A brighter future for historic St. Patrick's St landmark left to rot for 20 years
Cork City Council confirmed that consultants have examined the 'hut', a historic landmark that survived the burning of Cork.
Cork City Council has confirmed that conservationists have examined the ‘hut’, the former bus driver’s shelter which has been left to disintegrate since it was uprooted during the restoration of St. Patrick’s Street more than 20 years ago.
At the City Council’s monthly meeting Mick Finn, an independent councillor, raised the condition of the ‘hut’ while commending the council for commissioning Stokes Clock and Watches on MacCurtain Street to repair Mangan’s clock, another city centre landmark which stands at the top of St. Patrick’s Street near Merchant’s Quay shopping centre.
The ‘Firemen’s Rest’, as the ‘hut’ was originally known, was constructed in Glasgow in 1892. When it was first installed in Cork it had the distinction of having one of the few functioning telephones in the city. It was built on a budget of £60 for the fledgling fire service.
In response to Cllr Finn’s question about the current state and uncertain future of the ‘hut’, Paul Moynihan, Director of Corporate Affairs and International Relations with Cork City Council, confirmed that consultants have “engaged with the refurbishment and repurposing of the hut” and that a report will be forthcoming to the City Council’s commemoration committee in the coming weeks.
Cllr Finn told Tripe+Drisheen that he was heartened that another piece of historic infrastructure which has survived the burning of Cork “is going to find a new life in modern day Cork”.
“It survived one of the darkest chapters in our history and given the heroism of the fire service at the time, it is only fitting that the ‘hut’ is reimagined and used as part of our heritage,” said Cllr Finn.
Tripe + Drisheen wrote about the ‘hut’ in a long read published just over a year ago which led to renewed interest by city councillors in campaigning for its restoration.
Dog fouling
Elsewhere, the perennial issue of dog fouling and how to penalise dog owners for not cleaning up after their pets dominated talk in council chambers.
Councillors were debating a motion tabled by Cllr Kenneth O’Flynn in which he proposed a new fining system for dog fouling.
Cllr O’Flynn’s motion called for “fining individuals who are found with a leashed dog and who are without any provisions to take care of dog excrement such as a pooper-scooper or waste bags.”
As the Lord Mayor, Cllr Deirdre Forde noted, 11 councillors spoke on the dog fouling motion as opposed to only five councillors who spoke on a seprate motion which followed later in the evening on promoting the “need of fora for men to talk to other men about violence inflicted on women by men.”
Cllr John Sheehan, Fianna Fáil, said that while the dog fouling motion is well intended he cited several problems with it as identified by the council executive, namely that such a law would be unenforceable and the council has no rights to search people.
“While we all have issues with dog fouling and we’re all working to try to reduce the amount of dog fouling, bringing in a law like this where it’s unenforceable will serve to make us a bit of a laughing stock to be perfectly honest,” Cllr Sheehan said. Furthermore he said that when a question comes in a year from now regarding how many fines were served, the answer would be “zero”.
“Ultimately it’s about behaviour and behavioural change,” Cllr Sheehan said, referring to how the problem of owners not cleaning up after their dogs would be solved.
However, Cllr Oliver Moran of the Green Party took a different view, stating that the city council’s view of bye-laws is too narrow. According to the Green Party councillor, the local government act allows local authorities to make a raft of laws as they see fit.
“Our parks are under our control,” Cllr Moran said. “If we can stop someone playing football in a park, we can ask them, ‘do you have a dog fouling bag with you?’, and ask them to leave if they don’t.”
Ultimately, Cllr Moran said it’s about creating a culture whereby dog fouling is not acceptable. As it stands now, with dog fouling laws weakly enforced, if at all, it sends a message that we are not going to do anything to punish dog owners who don’t tidy up Cllr Moran said.
Cllr Terry Shannon,Fianna Fáil, poured scorn on Oliver Moran’s suggestions that we need more “imaginative bye-laws” saying he wasn’t sure if the original motion called for dog owners or dogs, or both, to be patted down and searched.
This article was edited after publishing to correct an earlier mistake in which we stated Cllr Terry Shannon was a member of Fine Gael instead of Fianna Fáil.