North Monastery | HEADLESS URBAN EXPRESSION

PHOTOGRAPHED IN 2022

I have delayed processing some photographs from my 2022 visit to Cork until now for a variety of reasons. The actual visit was a bit strange as the city had yet to recover from Covid-19 restrictions. For example my hotel had been block-booked by the Department Of Health up until a few days before I arrived. I also had problems with public transport as scheduled buses failed to arrive and as a result I ended up being stranded for hours in unfamiliar locations and in some cases had to walk long distance in order to return to the city centre.

In May 2023 I spent a week in Cork City and my hotel cost Euro 345 when I tried to book for a week in May 2024 I was quoted Euro 900 (the newspapers are claiming that hotel prices have increased by 18%) which I am not willing to pay. I had to cancel most of my 2023 city visits because of cost but I had a back up booking for a week in August 2023 in Cork so I will visit Cork for a second time in 2023. Going forward I will change my approach and will undertake day trips to locations that are closer to Dublin (an hour or two from Dublin).

Up until now I had the option to cancel or reschedule my bookings and I did not have to pay in advance … now the hotels are seeking non-refundable payments in advance and some are seeking no-damage deposits of up to 200 Euros (this is new to me). What really annoys me is that I have been a regular guest at many of the hotels for 15 to twenty years.

I was trying to locate the North Monastery when I came across some examples of street art. For various reasons I did not actually visit the North Monastery which is a school.

The North Monastery, commonly known as The Mon, is a co-educational education campus comprising Scoil Mhuire Fatima Primary School, North Monastery Co-educational Secondary and Gaelcholáiste Mhuire AG[4] located at Our Lady’s Mount, Cork, Ireland.

The North Monastery was founded on 9 November 1811 when Brother Jerome O’Connor and Brother John Baptist Leonard were given charge of a school in Chapel Lane by the Bishop of Cork, Rev Dr Moylan. Seventeen students attended on the first day. In 1814, a 14-acre sloping site was acquired from a wealthy Catholic businessman, Sir George Goold, Baronet, and a new school was built. The North Monastery had found its permanent home. An outbreak of typhus fever in the city in 1816 saw the school being used as a temporary hospital.

Brother Griffin, a poet and novelist, became a member of the North Monastery in 1839. He died on 12 June 1840 in his 37th year. His remains are interred in the cemetery in the grounds of the school. It was shortly after the death of Griffin that Daniel O’Connell visited with the Founder of the Order, Edmund Ignatius Rice.

In 1857, Brother James Burke arrived at the North Monastery and under his guidance the students began the study of natural philosophy (science). At this time John Philip Holland (inventor of the submarine) studied under the guidance of Br. Burke. In 1879, Patrick J. Kennedy, a past pupil, was installed as Lord Mayor of Cork, the first of a long and distinguished list of past pupils to hold this office. In 1901 the Lord Mayor of Cork, Edward Fitzgerald, organised an Industrial Exhibition.

The school represented the Department of Education and Br. Burke and his students built an electric tramway which was the high point of the exhibition. Burke died on 23 March 1904 as the result of an accident and was accorded a public funeral with a procession through the streets of Cork city. He was buried in the cemetery at the North Monastery.

In 1911, the school celebrated its centenary and the Br. Burke Memorial Extension, was formally opened in 1913. On the advent of the First World War the British army confiscated lathes, drilling machines and other machinery from the school. They closed and sealed the wireless room and cut down the aerial mast. These precautions were carried out under the Defence of the Realm Act.

In March 1920, Lord Mayor Tomás Mac Curtain, a past pupil, paid an official visit to the school and addressed the boys in Irish. Shortly afterwards he was murdered at midnight by a gang of armed assassins. He was given a public funeral at which nearly 2,000 North Monastery boys marched in procession. Terence McSwiney, who was also a past pupil, was his successor. He died in October 1920 in Brixton prison after 74 days on hunger strike.

The school continued to flourish and produced many more past pupils who distinguished themselves in all walks of life including business, politics, sport, the arts and academia, including former Taoiseach and sportsman Jack Lynch who formally opened a new secondary school building in 1967.