fishing for salmon, especially the first, on which Lismore, Fermoy and Mallow are the principal centres. The loughs, the upper waters of these rivers and their tributaries, frequently abound in trout. ”

“ He succeeded to an estate in Kildare county at seventeen, and spent his youth in hunting, coursing, and ‘frequenting the playhouse.’ In his twenty-second year he was deeply impressed by the preaching of Catherine Peyton and Mary Peisley at Cork. He accompanied them on their mission to Bandon and Kinsale, and returned to Cork a changed man. Becoming a quaker minister, he started in March 1752, with an American Friend, on a journey through Ireland, attended the London yearly meeting, and travelled in Holland and Germany. ”

“ The farmer pays this rate, but the landlord allows him half. The county of Cork, with a population of about five hundred thousand, has sixteen poor-houses. The one in Mr. Loftus’s district contains about four hundred inmates, and the one in Cork over one thousand. The Cork poor-rate amounts to from two and one-quarter to four shillings a pound annually on every pound valuation of houses and lands, but the valuation for taxes is only about sixty per cent. of the annual income.
When the country is poorest these taxes are heaviest. Very few who go into the unions ever get out, excepting children. ”

“ The principal clubs are the County and the Southern in South Mall, and the City in Grand Parade; while for sport there are the Cork Golf Club, Little Island, three rowing clubs, and the Royal Munster and Royal Cork Yacht clubs, the latter located at Queenstown. The theatres are the opera-house in Nelson’s Place, and the Theatre Royal.
The country neighbouring to Cork is highly attractive. ”

“ The town of Kinsale, county of Cork, which is the headquarters of the industry, enjoyed a prosperity during those years strangely at variance with the decaying condition of other Irish towns; but in 1880 this great fishery was temporarily destroyed, through sheer ignorance of the habits and instincts of the mackerel, by the avarice of the boat-owners and fishermen of the Isle of Man. ”

“ Six towns—Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Limerick, Londonderry and Waterford—were constituted county boroughs governed by separate county councils; and five boroughs—Kilkenny, Sligo, Clonmel, Drogheda and Wexford—retained their former corporations. The act provides facilities for the conversion into urban districts of (1) towns having town commissioners who are not sanitary authorities and (2) non-municipal towns with populations of over 1500 and entitled to petition for town commissioners. ”

“ Longford and Wicklow. Wexford and Ferns are given as separate counties, and Tipperary, reverting to ancient custom, is divided into the County and the Cross. Ards disappears as a separate county. All the shires named appear to have made returns. Thirty-six cities and boroughs are enumerated instead of twenty-nine, only Carrickfergus and Downpatrick neglecting to make returns. Athy is omitted, and Cashel, Inistioge, Dingle, Callan, Philipstown, Maryborough, Swords, and Downpatrick are added. For some unexplained reason the counties of Cork and Sligo returned three knights each. ”

“ Here is climate, soil, situation—everything to make a great controlling city; here are a people with industry, intelligence, brains, and all the requisites to make a great controlling city; but, despite all these points in its favor, Cork has decreased year by year, and is to-day absolutely nothing. ”

“ The Borough, lying snugly in the wooded valley of the Blackwater, of the "Rakes" (who seem to have sown their wild oats and cut them and their sticks long ago) , did not contribute so much as one spectator to the little official group—stationmaster, police, and porters—on the platform; perhaps the population generally was engulfed in the churches and chapels of the district; and the half-hour or so which sufficed to reach "the beautiful city called Cork" was passed in observation of external objects—the trout-stream ”

“ There is no record in the Irish annals of the Danes making any attack on Cork after the battle of Clontarf.
The situation of Cork, like that of Dublin and Belfast, is at the mouth of a river, and on low-lying land. While the country round the city is exceedingly fine, it has not, like the country in the neighbourhood of Dublin and Belfast, any places from which extensive views can be had. The country round Cork is by no means flat, but there is nothing near it that could be called a mountain, or even a high hill. ”

“ It is, more than any large place in Ireland, a city of hills and hollows. Some of its streets are very steep, rather too much so for pleasant walking. But this hillyness makes it all the more picturesque, and makes the drainage all the better. Cork is a beautiful city, and—surrounded by a beautiful country. If it has not the busy appearance of Belfast, or the metropolitan appearance of Dublin, it is, nevertheless, a fine city, and on account of its magnificent harbour, it has, in all probability, a great and prosperous future before it. ”

“ Manchester, Mitchelstown, Middleton, Limerick, and Skibbereen, funeral processions, at which thousands of persons attended, were held; that in Cork being admittedly the most imposing, not only in point of numbers, but in the character of the demonstration and the demeanour of the people.
For more than twenty years Cork city has held an advanced position in the Irish national struggle. In truth, it has been one of the great strongholds of the national cause since 1848. Nowhere else did the national spirit keep its hold so tenaciously and so extensively amidst the people. ”