This year marks the 90th Anniversary of the deaths of former Lord Mayors of Cork, Tomás MacCurtain and Terence McSwiney. It is also the 90th Anniversary of the Burning of Cork. The events of 1920 are important in a national context, but carry even greater significance in terms of the civic and political history of Cork. A programme of civic events – titled ‘Enduring the Most’ – has been running all this week. It was while on hunger strike to the death that McSwiney famously said: “Triumph is not to those who can inflict most, but to those who can endure most.”
All the individual elements of the programme are open to the public. Here are the details for the remaining events:
11th November: 11.00 – 15.00 City Archives and Cork Museum Exhibition open to the public & Continuous Screening of films by Scoil Oilibhéir in Millennium Hall Foyer.
12.30 – 13.30 Talk by Gerry White, Historian: “McCurtain and McSwiney and The Formation of the Cork Brigade of the Irish Volunteers.”
12th November: 11.00 – 15.00 City Archives and Cork Museum Exhibition open to the public & Continuous Screening of films by Scoil Oilibhéir in Millennium Hall Foyer.
12.00 – 13.00 Talk By John Borgonovo, Historian: “Tans, Terror and the Burning of Cork”
13.00 – 14.00 Talk By Pat Poland, Historian: “The Fire Services and the Burning of Cork”
14th November: 10.30 a.m. Bishop Buckley to celebrate Mass in North Cathedral, from where Lord Mayors McSwiney and MacCurtain were buried.
17th November:
7.00 p.m. The Lord Mayor is to launch an exhibition “Rising from the Ashes: the burning of Cork’s Carnegie Library and the rebuilding of its Collections”, in the Central Library and is to launch a book of the same name by Thomas McCarthy.
