Living history — and mysteries solved — with the Digital Atlas of Cork
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It’s only a five-minute stroll from Cork’s St Patrick Street to Dungarvan — if you lived in the 13th century anyway.
And Cork’s Bowling Green Street might be more than a bit older than any local bowls club. There's also a street in Cork which has two placenames attached... for a rather unusual reason.
All these locations aren't far at all from Cork’s only Norse street name, Keyser’s Hill.
Just some of the facts contained in the enhanced Digital Atlas of Cork/Corcaigh which has now been launched.
This historical atlas of Cork features both printed and digital collections, and explores the city from its origins in c. 625 AD to the present.
The Digital Atlas of Cork, featured in the Irish Historic Towns Atlas (IHTA) series, is a huge project merging deep historical research with cutting-edge digital technology. This platform offers an immersive, interactive journey through Cork’s rich history. You can use the advanced digital tools to get access to updated map layers, videos, and other interactive content.
Sarah Gearty is cartographic and managing editor of the Irish Historic Towns Atlas project which records the topographical development of a selection of Irish towns. She said the Cork Atlas is incredibly detailed as a reflection of the very layered and long history of the city. "It is definitely worth taking the time to look at all the features of Cork city’s history which have been mapped by theme, such as religion, education, defence and manufacturing on to the present-day street plan."
"The atlas can be searched or browsed. Information on individual sites is available by searching and via pop-up boxes, where critical dates and references are supplied. You can explore early maps of different dates and detailed historical information for 6,245 sites."
At the recent launch in Cork, Atlas co-author, Howard Clarke, MRIA noted his own ‘highlights’ from carrying out the research on Cork for over a decade. He focused on the nuanced development and relationship with the monastic settlement at St Fin Barre’s Cathedral site, the beautiful map from c. 1601 in the Hardiman Collection of Trinity College, the rediscovered 1690 Dutch map by Wolfgang Romer and from the 1842 Ordnance Survey manuscript town plan.
He described Cork as having an ‘old town’ on the south bank of the Lee set up in 10th century AD by a combination of Scandinavians or ‘Vikings’ and Irish people. This area in the Cove Street and Barrack Street area is where the original Cork was. The ‘new town’ came later on in what is now the city’s South Main Street.
And Dungarvan was the name of the location on the city’s north island which is now the North Main Street area. “It has long history as a recorded name. The north island was regarded as a suburb in 13th century of the new town,” said Mr Clarke.
Some of the maps featured in the Atlas include one described by Mr Clarke as “one of the most beautiful maps in the collection — it is one of the most beautiful maps I have ever seen. I could talk about this map for a very long time.”
It is a map dating from about 1601 and is part of the Hardiman Collection at Trinity College. This map shows the monastic round tower of St Finbarr, which was still standing in circa 1601. It was called a watchtower at that time. And the map also shows Elizabeth Fort: “Inside you can see little Irish-style cabins — my guess is that those cabins were the homes of the Irish workmen who were building the fort for the English.”
Another map featured in the Atlas is one of the siege defences built in 1690.
“This is a very special map for all sorts of reasons, it was hitherto a completely unknown map which is published now for the very first time. Paul Ferguson, the map librarian in Trinity saw the map for sale in a London dealer’s office — thanks to negotiation skills of Crónán Ó Doibhlin, head of Research Collections at University College Cork, it was purchased for permanent preservation as a valued item in the city of Cork.”
The author of that map was Dutch man Wolfgang Romer and the map was in a pristine condition after being hidden away “presumably somewhere in the Netherlands”. It shows the harbour area of that time covered over and turned into a shambles — a meat market.
The beautifully detailed 300-plus year old map also includes a bowling green — which explains why to this day there is a street off St Patrick Street called Bowling Green Street.
There was a quirky little mystery of the street with two names which was solved when the team was doing their research: there is a building on Pope's Quay (it's named for a rich widow rather than the Pope in Rome) and alongside the Pope's Quay plaque is an "official-looking" nameplate reading 'Brown's Hill'. A chat with a local shopkeeper yielded the information that about 30 years earlier a building on nearby Brown's Hill was totally demolished and the street nameplate lay in the rubble. Rather than see it lost forever the shopkeeper rescued "that little bit of Cork's history" and attached it to the Pope's Quay building himself and "it's still there as far as I know".
- Click here for Authors' Highlights: Irish Historic Towns Atlas Cork/Corcaigh by Howard Clarke MRIA