Return to Ranks

On the 13 February 2012 the exhibition 'Ranks, a Limerick Industry' was launched in the Hunt Museum and ran until 31 May. This exhibition was years in the making ever since the diaries of the Ranks mill manager Cecil Mercier was donated to the Limerick Archives. I was lucky enough to be involved in the five month build up to the event assisting Limerick Archivist Jacqui Hayes in devising, planning and promoting this exhibition highlighting an extremely important chapter in Limerick's industrial history. Not only that it represents a time when the city could boast of having dozens of bakeries and every household bakes fresh bread every day hence the demand for flour. The grain silos themselves have become an important Modernism landmark along Limerick's docks. Jacqui worked closely with the Hunt Museum's Education & Outreach curator Dr Dominique Bouchard in the design of the interpretive panels and the layout of the exhibition space. I had gotten the role of Exhibition Assistant through a JobBridge Scheme. Despite its bad press I think found my placement a thoroughly worthwhile experience and a fantastic addition to my CV. 

My role covered a multitude of tasks such as helping to can the donated photographs to contacting Rank Hovis McDougall to request permission to use the iconic wheat sheaf 'R' in the exhibition and on the cover of the publication. The most challenging aspect to the job was sourcing all the objects (with no budget might I add for renting or purchasing objects) for the exhibition to be displayed alongside the diaries, letters and documents from the Mercier Collection. This was not an easy task. 

The photo to the right shows the wall that the visitor was met with. The background image demonstrated the dominating visual presence the four silos had in the city. For those approaching Limerick by boat via Foynes this was their first impression of the city. A modern industrial city. The sign on the right hand side of the wall was the original sign at the entrance to the Ranks site. The construction of Ranks began in 1931 with the company establishing their Irish headquarters in Limerick. Due to changes in the Irish economy and manufacturing practices Ranks closed in 1983. Only one silo stands today after the others were demolished in 1989. The high nelly was the most common mode of transport for the hundreds of workers with one former employee commenting that the Dock Road in the morning was like Beijing with all the Ranks cyclists. We also got our hands on a metal lunch pail that some staff would've carried on their handlebars. A bicycle was a huge investment at the time. One former employee still had her book which showed her bicycle payments to one of the city's bicycle shops. 

The image below shows the first panel and an original grain sack and a replicate flour sack. My maternal grandmother as a child, like many working class people in Limerick city, slept underneath Ranks sacks. Mothers would often bleach the sacks in an attempt to fade the identifiable blue lettering. Andrew Gallivan who was an intern at the time with the Hunt Museum made the film to accompany the exhibition with Dr Bouchard. The printing of the panels and replica flour sacks was done by Limerick-based ScreenGrafix. It featured former workers recounting their time in the mills. 'Ranks or the banks' was the saying in Limerick as a job in their various departments was seen as a job for life.  The exhibition was a huge success with the visitor book recording congratulatory comments from people as far away as Canada, Australia, South America and Japan. It was awarded Best Exhibition' by the Industrial Heritage Association of Ireland (IHAI) at their AGM in February 2013. 

I am delighted to see that the exhibition will get a second showing as people still ask me where can they see it and they regretfully missed it first time round. The Limerick Museum & Archives invites Limerick to the launch of 'Ranks: A Limerick Industry' on Thursday 24 September at 6pm in the Hunt Museum. Best of luck to Jacqui and her team and I look forward to seeing this wonderful exhibition again. 

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One of my favourite objects from the exhibition is these weighing scales. One of the photographs in the Mercier collection was of the workers lifting the flour sacks onto an industrial weighing scale. I had remembered spotting this one during a conservation job the previous year for my father's practice in a former co-operative creamery in Glin, Co. Limerick. I had discovered it at the back of one of the out buildings. Admittedly it was for weighing butter but it looks so similar to the one in the photograph, I contacted the owner of the former creamery and he had no problem with us borrowing it for the duration of the exhibition. Every time I look at it's handsome golden face I am reminded of my first encounter with Limerick Conservation Officer Tom Cassidy. We are now very good friends but during that site meeting we were both very formal!  

Long-listed for the Irish Blog Awards

I started my little blog Concrete Stew ten months ago (thanks to constant nagging of my friend Dan,my writing version of a sky-diving instructor yelling at me to "jump!") and I'm delighted to be long-listed for the 4th annual Irish Blog Awards 2015 blogawardsireland.com/. Concrete Stew was nominated as a personal blog for the Arts and Culture category. Thank you to the team at the Blog Awards for emailing me this very smart looking Long-list button. 

The short-list will be announced on Wednesday 2 September and the award ceremony itself will take back in Dublin on 22 October in The Tivoli Theatre. As blogging becomes bigger in Ireland I hope that more blogs which focus on architecture/architectural history/urban design emerge and hopefully it can be it's own stand-alone category in the future. The public vote opens next week so I will be tweeting like a mad woman asking for support. One of my favourite bloggers theirishaesthete.com/,Vice-President of the Irish Georgian Society won the award in this category in 2013 and I would be honoured to be in the same list as him. Getting long-listed was a fantastic opportunity for myself to refocus and re-evaluate how my blog has evolved, am I being vigilant when it comes to my writing style (keeping to my own 'voice'), frequency of posts and that in the true nature of a blog it is my personal take on things- my perpetual ode to how and why we document Irish architecture. 

Image taken from architecturefoundation.ie

Open House Dublin: Seven Weeks to Go!

It is seven weeks until the Big Housing Debate on Wednesday 14 October which kick starts the 10th edition of Open House Dublin. This free weekend is presented annually by the Irish Architecture Foundation (IAF), a celebration of the city's best architecture, when buildings of all types and periods open their doors to allow citizens to explore. The theme of Open House Dublin 2015 is titled This Place We Call Home which focuses on domesticity and urban space. 

Image courtesy of Carson & Crushell. Photo by
David Grandorge

I am so excited about the 2015 programme! It is killing me not being able to blurt out all the buildings, the walking tours, exhibitions, etc. As the Programme Coordinator I feel like I am the midwife to such an amazing October life force. An energy that inspires people to open their buildings to strangers and sharing their space, creativity and stories. In the length of time of a tour, all the occupants of that building are experiencing the same moment of getting inside the head of the architect or client and the realisation of the brief, together creating a living, breathing home. In my interview for the job back in June, even those I had first hand experience organising the first Open House Limerick in 2012 I was stumped at the question "describe Open House." I asked could I take a moment as I wanted to give this worldwide phenomenon the justice it deserved. I even got to meet Victoria Thornton who traveled to Limerick to launch ir's inaugural Open House. This was the woman who began it all in London over two decades ago. My most rewarding moments so far are those when I'm on the phone to a property manager and they are so surprised that their building was chosen by our curator as they didn't deem it special or important enough. We get to show them their familiar building with fresh eyes. They make the common mistake that good design means a certain cost located at certain addresses in the city.

All I will say is that there is the highest ever number of private houses and apartment blocks than there has ever been for Open House Dublin and over double the usual number of walking tours. Homes which have been confirmed in the first press release include Home in Rathmines, home of (and by) Ireland's most celebrated architects Sheila O'Donnell and John Tuomey; 23 Leinster Road, the renovation and conversion of an early Georgian townhouse by A2 Architects; Richmond Place, the home and studio of Carson & Crushell Architects and a "spiritual" home: the Holy Faith Spirituality Centre in Glasnevin by MOLA Architects. These are all new to the Open House programme. 

View from inside No.10 Henrietta St.
Photo taken by writer.

I am lucky enough to be able to count A2's Peter Carroll and Rosaleen Crushell of Carson & Crushell amongst my friends and it's a delight to be working with them for such a worthwhile event. Additionally I have my own fondness for MOLA. My father when I was little worked for Murray O'Laoire in their Limerick office. I can remember my mother sending me up to their brown brick office building on Glentworth Street, to let my father know we were outside during his lunch hour, as she waited in the car feeling ever so grown up. I can't remember being inside that first floor office but I can imagine I stood at the reception announcing something to the effect of "I'm here to collect my Daddy."

Returning favourites from previous years include the Iveagh Trust Museum Flat (Nellie's Flat) in Dublin 8 and No.10 Henrietta Street, one of the oldest buildings on one of the oldest streets in Dublin. The aim of this year's Open House is to highlight buildings that have shaped how we live now and the Big Housing Debate should hopefully inspire new ways of living better in the future. It really is one of the most pressing topics of our generation. Everybody needs a home and it's the one thing that binds us all together in this city. 2015 marks 30 years since the setting up of what is now Focus Ireland by Sr Stanislaus 'Stan' Kennedy. I was told by one of the architects giving a walking tour for Open House that her mantra was always "Everyone is entitled to a place called home." 

Former Pathology Building. Home of
IAF until they move in early 2016.

Home is such an evocative word. If I reach into the very pit of myself and meditate on the word 'home' it conjures up my family house in the 1990s. Our deep red brick bungalow, nestled in our sleepy little cul-de-sac in the suburbs of Limerick, before we got a proper driveway and landscaped the garden. At least once a week someone in the house would ask "will we go feed the ducks" which meant a walk by river, passing the Corbally baths and the 'red path' up to Athlunkard Bridge, down the Corbally Road with the Irish Estates on your left and St Munchin's on your right, turning at the junction down the Mill Road homeward bound completing the loop. The fields that once contained horses and cows are now housing estates. As an adult I found that in a short space of time Dublin fits me comfortably. It struck me that it does particularly on days when I cross the Liffey. I'm most at home in a city with a river running through it. It'll never have the same impact to me but the Liffey is a close second to the Shannon. Home is different things to different people, to those of us fortunate to have one. It is the most personal place you will ever invite people into so a huge thank you to everybody opening their doors this October in the wonderful city we all call home. 

Keep an eye out for all the latest Open House Dublin news on Twitter @IAFarchitecture and please use the hashtag #OHD2015 and on Facebook. Below are images of my home away from home until the end of October on Hatch Street.

Not being the One Doing the Asking...

This week I was proud to have an interview I did appear in a local paper of my hometown (the Limerick Leader). The contributors to this year's edition of the Old Limerick Journal were all invited to take part in the Arts Interview section. I'd like to publicly acknowledge the saintly patience of John Rainsford in dealing with all my endless edits and indecisiveness. It was my first time as an interviewee. The experience has given me an appreciation for the people I have interviewed and the nerves they must be experiencing, to varying degrees, at the prospect of family, friends and colleagues reading their words. 

I have in recent weeks did my first batch of interviews which is a fascinating process in itself. I have conducted three so far for print. I find it does get easier the more I do them. The second one I was assigned to do happened to be a friend of mine so he was almost interviewing me when we sat at his meeting table. I enjoyed listening back (apart from the shock at hearing how everybody else experiences my accent!) and hearing the tinge of awkwardness in both our voices as if we were strangers. Nevertheless the familiarity gave me a confidence to delve more and go on spontaneous tangential spurts in response to his answers. The third one was with somebody I never met before but the conversation flowed easily. Alas as soon as the record button was hit he was noticeably more conscious of his responses, which is often the case. I would never do it but a part of me wishes I secretly recorded the pre-interview banter. 

Yesterday afternoon I sat in on a more formal interview. I compiled the list of questions, which were edited by the interviewer, somebody I would consider my mentor. I was relieved I wasn't given the task of performing it but rather instead bearing witness to the exchange. The interviewer was so professional and so generous; subtly feeding the interviewee platforms to vault from in order to portray them in the best possible light. Somehow in her expert brevity she got to extract so much information in a series of smooth, continuous anecdotes and observations. Ah, and then there's the job of transcribing the interviews. It is like having to do the washing up after cooking and devouring a kingly feast. Again this arduous task is aided by practice. 

For my other job (don't we all seem to have at least two these days) I frequently end up 'interviewing' in a sense, people in their places of work. It is amazing how the physical environment affects conversation; the level of formality and familiarity. A few of these have been in their homes to collect forms for those who aren't the most IT proficient, their internet was acting up, etc. The last one was a good example of how the most familiar of surroundings, your home/studio where you work and create all day, has the ability to make new visitors feel as known to you as your furniture. I will never name them but due to the fact, I believe, that they were so relaxed in their home they asked me could they arrange a meeting of a more romantic nature. This in itself is a rare occurrence (I can count these on one hand). As flattered as I was at this question, I had to decline. I admire

the bravery- dropping your guard like that is terrifying. I can only put it down to the power of a familiar space rather than my appearance, conversation skills or bad jokes. I am happy to remain a Nick Carraway-like character in the background recording the brilliance of the Great Gatsbys of this world.


I am looking forward to seeing my article appear in the Old Limerick Journal this winter for the second time. It is an honour for me to be included in a publication that I have been consulting since my secondary school days. I have written on an early twentieth century building that I am very fond of, and deserves more attention. Yet again I have that feeling which makes one ask oneself "Me! Are you sure?" 

The development of health services both locally and nationally, can best be traced by looking at the modern development of hospitals in Limerick.  The modern Irish hospital building is perhaps the most representative of the contemporary styles of architecture in the twentieth century, along with the associated philosophical and psychological issues that dictate how this building should be designed and used. The modern hospital, as a building, can be described as a gesmtkunstwerk, all the aspects of which- the function, the technology and the aesthetics- aim to promote the well-being and recuperation of the patients.

Rapidly changing innovations in acute medical care, out-patient care and hospital machinery instruct the design considerations. Emerging theories demanded that the modern hospital not only had to be a high performance, functioning institution treating the human body  but it had to be an environment conducive to rest and holistic treatment. 

Irish Hospital Sweepstake ticket (1940) from National
Archives, Irish Sweepstakes file.

 From the late nineteenth and until 1947, the cost of the public health services was borne almost entirely by local authorities who derived their funding from local ratepayers.[1]  The government was not prepared to come to the aid of the hospitals by increasing the level of parliamentary grants last fixed in the 1850s.[2] This most notable field of architectural activity during the early years of Irish Independence was stimulated by the establishing of the Hospital Sweepstakes in 1930, originally intended to raise funds for some voluntary hospitals in Dublin, but soon expanding to become the prime source of finance for a comprehensive hospital-building campaign throughout the state. Announcing the commencement of this campaign, the then Minister for Local Government and Public Health, Seán T. O’Kelly praised the work of Alvar Aalto stating that he hoped similar talent would emerge in Ireland. Even the Hospital Sweepstakes building (Robinson Keefe, 1937) could itself be seen as an analogy for this drive as it too was a work of modernism with a long low front elevation with a glazed tower at one end.  

Irish Sweepstakes Building, Ballsbridge
Image from flickriver.com/photos/88051129@N00/tags

Prior to the advent of the Sweepstakes no public hospital building of any significance had been undertaken since 1904.[3] Throughout the thirties Ireland became internationally known for its sweepstakes and received world press coverage, both good and bad.[4]  It was illegal in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom though the majority if tickets continued to be sold there.[5]  Vincent Kelly, as architect member of the Committee of Reference set up by the Free State government in 1933 to advise on the allocation of the Hospital Sweepstakes funds undertook an extensive tour to make a detailed study of modern developments in the design, equipment and administration of hospitals in various countries all over Europe including France, Switzerland, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Belgium and Holland. He inspected over sixty hospitals during a period of almost three months. On his return, Kelly not only contributed his findings to official published reports, and some lectures and articles (AAI lecture ‘A tour of Continental Hospitals’ 20 February 1934[6]), but also given responsibility for several hospitals commissions himself.  These included Nenagh General Hospital, Co. Tipperary (1933-36), Naas Fever Hospital, Co. Kildare (1933-39), the County Hospital at Cashel, Co. Tipperary (1933-37), all exhibiting the flat-roofed and white-walled  cubic forms of modern architecture, finished with sun balconies and projecting concrete canopies.[7] 

Other hospitals embodying the spirit of progress were Michael Scott and Norman Good’s Port Laoise Hospital (1933-40), and T.J. Cullen’s Galway Central Hospital (1949-55). They were symbols of Ireland’s puritanical vision for society imbued with an anti-materialistic philosophy. If Ireland had to make do without, Fianna Fáil wanted the Irish people to know that this was not only a current necessity but an investment for ‘making the people sober, moderate, and masculine and thereby paving the way for industrial advancement and economic reform.’[8]

 The Tuberculosis (Establishment of Sanatoria) Act 1945[9] enabled the building of hospitals like the Limerick Regional (now University Hospital Limerick) for the care of patients with tuberculosis, together with the Health Act of 1947 which modernised the original Public Health (Ireland) Act 1878. It was not until 1947 that a Department of Education was created and a Minister was appointed. [10] The Health Act of 1953 was a significant landmark which allowed for the broader services, and this, together with the post-war building programme of new hospitals and the sanctioning of additional consultant appointments, greatly improved access to hospital services. [11]

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[1] Pádraig O’Morain, The health of the nation; the Irish healthcare system 1957-2007 (Dublin, 2007), p.134.

[2] Ruth Barrington, Health medicine & politics in Ireland 1900-1970, (Dublin, 1987), p.109.

[3] Thomas Murphy, ‘Ireland’s Hospitals’, Medical Care, 2:2 (1964), p.126.

[4] New York Journal ‘American’ on 25 March 1956 reported ‘the Irish Sweepstake is not as clean a sweep as they would have you believe. They manipulate the tickets so as to throw the prizes in any direction they wish.’

[5] Ibid, p.138.

[6] 21 Feb 1934, Irish Times

[7] Frederick O’Dwyer, Irish Hospital Architecture; a pictorial history (Dublin, 1997), p.18.

[8] D.P. Moron, The Philosophy of Irish Ireland, reprint 2006 (Dublin, 1905), p.45.

[9] No.4/1945 Irish Statute Book. Office of the Attorney General.

[10] Joseph Robbins (ed.), Reflections on Health; commemorating fifty years of the Department of Health 1947-1997 (Dublin, 1997), p.5

[11] Ibid, p.21

Further reading
Dr Marie Coleman, The Irish Sweep, a History of the Irish Hospitals Sweepstake 1930-87, (UCD Press, 2009) ucdpress.ie/display.asp?isbn=9781906359416

For more photos of the Irish Sweeps you can find them at Irish Photo Archive

Irish Builder and Engineer (Nov, 1953). Taken from http://imma.gallery-access.com/intl/en/tour.php?a_id=136

Documenting Building:journals & lectures

This week's post was possible thanks to information provided by Dr Daniel O'Neill @ONeillDanielP 

Architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner noted that evolution in architecture cannot be entirely due to changes in materials, purposes or social conditions but by the fact that a new spirit of the age required it. The primary document is of course the building itself but as my co-author Dan O'Neill says 'the journal should be treated as a treasure to be preserved.' Additionally papers read at public seminars at the time are also invaluable records capturing the zeitgeist of the new Republic. 

Print and media, dissemination of information

Journals such as the Irish Builder (during its lifetime it as known as The Dublin Builder; Illustrated Irish Architectural, Engineering, Mechanics & Sanitary Journal; Irish Builder and Engineering Record and Irish and Technical Journal) are great sources of information often with accompanying plans and photographs. This building journal periodical was in publication from 1859-1979 and kept a close eye on its British counterpart to keep abreast of the latest events on the International architectural stage, which was an excellent resource for architectural students. The journal cut across all social classes appealing to the labourer, brick manufacturer, and the architect. The articles ranged from topics on planning, to segments on new products,new projects, labour, cost of materials and changes in urban environment. 

Other important sources of contemporary design and discourse for Irish architects in the first half of the twentieth century were the AAI Green Book and the journal of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland (RIAI). Vincent Kelly reviewed Pevsner’s Pioneers of Modern Design (1936) in the magazine Ireland Today. As well as our own periodicals Irish architects followed British publications such as The Builder, Architect and Building News and the Architects’ Journal. Even though in many cases Ireland was more aware of what was going on in the rest of Europe than Britain such as contemporary church designs. Ireland may have been on the edge of Europe but Irish Builder wanted to stay on the forefront of contemporary design with articles appearing as early as 1938 entitled ‘Modern ecclesiastical architecture in Germany[1]’ tracking the careers of the likes of Rudolf Schwarz and his highly influential book ‘The Church Incarnate’ published that same year[2]. 

Public Lectures

In a lecture to the Architectural Association of Ireland in 1933 Sean T. O’Kelly appeared to have foreseen the future of public architecture of the New State when he said: 'We too in this country have room for men who will give to our peculiar problem the intense study they require, and help us build in a manner that will reflect credit on our country and generation.' A group of young architects, including John O’Gorman and T.P. Kennedy, arranged to have the RIBA photographs exhibition from London in 1934 sent on loan to Dublin and organised a display of it in the National College of Art in January 1937. 

This photo of Chicago's Century of Progress International Exposition
taken in 1933 which could of been part of the RIBA exhibition.

The AAI also got guest speakers from further afield with the Walter Gropius lecture[3] in 1936 seeing a turnout of 300 people[4] which was exceptionally large for an AAI event as noted by a young John O’Gorman.[5] The AAI would continue to invite internationally renowned architects to give lectures such as Erich Mendelssohn, Alvar Aalto in 1957 and Mies van der Rohe in 1959[6] There was a keen interest in architecture from the Government ministers of the new state and they were often present at meetings of the AAI. The AAI today continues on this valuable service of public lectures on current issues in architectural theory and history in conjunction with their architectural competitions.

Irish architects were not afraid of being outspoken with regards to authenticity regardless of the typology. For example in 1931 the landmark of modern architecture in Ireland took place at Turner’s Cross in Cork.[7] Barry Byrne and J.R Boyd Barrett’s Christ the King Church was revolutionary for its time and its use of reinforced concrete was an inexpensive alternative to the traditional church. Nevertheless Christ the King church did not immediately influence Irish church design which continued in imitation of earlier styles of architecture well into the 1960s. Most of these buildings were adorned with artificial veneers that simply presented earlier architectural styles such as Greek, Gothic and Romanesque but used new engineering and structural techniques. This point was best summed up by P.M Delaney in a paper read before the Architectural Association of Ireland[8] in 1961 in which he observed:

‘Most of our churches have become confused collections of unrelated inaccurate and clumsy fragments taken without understanding from widely different sources and usually copied, not from the original, but at fifth or sixth hand, from reproductions in turn based on other reproductions. There can be no reasonable or logical basis for this illiteracy, which merely created an impression that the church has no connection with the conditions of the present day, since its visible expression in its buildings is so deliberately archaic and out of contact with the daily life of its members.’[10]

I found the Irish Builder as an invaluable source of information for my postgraduate research which spanned 1930s-70s Limerick. There are holdings in the library of MIC in Limerick but they had gaps for the years I required. I was fortunate to have the holdings in  Dublin but not everybody has the time or money to travel up in down to the capital from other parts of the country like myself in Limerick. If these journals were digitised and made publicly accessible it would make the lives of architectural researchers so much easier. I am lucky to be around for the age of Twitter, having fantastic advice and knowledge on tap like @ONeillDanielP and others. To think it might very well be a rich resource for researchers in the future. What would the architects of the 1930s have made of Twitter I wonder! 

Holdings Locations

UCD

Microfiche: Architecture Library 1859-1979 (Ref: Journals)

Hardcopy: James Joyce Library 1859-1866; 1877-1882; 1886-1888; 1894-1897; 1909;

1937-1939. (Ref: Special Collections 30.PPB.1 - 30.PPC.2)

National Library of Ireland

Microfiche: 1859-1979 (Ref: Ir 6905 i 42)

Dublin City Archives

Microfiche: 1959-1979 (Ref: 690.05, MF)

Hardcopy: 1904-1915

Irish Architectural Archive

Hardcopy: 1867-1874; 1876-1880; 1882; 1886-1898; 1903-Sept 1904; 1906-1913; 1915-

1923; 1926-1927; 1932-1933; 1947-1981 (incomplete).

Referenced publications

Collins, Niamh : The Irish builder and engineer catalogue. In: Research and resources in a digital age : UCD Irish Virtual Research Library and Archive. UCD Irish Virtual Research Library and Archive, 2010.

Elizabeth Tilley, « Trading in Knowledge: The Irish Builder and Nineteenth-Century Journalism  », Revue LISA/LISA e-journal, Vol. III - n°1 | 2005, 110-120. 

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[1] Written by J.V Downes.

[2] Richard Hurley & Paul Larmour, Sacred places; the story of Christian Architecture in Ireland (Dublin, 2000), p.14.

[3] Lecture entitled ‘The International Trend of Modern Architecture.’

[4] John O’Gorman, ‘Dr Walter Gropius, the International trend of modern architecture’, Ireland Today, 1:2 (1936), p.57.

[5] Seán Rothery, Ireland and the new architecture, (Dublin, 1991), p.89.

[6] Ellen Rowley ‘Researching a history of the architectural association of Ireland Part II’, in Building Material, 8(2009), 96.

[7] R. Kevin Seasoltz, A sense of the sacred; theological foundations of Christian architecture and art, (London, 2005), p.265.

[8] Becker et al., (1997) 20^th Century Architecture Ireland, p.20.

[9] Published in Liturgical Arts, no.4, 1961.

[10] Richard Hurley, ‘Irish Church architecture ,1839-1989’, in 150 years of architecture Ireland (Dublin, 1989), p.80.

25 Mary Street, Limerick

On the 30th of June when many national schools finished up for the year @OldeEire (curated by Mark Jenkins) tweeted this wonderful National Geographic magazine colour photograph taken by Harrison Howell Walker from the summer of 1940 which he tagged myself in. It was taken near the junction of Mary Street and Athlunkard Street, King's Island, Limerick (in "the Parish") with St Mary's Cathedral at the corner. In it are school boys from CBS St Mary's Primary School in Creagh Lane enjoying the bun and milk scheme introduced in Ireland in 1930. The free bun, which consisted of a bread and butter sandwich, and milk was given out each afternoon and managed by Turners shop which you can see in the background. It was given to children whose father were out of work (Mothers didn't enter the equation in those days). Some of the boys are bare foot in the photograph while others have shoes with no socks. The son of the shop owners Austin Turner, now Brother Mary Albri, a Cistercian monk in his eighties. This scheme of free daily sandwiches or buns and milks is still going in schools today under the Urban Schools Meals programme.

Having grown up down the road over the Abbey River in Corbally I am very fond of this area. I can still recall the smell of the Post Office on Bridge Street. Back in the days before wipe down surfaces- very dusty! It's the oldest parish in Limerick and as you can see it had real character in those days.

Google Maps. View of Mary Street junction today. 

Thank you to Jack Bourke and to Mark Jenkins for tweeting this photograph.