Skibbereen & District Historical Society

On Sunday morning May 7 2006, an old landmark at the Square in Skibbereen, Sheehy’s Bar, was razed to the ground.

Sheehy’s Bar had played an important part in the social and commercial life of Skibbereen for many, many years and was owned by a very prominent and long-established family in the town.

There are still quite a few people around who will remember that part of the Square when there were three shops on that site; that is pre-1950s. The three shops were Collins’s, nearest the Town Hall; Daly’s in the centre, and then Sheehy’s Bar on the outside. Around the corner at No. 1 High Street was another bar, Barry’s, which was where Sheehy’s-Hussey’s had their lounge in later years.

Older residents of Skibbereen will still remember Ellie Barry’s Bar at No. 1 High Street, a thriving little business in its day. For many years the bar was run by Ellie, and before that by her father Pat.

Ellie Barry died in February 1944 and the building at No. 1 High Street became vacant. In the mid-1950s the council knocked the building and unsettled the buildings adjoining in the Square and the gable of Sheehy’s Bar fell and so the three premises at the Square were rendered unsafe and had to be knocked.

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Every Skibbereen person, whether living at home or abroad, surely has some memory of the town Square – hopefully a happy one!

Geographically, Skibbereen Town Square is almost right in the centre of the town. For natives and visitors it is the centrepiece, the focal point of Dear Old Skibbereen. It has a number of notable landmarks: the Town Hall, the Maid of Erin, the Post Office, all central to the history of Skibbereen.

In former times, this was the market place in Skibbereen. At one time there was an extensive thread market carried out here. Also, behind the Town Hall there was an alfresco market.

The Becher family, as far back as 1801, mapped the ground on which the Town Hall stands for a Market House, and in 1824 established a Thread Market there.

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The name Denis O’Sullivan might not resonate so quickly with Skibbereen people now, but there was a time when he was the toast of Skibbereen, Ireland and Irish communities in Britain and the USA. He had a rich baritone voice and became one of best-know singers of his day in Ireland, Britain and the USA.

Maybe better known as the ‘Singing Sullivan’ in these parts, Denis O’Sullivan was born in San Francisco in 1868, the son of Skibbereen emigrants. His brother John was also a fine performer, but did not reach the same levels as Denis.

His father, Cornelius D. O’Sullivan, was born in Skibbereen in 1820. He emigrated to America in 1845, just on the eve of the Great Irish Famine. After some extraordinary adventures Cornelius settled in San Francisco and did very well for himself, managing to amass quite a fortune.

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The inaugural West Cork History Festival will take place in Skibbereen from 28^th to 30^th July 2017.

Activities will be based in and around Rosebank, the former Dower House of the Liss Ard estate, which is situated about a mile outside Skibbereen. Over the course of the weekend, there will be a programme of events which will run concurrently in two or three venues.

There’s a fantastic schedule of speakers lined up for what should be a most interesting weekend.

To see the full programme or to buy a ticket for the weekend see http://www.westcorkhistoryfestival.org

David Fitzpatrick, formerly Professor of Modern History at Trinity College, Dublin, is among the top attractions. His most recent book is Descendancy: Irish Protestant Histories since 1795, which presents a detailed study of the revolutionary experience of Methodists in West Cork.

I’ve been reading quite a lot about emigration lately and the huge impact that it has had on Ireland. In many ways, it is the story of modern Ireland.  I’ve just re-read David Fitzpatrick’s book ‘Irish Emigration 1801-1921’, published first in 1984 as part of the Studies in Irish Economic and Social History series.

In his introduction David Fitzpatrick states that “Ireland under the Union was a land which most people wanted to leave. At least eight million men, women and children actually did emigrate between 1801 and 1921.” That’s an extraordinary statistic by any standards, exacerbated of course by the wave of emigration associated with the Great Irish Famine 1845-52. In the decade 1845-1855, some two million people emigrated from Ireland – about a quarter of the population in 1841 – in what was one of the largest population movements ever recorded. Fitzpatrick states that “No other country lost so large a proportion of its people during the century, or experienced such consistently heavy emigration over so long a period.”

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