The history of the foundation of Cork City, and its progress through the centuries, is well authenticated. Towards the close of the sixth century, the place was founded by Lochan, son of Amirgin, the great smith to Tiernach M'Hugh, the proud chief of the O'Mahonys. Lochan has since come to be called St. Finbarr. His feast day is a retrenched holiday in the diocese of Cork, and his patron day is kept by the peasantry at the shrine of Gougane Barra, by the cradle of the river Lee. The Irish name, Cork, signifies that the locality was a marsh, and in the life of its founder it is described as a "land of many waters."
Photo—Roche, Dublin.
The Marina, Cork.
For less than three hundred years the little city throve, and then came the Sea Rovers, hungry for spoil. In 820 they burned down Cork, carrying away as pillage the silver coffin wherein St. Finbarr was buried. Shortly afterwards they returned, and seized on the marshes lying beneath Gill Abbey Rock, fortified them, and founded another little city—but their own. There they sang their "Mass of the Lances; it began at the rising of the sun," and, as the Four Masters assure us, "wheresoever they marched they were escorted by fire."
But in time the Rovers were absorbed, and race hatreds died out. They paid tribute to the MacCarthys, and were married and given in marriage to the Irish. Merovingian Kings came to buy and sell in Cork, and the Sagas of the North tell of many a hardy Norseman who fell captive to the maidens of Munster. To this day the Danish blood moulds the nature of many in Cork, and among the men especially the passionate affection for the sea is a characteristic. When the Normans invaded Ireland they found Cork a Danish fortress. They broke the power of the Danes in a sea fight, and won over the allegiance of MacCarthy, the old King of Cork, through the wiles of a woman. The strangers had not been long in the city when they, like the Danes before them, were absorbed, and became more Irish than the Irish themselves. As their island city grew in opulence, they began to assert an independence similar to the free cities of the Continent. A historical writer of repute points out that they were practically independent of external authority. Their edicts had nearly the force of laws. They levied taxes, and regulated commerce. They judged, pilloried, and hanged offenders. To suit themselves they modified the English laws of property. They set up a mint of their own, and their money had to be declared by the English Parliament to be "utterly damned."
Their audacity can be imagined from the part they played in Perkin Warbeck's rebellion of 1492. They decked him out "with some clothes of silk," and John Walters, the Mayor, insisting that the poor Fleming was son to the Duke of Clarence, demanded that the Lord Deputy should declare him King. Failing in this a number of Cork merchants sent him to France, where they duped the King, and induced the Duchess of Burgundy to give them armament and money. They then sailed for Kent, and having landed there, proclaimed their foundling "Richard the Fourth, King of England and Lord of Ireland." But the sequel of all this bravura behaviour was not so happy, as Warbeck and Walters lost their heads, and Cork lost its charter.
In 1847 the city suffered fearfully from the ravages of famine and famine fever. The failure of the potato crop drove the unfortunate, hunger-stricken peasantry into the city for sustenance; and it has been estimated that upwards of a million of people emigrated in these unhappy years through the port of Cork. During the Fenian movement, 1865-67, Cork was a hotbed of treason, and more prisoners were sentenced from there than from all the other parts of Ireland put together. Thus, in the nineteenth century, the name of "Rebel Cork," which was earned so far back as the time of Perkin Warbeck, was still deserved.
The manners of the people, gentle and simple, rich and poor, are perfect. There is, perhaps, too often a tendency to adopt your view of anything or everything with the most accommodating agreeableness. This is very pleasant, if not always sincere, but in this respect a thing never to be forgotten is that Cork is only a few miles from Blarney, and
"There is a stone there, whoever kisses,
Oh! he never misses to grow eloquent.
'Tis he may clamber to a lady's chamber,
Or become a Member of Parliament.
A clever spouter, he'll sure turn out, or
An 'out-an'-outer' to be let alone;
Don't hope to hinder him, or to bewilder him,
Sure he's a pilgrim from the Blarney Stone."