Michael Moynihan: Ancient spine of Cork a menu of urban decline in all its forms

This gate is part of the work being done on the large-scale student accommodation block going up next to the laneway. Coleman’s Lane will be open to the public during the day but a fob will be needed for night access.

As reported here by Ellie O’Byrne last week, local residents are divided on the gate. Some are happy to see it gated, others aren’t. Carla O’Connell, secretary of the Middle Parish Community Association, said: “I don’t think it should be gated ... Before construction started there was often needles, faeces, and urine there and it was pretty awful.

“But people are working on the assumption that it will be the same as before, whereas it is quite bright and open and it’s backing onto what will be a busy residential building: it will be more used and that will deter antisocial behaviour.” At the official level, there seems to be no great hurry on anyone’s part to take responsibility for this.

The builders’ PR firm says the work is compliant with the grants of planning and conditions imposed by Cork City Council and An Bord Pleanála. 

Cork City Council referred queries to An Bord Pleanála. The ABP decision involved made no reference to a determination on restricting access.

Well, there’s a reason people say victory has many fathers but defeat is an orphan, an orphan keen to refer queries onwards and elsewhere.

Readers may be surprised that holding these organisations up to ridicule for such tomfoolery is not my first thought. (They’re well able to do that themselves).

No, I invite readers to take my hand, metaphorically speaking, and approach Coleman’s Lane from a distance — specifically the south side of the city — to examine this in its proper setting.

This means coming over the South Gate Bridge, and from that we see the empty wilderness which is the Cork events centre to our left. Though it is now over seven years since the sod was turned here, not one event has taken place here because nothing has been built.

Perhaps the Cork non-event centre would be a better name

(If I’ve used that line before, I’m sure no one objects to me repeating myself over and over. Not in this particular context.) 

Last week we were told that the consortium behind the non-existent event centre — we left ‘long-awaited’ behind years ago — had submitted a raft of new detailed final design documents to city planners.

Of course, readers are old enough to remember reports last February predicting construction beginning around now (“Currently it is expected that construction will commence at the beginning of Quarter 3, 2023,” the council stated then), and most will probably remember early in 2022 when there were predictions that later  that year ...

Anyway. Top of South Main Street. Nothing.

Walking on a few yards we come to the old Beamish Counting House, which has a snazzy new plaza right in front of it.

Last May there was a craft fair held in the building and on the plaza, and it was a striking glimpse of what might be: a bustling open space with stalls and vendors, thousands of people milling around and chatting, a nice atmosphere, a smashing addition to the city, no?

Not so fast. That was the weekend of May 19-21. By May 23 Eoin English was reporting here that “(Site developer) BAM has confirmed that the plaza will be fenced off again and will remain off-limits to the public until the Counting House is occupied.” 

That was over three months ago, and if you stroll past the fencing is still up. And the plaza is still bare. We got a glimpse of something alright, but a glimpse is all it was.

We’re not finished yet. Turn your gaze from the Beamish and Crawford site and look across the South Main Street into Bishop Lucey Park.

The much-discussed extension of the Freemason’s Hall in Tuckey Street back into the park has not materialised yet, though it surely will begin soon — removing a memorial to the victims of Chernobyl, cutting down trees, removing public space.

Readers will recall the rationalisations provided by city councillors at the meeting which discussed this; my personal favourite was the contribution asserting that there was a fuss about this because it was the Freemasons. This is the kind of circular logic that no one can combat.

Walk past Bishop Lucey Park and stroll across that intersection with Washington Street — eyes open for the traffic — and proceed along North Main Street to the intersection with Castle Street.

Here you see four large derelict buildings in a row, numbers 62 to 65 inclusive. The streetscape is reminiscent of a scene in the south Bronx in the late seventies, when buildings were burnt for insurance, than Cork in the 21st century.

(Though in truth parts of Cork in the 21st century are now overtaking the south Bronx in the late seventies when it comes to symbolising urban decay).

I believe that this stretch of North Main Street has now achieved a level of real invisibility — that it no longer registers with people that there are so many buildings left to rack and ruin in plain sight. 

This is not a slight on the tireless work of the likes of Frank O’Connor and Jude Sherry in pushing dereliction up the agenda, more an acknowledgement that for quite a few passers-by the ultimate aim has been achieved: the neglect is taken for granted because it has been left in the open for years upon years.

And we’re not finished yet!

Move past this stretch and you’ll eventually come to Coleman’s Lane, where it doesn’t seem crystal clear whether a newly installed gate limiting public access has planning permission according to the legal body — sorry, bodies — responsible for planning permissions.

What all this means is that the ancient spine of Cork, the oldest part of the medieval city, offers a tasting menu of urban decline in all its forms.

Large projects in limbo, and public parks annexed by private organisations. Meeting spaces for the public opened briefly, then shut again indefinitely. Public lanes taken over for private enterprise. Mass dereliction.

All visible within a couple of hundred yards, a few minutes’ walk, in the middle of the city.

Those responsible should hang their heads in shame. 

They won’t, of course, but they have failed utterly in their duty to the people of Cork and have ruined a part of Ireland which survived turmoil and catastrophe for hundreds of years.

The North and South Main Streets were able to withstand war, famine, plague and revolution and come out the other side each time.

Who could have predicted that the attention of private developers and public authorities would be far more dangerous?