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History Trail, Barrack Street Area
Starts at Flying Enterprise Bar, Barrack Street:
Below is a brief historical walking trail, which covers some of the topics on my physical walking tour. The information is abstracted from various articles from my Our City, Our Town column in the Cork Independent, 1999-present day, Cork Independent Our City, Our Town Articles | Cork Heritage

The chosen sites in this Barrack Street guide are fascinating markers of the city’s development through the ages, and diverse architectural style represent each phase of Cork’s growth. This guide details a basic cross-section of the area but also aspires to tell an intriguing story that perhaps needs to retold, so that a new generation of Corkonians can enjoy, appreciate and be proud of the Barrack Street area.

South Gate Bridge:
In the time of the Anglo Normans establishing a fortified walled settlement and a trading centre in Cork around 1200 A.D., South Gate Drawbridge formed one of the three entrances – North Gate Bridge and Watergate being the others. South Gate Drawbridge was a wooden structure and was annually subjected to severe winter flooding, being almost destroyed in each instance. A document for the year 1620 stated that the mayor, Sheriff and commonality of Cork, commissioned Alderman Dominic Roche to erect two new drawbridges in the city over the river where timber bridges existed at the South Gate Bridge and the other at North Gate. South Gate Bridge became known as Roche’s Bridge after its commissioner.

In May 1711, agreement was reached by the council of the City that North Gate Bridge would be rebuilt in stone in 1712 while in 1713, South Gate Bridge would be replaced with a stone arched structures. Both North and South Gate Drawbridgs were designed and built by a George Coltsman, a Cork City stone mason/ architect. South Gate Bridge still stands today in its past form as it did 280 years ago apart from a small bit of restructuring and strengthening in early 1994.

St. FinBarre’s Cathedral is a marker of the once vibrant early Christian monastery (c.600 A.D.) of St. FinBarre. During the 1860s in Cork, there was a strong increase in the re-appreciation of church architecture and it is clear that church buildings became an excellent and expressive means of promoting the influence of Protestant and Catholic communities within the city’s landscape.

The date of the original foundation of St Finbarre’s Cathedral is not known with any degree of certainty but it was probably founded in the Early Christian period. It passed out of Roman Catholic hands about the year 1510 when Dominic Tirry, Rector of Shandon Church was appointed successor to John Fitzedmond Fitzgerald, who died in 1530.

The existing church received so much damage during the siege of Cork in 1690 that it had to be taken down, with the exception of the steeple, in 1725, and a new structure was built in 1735.

The 1735 church was a plain classical building, which retained the original tower of the first church. It was taken down in 1865 to make way for, in the words of the bishop of Cork, Gregg at the time, ” a structure more worthy of the name, Cork Cathedral”.

A general committee was formed to address the question of funding for a new building and to choose it architectural design. In 1863, a competition was arranged to find a suitable architect. The unanimous choice out 68 entrants from Ireland, Britain and the continent was for the design inscribed “Non Mortuus Sed Virescrit”, which means “He is not dead but flourishing”. William Burges was not just an architect but a person with numerous talents. Born in London on 2 December 1827, he was the son of a successful civil engineer and educated at King’s College London.

The general shape of the interior consists of a central nave or aisle with two side aisles, which run in a semi – circle to form an ambulatory around the altar. There is plenty colour in Burges’s interior. The large rose-type stained glass windows provide a colourful array of light inside the church. The great piers, which support the roof are of grey-brown Stourton stone.

In regards to the interior fittings, Burges accumulated a coterie of artists and craftsmen who under his direct control were responsible for stained glass, woodwork, mosaics and metalwork.

Steeped in folklore, the golden angel, the gift of William Burges adorning St Finbarre’s Cathedral is an impressive addition. Put there to make one think of the heralding of the end of the world, it also highlights the deeply rooted connection with rich ecclesiastical history on the site.

The mosaic pavement of the apse was designed by William Burges and made by Burke & Co from Lonsdale’s cartoons in Paris. It is interestingly to note that Italian artists from Udine were employed, using marble segments, reputably mined in the Pyrenees Mountains, which form the border of France and Spain.