Back to the future: Cork City planner laid the foundations for a better city in 1922

On May 2, 1922, Diarmaid Fawsitt of the Ministry of Economy of the Provisional Government met with a recently formed Cork Reconstruction Committee, which replaced an inhouse members committee of Cork Corporation.

The Provisional Government had set up a scheme for general reconstruction work throughout the country. Decree holders would be facilitated to obtain Government loans to enable them to build, particularly where trade and industry concerns were central.

Fawsitt concluded the meeting by saying: “they [the Provisional Government] would like to see the new Cork excel the old Cork, and they look forward to the day when Cork and the Port of Cork would enjoy greater prosperity than they ever did in the past”.

Joseph F Delany — a man with a plan

Politically at local level there was pressure to move the reconstruction on, but there was also the headache of who would bring the ambitions together and oversee the actual construction. 

Much of that landed at the door of Joseph F Delany, Cork Corporation’s city engineer.

Due to the unprecedented nature of the rebuild, he called for a special administration facilitation and “diversion from the ordinary lines of procedure by which building operations are usually regulated”.

Delany, who joined Cork Corporaion in 1903, had an interesting backstory. Cork and County Cork in the 20th Century by Richard J Hodges (1911), reveals Joseph (1872-1942) was educated at St Vincent’s College, Castleknock, Dublin.

He trained as engineer and architect under well-known Dublin architect Walter Glynn Doolin and became a certified surveyor under the London Metropolitan Building Act, combined with private study in the engineering courses of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and of the Institute of Municipal and County Engineers.

Inspiration from US trip

He served on the temporary civil staff of the Royal Engineers and was assistant city architect in Dublin, for five years. In 1903, he was appointed city engineer of Cork. On taking up the Cork post, he immediately set about improving the water supply system and reducing the abnormally high rate of water wastage in the city.

However, one of the many legacies Joseph left Cork City came from a visit to the US on an inquiry into American methods of municipal engineering and architectural practice, and an inspection of public works. There he learned about the remodelling of American towns and cities to meet the modern requirements of their everyday life, and that this was a common feature of civic pride in America.

In his spring 1921 report (available in Cork City Library), apart from his report covering the Burning of Cork, Joseph outlined the need for Cork to have a town plan, noting that “town planning should be considered advantageous in Cork, with a view to the future improvement and better shaping of the city”.

He called for this work to be investigated by specially appointed commissioners, consisting of prominent citizens in commercial and professional life, together with representatives of municipal councils.

At a conference of the principal citizens led by Joseph, and held at the Cork School of Art, in March 1922, the Cork Town Planning Association was formed, and subsequently well-known architects Professor Patrick Abercrombie and Sydney Kelly were invited, and agreed to act as special advisors to the Association.

In December of that year, he set out his vision for Cork when he published an article in the Cork Examiner on town planning. See article below. 

Delany's 26-point plan

He set out a 26-point priority list with the clearing out of slums and the need for housing at the top of it. He advocated for 2,500 houses on well-chosen sites, with roads, sewers, water supply, and lighting.

In echoes of now, he called for the acquisition of derelict sites, which he called “form a chequer-board” on the map of the city. His vision was to lay them out as open spaces and recreation grounds — that coupled with at least two formal parks — one for the northern and one for the southern district of the city.

He also envisaged a city stadium for “general sports, athletics, horse and agricultural shows, public competitions, galas, band promenades etc”.

He called for new main drainage and sewage disposal schemes on “modern principles” of sanitary engineering be constructed.

An urban mobility plan was in Joseph’s top ten priorities. He urged for pavement for 65 miles of roads and streets in a “most modern road surface treatment”, a new and improved tram service, complete with the latest public lighting, public conveniences such as toilets, a new well-equipped abattoir, and a new suitable cattle market, a new central fire station, a new city hall, and new market spaces for meat, provisions, vegetables and fish.

He resigned in 1924 from Cork Corporation because of illness brought about by pressure of the reconstruction work, retiring from Cork to Clonmel, where he died in 1942.

As part of his legacy, the Cork Town Planning Association produced Cork: A Civic Survey — technically Cork’s first town plan in 1926.

In this survey, three clearly dilapidated housing areas of Cork were mapped out — one west of Shandon St, the north western corner of the city centre island, and the property to the south west of St Fin Barre’s Cathedral.

The survey noted that there was not that much dilapidated property in the island to the east of North Main St, but those houses should be cleared out at the earliest opportunity, and no housing rebuilding undertaken in the area. The space should be fully allocated for shopping and business purposes.

The survey also questioned whether residential rebuilding should take place in the low lying and flood prone neighbourhood of Henry St and Grattan St.

In the city, there were 12,850 houses inhabited by 15,469 families, giving according to the total population, about five persons in a family and an average of six persons per house. A large proportion of the population was crowded into tenements and small houses.

The number of tenements was 719 with 2,928 families. The tenement population was around 8,675. Nearly one-ninth of the total population lived in tenements and on average 12 families could live in a house meant for one family.

The survey acknowledged that the redistribution of people was so large that it might naturally take years to accomplish (which it did).

One of the chief aims of the survey was that the rebuilding should not be done piecemeal as a series of isolated schemes, but as part of a general scheme of town planning and redistribution of the population.

It outlined that one of the opportunities was the availability of land on the south of the river for re-housing as well as for an extension of the city bounds. During the compilation of the survey, the City Commissioner Philip Monahan as well as his city engineer Stephen Farrington, and Cork architect Daniel Levie, engineered and designed the start of a new slum clearance programme.

Capwell Road comprised 148 houses of short terraces of four houses set at 16 houses per acre. The homes were mainly four-roomed. By 25 February 1928 the scheme was complete. The scheme was funded by central Government, rents, and purchases.

The money received from Capwell was devoted to the development of another housing site at Turners Cross and the announcement was made that it was expected that tenders for the building of 150 more houses would be invited. Next up after that was the plan for 250 new houses in Gurranabraher on the northside of the city.

• Kieran McCarthy is an Independent City Councillor, Cork local historian, and author. View his website, www.corkheritage.ie for more on his walking tours, history trails and writings.

A blueprint for a better city 

This is an edited version of Cork City Engineer Joseph F Delany's December 1922 article in 'The Cork Examiner' outlining his vision for a city of the future

by Joseph F Delany

The principal object of town planning may be defined as the improvement or modernising of existing towns and designing for their future development and extension with a view to securing improved sanitary conditions, enhancement of environment and amenity, and a resulting elevation in civic status and wellbeing generally.

A town plan is a graphic and descriptive forecast for future guidance, embodying an expression of the ambitions and the necessities of the citizens.

A beautiful city is the product of a community’s civic pride, and civic distinction can only be achieved by a well-devised town plan, supported by a strong public spirit. This public spirit must be aroused to enthusiasm for the inauguration of a town planning scheme by a competition amongst experts for the best design. 

The objects for which a town planning scheme may be prepared are diverse, and may include:

• A limitation to density in house building to the acre;
• The height and type of buildings;
• The direction, construction and width of roads;
• The fixing of building lines in existing streets;
• Reservation of land for parks, squares, open spaces, playgrounds, sports field, public buildings, housing allotments;
• The preservation of objects of natural beauty and of civic and historical interest;
• The allocation of acres or zones for industrial, commercial and shopping districts.

In a well-prepared town plan, the restrictions which it imposes, when legalised, benefit not only the community in general but citizens of enterprising spirit, such as builders, general contractors and merchants in building materials, property owners, and forward-thinking industrialists.

Now Cork City has a setting in an environment of natural beauty which other cities might well envy, and the citizens must be awakened to the necessity for higher ideals of civic dignity, as it becomes the third city in a regenerated and reconstructed Ireland.

The urgent duty is to obtain a plan of city improvements and extension and, after careful study, to carry out by gradual stages such parts, sections, or features of utility as will, from time to time, be permissible within the future available financial resources of the city.

For the Cork of the future, therefore, the present-day community should be inspired to high ideals, and the citizens must be helped by proper technical advice to ascertain and propagate the very best lines for the city’s development and work for its ultimate achievement.

Town planning and town improvement comprise of two principal phases — the aesthetic and the utilitarian. The utility side is the one which calls for first consideration in Cork, for it is admittedly an old-fashioned city, and needs a comprehensive regenerating policy to modernise it.

In modern city and town life, the public call for those utilities and conveniences which have become necessities of their daily life, and these requirements are established according as the ambitions and ideals of the communities that demand them; and, just as the existence of efficient public utilities in any city are an index of its progressiveness, so too their absence is indicative of backwardness or decadence.

I think it will, therefore, be allowed that an impressive civic status will not be achieved in Cork until we shall have established all the important public improvements and utilities which local needs call for, as they are the hallmark of civic distinction and municipal progress.

Cork is badly in need of the following public conveniences, utilities, and improvements:

• 1. Some 2,500 houses on well-chosen sites, with roads, sewers, water supply, and light (these are urgently required);
• 2. The city should be
  cleared of slums and house-congested jungles;
• 3. A new water supply, with the most up-to-date system of filtration;
• 4. A complete main drainage and sewage disposal scheme on the most modern principles of sanitary engineering;
• 5. A new and improved tram service;
• 6. Pavement for 65 miles of roads and streets in most modern road surface treatment;
• 7. Additional public conveniences in appropriate positions;
• 8. A well-equipped public abattoir;
• 9. A suitable cattle market;
• 10. Lay out new suburban thoroughfares on boulevard lines and build garden residential suburbs;
• 11. Widen narrow streets and reduce house density where there is excessive congestion at present;
• 12. Remove obtrusive buildings, objectionable bends and angles in streets, improve building lines and secure better alignment of streets;
• 13. A fleet of motor vehicles for refuse collecting, street sweeping, street watering, and general municipal transport service;
• 14. A civic centre in an imposing open square, consisting of a new City Hall,
  administration offices, mayoral residence, and a central public hall for lectures, meetings, concerts,
  exhibitions, etc;
• 15. A new central fire station and three district sub-stations in appropriate positions in the city, equipped with the most up-to-date fire-fighting appliances.
• 16. A new street-lighting installation on the latest methods of public lighting;
• 17. A refuse destructor for the disposal of town refuse on the most modern lines;
• 18. Acquire the derelict sites which form a chequerboard on the map of the city; lay them out as open spaces and recreation grounds, and thus establish amenities at present unknown in the grey, squalid environments of the slums;
• 19. Provide at least two formal parks — one for the northern and one for the southern district of the city;
• 20. A scientifically laid-out botanical garden;
• 21. A city stadium for general sports, athletics, horse and agricultural shows, public competitions, galas, band promenades, etc;
• 22. The congestion of the centre of the city should be relieved by the provision of an appropriately laid-out open square or platz;
• 23. Markets for fruit and vegetables, fish and game, old clothes, etc;
• 24. A completely new market for meat and provisions.
• 25. A central railway terminus ought to receive some study by transport experts;
• 26. A centre for the accommodation of a first aid or civic welfare auxiliary, such as St John Ambulance Corps;

The aesthetic phase of town planning should embrace the establishment of a cultural centre, and civic ambition should be sufficiently broad to encourage this aspect of town development in Cork.

The existing educational and cultural institutions should be availed of for this purpose, as far as they are eligible from the point of view of artistic merit as well as of favourable disposition in the city’s present layout. Thus, an existing nucleus for a centre of culture ought to be sought and judiciously incorporated in any replanning scheme.

The existing public buildings in the city being in widely dispersed positions, there is unfortunately no fortuitously happy grouping for this purpose.

At first, one turns to the university college as a focus, only to find that it is remote and isolated, and, on consideration, is best left in the charm of its own setting. Besides, there is no suitable ground for siting — in proper juxtaposition — such other institutions as should form this new civic feature.

Again, the minor schools and colleges are all scattered throughout the parishes of the city and are not eligible from the point of view of architectural pretension.

The only remaining institutes are the Crawford School of Art and the Crawford Technical Institute. Both these edifices are badly sited in topographically inapt positions.

And though the latter has the advantage of proximity to a cathedral church and a convent school of most appropriate scholastic design, it is not, however, in an area which would admit of expansion, and its position is too remote.

The former School of Art “fronts” in an open space and is close to the main thoroughfare of the city. It is quite possible in the future to open up an area here and develop it into a culture centre by the acquisition and demolition of a dense block of property of no special value, and thus provide sites for such further cultural buildings as are required. Those which occur to mind for this position are as follows:

• A monumental public library;
• A picture gallery and museum;
• An academy of music;
• A school of commerce;
• A Chamber of commerce;
• And possibly music and drama might be provided for by a well-designed theatre or auditorium.

The proximity of the river to this area might lend itself to aesthetic treatment by the provision of a well-laid-out embankment platz, which would invest this focus of culture with the amenity its municipal pretensions would necessitate.

So much for the requirements and obligations of the municipality. Let us now turn to the State and its local civic duty. A time may soon arrive when the government will find it expedient to decentralise its executive functions, and Cork — the second city in the Free State — will become an important subsidiary governmental centre.

Health, Housing, Sanitation

Again, as housing is part of the welfare and public health side of the city’s progressive movement, and as it is now receiving the attention it calls for, I think it right to draw attention to the following views expressed in my report on housing to the Corporation in the year 1918.

It is, in my opinion, an essential preliminary to an effort for the improvement of the housing conditions that those concerned should have as complete information as possible of the nature and the extent of the problem to be dealt with. 

I, therefore, set out the following items as a suggestive programme for the collection of the data:

• 1. An accurate descriptive survey and an explanatory map of all existing defective property: (a) tenements, (b) cottages, (c) residences in advanced condition of deterioration, (d) obstructive buildings, narrow lanes, cul-de-sacs, courts, squares;
• 2. Outline of suggestive schemes for carrying out renovation work on tenements and cottages pronounced unsanitary and unfit for habitation;
• 3. An accurate census of all persons or families most in need of improved accommodation, with a view to their being re-housed in a systematic way;
• 4. An exhaustive investigation into sites and the preparation of a map showing the land considered suitable both within and outside the borough;
• 5. Investigation of the possibilities of the Clearance of Insanitary Areas (a) with a view of reducing over-crowding, (b) reducing house density, (c) laying out air spaces in dense districts, (d) making approaches and new streets for better transit through city, and (d) improvements in local amenity;
• 6. Schedule and map the derelict areas of the city and prepare a scheme for laying them out as open spaces, or, where large enough and otherwise suitable, arrange for the erection of small lots of houses;
• 7. Investigation into the possibilities and desirability for action in the city under the various acts of parliament which contain provisions for housing and sanitary improvement;
• 8. A full inquiry into the possibilities for private enterprise in housing in the city and a conference with existing housing companies, would-be promoters of enterprise, building contractors, and individual house-building speculators;
• 9. A report on the inducements which the corporation can offer to private enterprise, and in how far it can assist private promoters by representations to the state departments concerned;
• 10. A scheme of procedure for expediting the legal process for enforcing compliance with the bylaws by owners of insanitary, dangerous, and obstructive property;
• 11. Scheme for urbanising the fringe of the city where land is appropriately situated, by developing access roads, etc, to sites.
• 12. Setting back and improving obtrusive building lines;
• 13. Suggestive schemes for the widening of narrow streets.

It will be inevitable where sites are selected for housing development (within the city or without) that the layout of streets and approaches, and, possibly to some extent in the densely housed districts, the clearance of obstructive and objectionable environment must take place, and bearing this in mind, it may be advisable to inquire as to the extent to which town planning would be considered advantageous in Cork, with a view to the future improvement and the better shaping of the city.

In America, local patriotism and civic pride are so highly developed that the remodelling of towns and cities to meet the modern requirements of their everyday life is a prevailing policy in American municipal life. This work is usually investigated by commissioners consisting of prominent citizens in commercial and professional life, together with representatives of municipal councils and technical experts.

The co-operation of the commissioners has been so cordial in their aims at civic betterment that the schemes produced, and in many cases accomplished, have resulted in the complete recasting of the cities’ plans, with consequent improved convenience and amenity.

Civic Survey

A great many matters arise for careful consideration in the preparation of a town-plan scheme, and a comprehensive conspectus of existing conditions, or what has now become known as a civic survey, in which both the imperfections of the city as well as its good features will be set down, is the first requirement.

The collection of data for the civic survey is essential as preliminary information to secure a successful town-planning scheme. This portion of the work is now practically completed by the technical committee.

The area to be embraced in greater Cork will be carefully considered by this committee of the association. Reconstruction work in spots and patches will not meet the case of the recasting and extension which the city is so much in need of.

The future expansion of Cork must be carefully planned, and the most suitable lines of development must be ascertained and followed. Open spaces are badly needed in the city for purposes of both amenity and health.

The squares and parks existing in other cities are entirely absent here. These features form grounds for recreation; they produce pleasant scenic effect, and, therefore, their establishment means added health and happiness to the people.

A town improvement scheme with a park, squares, and open spaces, once laid down suggestively, may inspire public benefactors in the future to give land for such purposes.

Adequate provision must be made for probable future rapid transit requirements, and this can best be done by a well-planned system of arterial roads, both radial from the centre of the city and circular on its outskirts. Immediately associated with geographical development must be boundary extension, which is now about to be considered, while on the fiscal side, re-valuation must also receive attention.

As industrial progress is likely to be a big feature in the city’s future, the lines of its development ought to be, at all events, suggestively put forward now, and thus will be avoided the confused and chaotic conditions of past random planning and absence of well-ordered layout. These mistakes have left us a city in which slums have been created like malignant growths spotted all over its area.

The improvement process means slum clearances by slow progress and at great expense, and this results from absence of foresight and want of expansive administrative enterprise in the past. All the existing faults resulting from this shortcoming will be avoided in the future by a well-projected scheme of development, in which new thoroughfares will be laid out on suitable lines.

The possible and probable expansion of the city under a town planning scheme might include the areas in which the following villages are situated:

• Blarney on the north-west;
• Mayfield and Glanmire on the north-east;
• Douglas, Rochestown, Passage, and Monkstown on the south-east;
• Ballincollig, south-west Blackrock and Lough on the south.

All existing natural advantages must be availed of, and the knowledge and aid of every citizen ought to be enlisted if the city is to be re-created and made beautiful and worthy of its position in a thoroughly regenerated Ireland.

Finally, a well-devised town-planning scheme for Cork will give control over the city’s future development, raise the standard of health and wellbeing; put an end to the building of potential slums and the perpetuation of existing ones; and encourage industrial development under enhanced conditions as regards traffic convenience and healthy environment.

It will substitute order for chaos, remove squalor, and provide those health-giving conditions so essential to the proper upbringing of the future population.

•   This is an edited version of the article. The full document is available to view at Cork City Library.