The City Hall, Cork () is a civic building in

Cork "Cork" or "CORK" may refer to: Materials * Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product ** Stopper (plug), or "cork", a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container *** Wine cork an item to seal or reseal wine Places Ireland * ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

which houses the administrative headquarters of

Cork City Council Cork City Council () is the local authority of the city of Cork in Ireland. As a city council, it is governed by the Local Government Act 2001. Before 1 January 2002, the council was known as Cork Corporation. The council is responsible for ho ...

History

The current building was commissioned to replace the old City Hall which had started life as a

corn exchange A corn exchange is a building where merchants trade grains. The word "corn" in British English denotes all cereal grains, such as wheat and barley; in the United States these buildings were called grain exchanges. Such trade was common in towns ...

. The old City Hall was designed by Cork architect

Henry Hill Henry Hill Jr. (June 11, 1943 – June 12, 2012) was an American mobster who was associated with the Lucchese crime family of New York City from 1955 until 1980, when he was arrested on narcotics charges and became an FBI informant. Hill testi ...

in the

neoclassical style Neoclassicism, also spelled Neo-classicism, emerged as a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. Neoclassici ...

, built by Sir Thomas Deane in

ashlar Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...

stone and was completed in 1843. In 1852 the building was altered by Sir John Benson to facilitate the Cork Exhibition, opening on 10 June 1852. Following the closure of a second exhibition in 1883, the building was converted for public use. It was offered to the Cork Corporation at a price of

IR£ The pound ( Irish: ) was the currency of Ireland until 2002. Its ISO 4217 code was IEP, and the symbol was £ (or £Ir for distinction.) The Irish pound was replaced by the euro on 1 January 1999. Euro currency did not begin circulation until ...

10,000 and, following the passing of the Cork Corn Markets Act 1889, it became property of the Corporation in 1893. The building was opened to the public as a city hall in roughly 1903, and a brass plaque commemorating this event is on display in the Cork Public Museum. The old city hall was destroyed on 11 December 1920 by the

Black and Tans The Black and Tans () were constables recruited into the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) as reinforcements during the Irish War of Independence. Recruitment began in Great Britain in January 1920, and about 10,000 men enlisted during the conflic ...

during the

Irish War of Independence The Irish War of Independence (), also known as the Anglo-Irish War, was a guerrilla war fought in Ireland from 1919 to 1921 between the Irish Republican Army (1919–1922), Irish Republican Army (IRA, the army of the Irish Republic) and Unite ...

as part of the

Burning of Cork The burning of Cork () by British forces took place during the Irish War of Independence on the night of 11–12 December 1920. It followed an Irish Republican Army (IRA) ambush of a British Auxiliary patrol in the city, which wounded twelve Au ...

. In the late 1920s, the civic leaders decided to rebuild City Hall. Following a design competition, designs by Alfred Jones and Stephen Kelly (Jones and Kelly architects, based in Dublin) were selected, and the construction contract for the replacement civic buildings awarded to John Sisk & Son. The foundation stone of the new City Hall building was laid by

Éamon de Valera Éamon de Valera (; ; first registered as George de Valero; changed some time before 1901 to Edward de Valera; 14 October 1882 – 29 August 1975) was an American-born Irish statesman and political leader. He served as the 3rd President of Ire ...

on 9 July 1932. The cost of this new building was provided by the British Government in the 1930s as a gesture of reconciliation. On 24 April 1935, Cork Corporation held a meeting in the new hall for the first time, when the Council Chambers were first opened. The City Hall was officially opened by de Valera on 8 September 1936.

Architecture

The structure's entry in the

National Inventory of Architectural Heritage The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage (NIAH) maintains a central database of the architectural heritage of the Republic of Ireland covering the period since 1700 in complement to the Archaeological Survey of Ireland, which focuses on arc ...

describes it as one of the city's "monumental classical buildings" and its site as important. Unlike the original city hall, the current building originally didn't bear the city arms on its exterior, though it does feature mosaics of the arms contemporaneous with the building's construction on both the floor of the entrance hall and also on the tympanum above the stage of the concert hall. In 1985, as part of commemorations of the 800th year of the Cork Charter, a limestone plinth bearing the arms was erected outside the building. A major extension was completed by ABK Architects in 2007 and opened that year.

References

Notes

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:City Hall, Cork Buildings and structures in Cork (city)

Government buildings in the Republic of Ireland Government buildings completed in 1935 20th-century architecture in the Republic of Ireland Corn exchanges in the Republic of Ireland Cork City Council

History

Architecture

See also

References

Notes

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