History of People and Places
Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre, Skibbereen, will this year host a major exhibition of artwork from Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum at Quinnipiac University, Connecticut, USA.
The exhibition, entitled ‘Coming Home: Art and the Great Hunger,’ will be displayed in two locations only in Ireland in 2018. The exhibition will run at Dublin Castle from March to June and then at Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre, Skibbereen, from July to October.
Anne Plumptre (1760-1818), the English writer and translator, visited Skibbereen in 1815 and in her book ‘Narrative Of A Residence In Ireland During The Summer Of 1814 And That Of 1815 wrote:
“… I proceeded by the new-made road, indeed an excellent one, to Skibbereen. We passed along the head of Glandore Bay, which is really beautiful. It winds so much up from the sea that no outlet appears, so that it presents the idea of an enclosed lake. There are fine bold rocks in various parts, and directly at the head is some gentleman’s seat, though I could never learn his name. The home stands almost at the water’s edge with wooded slopes rising all round it; a little stream which runs into the bay skirts a part of the woods; over it is a most picturesque old bridge of one lofty arch, entirely overgrown with ivy. I can scarcely conceive altogether any thing more beautiful; it has much the character of the scenery about Rostrevor and the Bay of Carlingford. A little further on in the road to Skibbereen is an exceedingly pretty group of five or six small lakes all together, with rocks not lofty, but very picturesquely disposed about them.
“Skibbereen stands upon the river Ilen, which about five miles from thence runs into Baltimore Bay; it was anciently called Stapleton, but what occasioned the change in its name, or when it took place, does not appear. It is a town of some extent, and from the number of new houses recently started up, appears to be increasing in prosperity; there are however whole streets, and not very short ones, consisting entirely of the wretched mud cabins of the peasants. The lands about produce a good deal of flax, and manufactories of both linen and woollen are carried on; but the principal objects of commerce in the town are corn, butter, and salted fish, of which considerable quantities are exported. The quality of fish taken in Baltimore Bay is prodigious.”
The visit of President John F. Kennedy to Ireland in June 1963 is something that is remembered with great affection and nostalgia by Irish people.
The fact that just six months later the President was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, made his visit ‘home’ to the land of his forefathers all the more poignant.
The trip was an unqualified success, from an American and an Irish point of view. The visits to the Kennedys ancestral town of New Ross, Co. Wexford, on June 27, and to the farm that his great grandfather, Patrick Kennedy, had left in 1848 at the height of the Great Irish Famine, were the highlights for the President himself.
Skibbereen-born Andy Minihan was chairman of New Ross Urban District Council in 1963, and, being quite a character, he endeared himself to the President and his family. However, while Andy and President Kennedy seemed to hit it off, some of the president’s staff were not at all enamoured with him.
The death took place on Sunday morning, December 3, 2017 of Richie Cottom of Skibbereen.
Richie had been ill for ten months or so and, while sickness had diminished him physically, he remained alert and as sharp as ever until about a week before he died.
Richie Cottom was of Skibbereen – he knew everyone in Skibbereen and everyone in Skibbereen knew him. He was a character, and a great one at that. Maybe in Skibbereen he was the last of the great characters – they’re just not around anymore.
The extended Cottom family was a very prominent one in Skibbereen for generations, playing an important part in the commercial, cultural and social life of the town. The Cottoms were associated with crafts and trades in the town going back to the early 1900s. For people of a certain age it’s difficult to believe that there’s no Cottom now living in Bridge Street or Upper Bridge Street, or indeed in Skibbereen at all.
Finola Finlay treated members of Skibbereen & District Historical Society and a big crowd of non-members to a wonderful talk on ‘The Stained Glass of West Cork’, at the West Cork Hotel, Skibbereen, on Thursday evening, January 25th, 2018.
Finola gave brief history of stained glass, from about the late 14th century when many of the churches were Gothic in style. The mid-1400s to the mid-1500s saw a decline of the Gothic style and the establishment of the new Renaissance period which was also reflected in the art of glass painting.
Finola brought us through the period of the Gothic revival of the late 18th and 19th centuries and there are many examples of stained glass windows from this period in West Cork. The early 19th century was a good time for the building of churches in Ireland.