Cobh Clock Tower faces an uncertain future
The centuries-old tower has a storied history, but what kind of future does the Cobh landmark, now owned by Cork County Council and the Port of Cork, have?
The Cobh Clock Tower is one of the maritime town’s most important historical buildings, not that you would know from its current state.
First built in 1847, it served as the place where public enquiries took place into drownings in the harbour. In 1912, pilots rostered to go to and from the the Titanic were stationed out of the Clock Tower. It served as the Harbour Commissioners Building until the 1920s, when it came under the ownership of Cobh Urban District Council and was then used as the Town Hall. A Cobh IRA member, who was involved in the Clonmult Ambush near Carrigtwohill in 1921, hid in the clock tower when being hunted by British forces.
The Clock Tower also had a brief stint as an art gallery, before it was bought by the Port of Cork and Cork County Council on a 50/50 basis in 2018. It currently houses a Chinese restaurant, Wan Fu, which takes up roughly half the space in the building.
Restore the Clock Tower
The tower, however, has fallen into a state of disrepair, which locals are trying to address through a campaign to restore it to its former glory and pride of place. Pádraig Ó Maoláin, who is involved in a campaign to restore the Tower and says that decay is occurring throughout the building.
“I think the building hasn't been painted since around 2004,” Pádraig says.
Indeed, Pádraig lists off a litany of repairs the landmark which abuts the harbour is need of fixing.
“There's cracks along the full height of the clock tower itself on the building, on the south west corner of the building. There's other cracks in all the plaster, right around the building really at this stage. There's foliage growing out from the corners of the building, and the clock tower itself has four clock faces, none of which are working. There's moss and mold on the sides of the building.
The rain goods (gutters etc) and the building are all damaged and broken, and the original wooden windows were replaced with PVC windows, but they would need to be replaced in any restoration,” says Pádraig.
Time is ticking
The Campaign were told in an email in August 2023 that a meeting would take place about the Clock Tower, between the County Council and the Port, and that they would be told the outcome of this meeting, but they received no information.
The Council and the Port of Cork then announced, on September 5, 2023, that the Clock Tower was to be restored.
However, since then, very little progress has been made, with the Port and the Council revealing no further information about the restoration. The campaign group sent a Freedom of Information request to the Council about the progress of the restoration in August 2023.
“They didn't announce a budget, a timeline, (there’s been) no public consultation, and we made a freedom of information request subsequently to the County Council, which was unsuccessful until we got the assistance of the information commissioner's office,” Pádraig says,.
“Finally, then at the end of February we found out that they in fact never performed any structural surveys on the building before purchasing it or since.”
The Freedom of Information request, which was shown to T+D, states that “no such structural reports have either been carried out by CCC (Cork County Council), or submitted to CCC, having been carried out by other parties. I also have no information as to when any structural report will be undertaken.”
“They did say in one of their emails that they themselves believe that there's no structural damage to the building, but they don't say where that information comes from,” Pádraig says, “so it looks like they've just done their own personal visual inspection of the Clock Tower and and that's it, they don't say what professional advice they got on that point.”
Tripe + Drisheen contacted the Port of Cork seeking information about the status of the structural survey and overall restoration of the building. In a statement, the Port of Cork Company (PoCC) told T+D that they and “Cork County Council recognise that potential exists for further growth in commercial tourism opportunities in Cork Harbour which would support the established cruise and other tourism related businesses.”
The statement continues that “they are continuously investigating potential additional access points across the Harbour which included the installation of a new pontoon at Kennedy Quay in 2019 to facilitate improved access to Spike Island.”
“Both parties jointly purchased Lynch’s Quay and the Clock Tower in Cobh in 2018, for the purpose of constructing an additional water access point including a potential second cruise berth in the future.”
On the topic of the structural survey, the statement reads that progress has been made.
“Uisce Eireann have now completed their improvements to the Cobh water supply scheme at Lynch’s Quay, and a recent structural survey was completed which confirmed that the building was in generally good condition.”
“Cork County Council and the Port of Cork can now plan for further improvements at Lynch’s Quay and the Clock Tower building as these are important Cobh and Port heritage assets. CCC and PoCC are meeting in the coming weeks to continue this process.”
Beautiful, elegant and dilapidated
“The restoration of the building would herald a new era for the East Beach area of town and it would restore pride and kickstart the wider generation in that whole area of Cobh as well,” Pádraig said.
This would tie into with a multi-million euro investment in upgrading public areas in Cobh including a redesign of the town square, greening of car parks and more pedestrianisation and public seating.
“There is a huge plan to improve the public realms and streetscape of Cobh, they intend at some point to spend millions and millions improving the streets and putting in street furniture and so on. And it will be very ironic that they would have wonderful footpaths and that when people look up from the footpath, they would see such dilapidation, and such a beautiful elegant building like the Clock Tower in such a dilapidated state.”
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Surely this building would be given Heiratage status, with the history of the building and the role it played throughout it's history.
If it were deemed to be a Heiratage site, then it would have to be saved and restored to its former glory.
I think that there are genuine grounds for a petition to have it declared a Heiratage site.
I was born in Cobh, lived most of my life in Cobh, at one time I lived in a flat on East Beach, across the road from this exceptional piece of architecture and apart from the Cathedral, I think that it is one of the nicest buildings on the coastline of Cobh.
As I live in Southampton at the moment, I can only hope that others will recognise the beauty of this old building and form a petition to have it declared a Heiratage site.
Don't let them rob you of this outstanding landmark.
It’s a beautiful building and would be a shame to let it continue to decay. My own grandmother left for America from Cobh, as did many others. Perhaps a fundraising campaign could be initiated to restore the building in their memory, and involve those of us on the other shore.