David O'Mahony: Back when the Lee was Cork’s life blood

You don’t, for instance, see leisure craft or water taxis as you might in some European cities. A floating restaurant might be nice. Or even floating pods to live in.

Back in 2019, at an Irish Examiner-organised Cork on the Rise event, one of the panellists said we don’t make enough use of the water in Cork. And, compared to other European cities or indeed our past, it was a fair point.

As it happens, the cover of our supplement to mark the occasion unintentionally highlighted this by showing Penrose Quay and the Port of Cork in the city centre in the age of shipping as ‘what was’, with photos of the same location in more recent times showing the dramatic falloff in commercial usage of the quays.

Underutilised asset

This is not a bad thing in and of itself, of course. The world moves on. Other opportunities arise. Shipping interests are moving further out the harbour, where there is more space and deeper water. But while the city’s docklands are inching, every day, toward a full-blown renaissance in becoming dynamic places to work and, more importantly, to live, the River Lee itself remains an underutilised asset.

For example, where once the city was connected to the towns and villages of the harbour by an extensive and busy ferry network, there is little to show of this now bar some crumbling quay walls.

Some of that is down to the rather narrow look of the Lee in the heart of the city itself, and the pokey nature of some of the bridges, which sit close to the high water mark, making passage under them awkward. 

When it broadens out as it leaves the city proper, such as the area out by Páirc Uí Chaoimh and the freight dock at Tivoli, it becomes a more natural playground for watersports such as rowing clubs. 

Further out by Passage West, Cobh, and Monkstown sees more speedboats and yachts. It’s still enjoyable to see yachts and other boats pass by from my parents’ garden in Monkstown, or to feel the thrum of a freight ship up through the rock and hill to their house.

At that Cork on the Rise event, a colleague was recording short video clips and asked me to do one as a response to the question, “what does Cork mean to you?” Not having expected this, and so having nothing prepared, I babbled something about history and family connections, my great great-grandfather having been a steam ferry captain working up and down the Lee.

Once upon a time, Cork was an important export and military harbour for not just Ireland but the British Empire (we don’t like to think about that latter aspect). Much as it is now, Cork was bound to the wider world through the water and shipping lanes, though back then shipping came extensively into the city centre itself.

Steam shipping industry a major player

In the mid to late 1880s, Cork’s steam shipping industry was a major player in the transportation of goods and people, at home and abroad. Multiple generations of my own family found employment on the water. One great, great-grandfather, Daniel Mahoney, was in the navy, fleeing post-Famine Ireland to serve in the merchant marine and then in Crimea, England, and along the southern coast.

Three of my mother’s ancestors (variously Mahoney, O’Mahoney, and O’Mahony, depending on the record, my parents having the same surname) built ships in Passage West and Cobh or worked on the docks — my great grandfather was a foreman known as ‘Boss Mahony’. They lived in Passage and crossed to what’s now Cobh for work, and back again.

Another great, great grandfather, Michael Verling, originally from Ballybrassil near Cobh, was a highly experienced merchant sailor and popular ferry captain going from Cork to Liverpool, Plymouth, or London, as well as running ferries up and down the Lee.

The Lee was so busy, and the trade and opportunities so lucrative, that there was rather intensive competition between multiple shipping companies, all of which plied the seas between Cork and Britain.

One of the key players was the City of Cork Steam Packet Company. Founded in 1858, the company operated a fleet of steamships that carried passengers and cargo between Cork and various ports in the UK and Europe. By the 1880s it had become one of the largest steamship companies in Ireland.

One of its rivals was the slightly older Cork Steamship Company, which covered similar routes and cargoes. Yet another competitor was the Citizens’ River Steamer Company, which had a number of ferries, only one of which my great great-grandfather crashed, resulting in a high-profile prosecution that ran to some 20,000 words in the Cork Examiner archives. 

For a long time, I thought Michael worked for just one of the companies, but he actually worked for all of them at some stage, moving between posts to wherever the money was, which is the sort of mercenary attitude you’d expect from somebody who had at least two families at the same time — but that’s a story for another day.

The steam ferries eventually gave way to the railways which in turn eventually gave way to cars and roads (cue ‘The Circle of Life’). They had their day, but given the expansion of the city out along the waterside, it’s no harm considering a return to ferries or something similar to augment suburban rail and bus networks.

But why stop there? Perhaps you have a better idea. Let me know at letters@examiner.ie.

• David O’Mahony is Irish Examiner assistant editor and a historian (Mick Clifford is on leave)