New book recalls history of Cork City Firefighters from 1950

THE launch of Cork City Firefighters : A Proud Record. A Visual History From 1950 took place in City Hall on Wednesday.

This beautiful volume is the final instalment of a trilogy and the culmination of a tremendous labour of love by author Pat Poland. Fittingly, the launch coincided with the 145th anniversary of Cork Fire Brigade’s very first turn-out, in October, 1877.

The author talked to The Echo about the drive behind this book and his previous works, For Whom The Bells Tolled: A History Of Cork Fire Services 1622-1900 and The Old Brigade: The Rebel City’s Firefighting Story 1900-1950.

“My father before me was a member of the Fire Brigade (Deputy Chief) so we lived adjacent to Headquarters, then located on Sullivan’s Quay,” Pat says. 

“Our house had bells and emergency lights on every landing. When the General Alarm sounded for a fire or other emergency in the station next door, the alarms clanged all over our house as well.

“I knew all the firemen by name, and indeed, as a child, played ball with them behind the station. When, later, I joined the Brigade, some of them would be my senior officers!

“Some of the firemen had been in the Old IRA, and some had served in the Brigade throughout the ‘Troubles’. Later, when I was a member of the Fire Brigade myself, some of these ‘old lads’ would drop in to the Mess for a cuppa, and regale us with stories from the past. I was fascinated, and thought that, one day, all this should be documented. This is when my interest was sparked.

“In those days, there was little interest in social history, the whole emphasis was on the physical-force side of things, the IRA, the Black and Tans, who did what to whom and so on. It is really only in recent years that the importance of recording our social history, too, is coming into its own.”

Pat would go on to spend 32 years in the fire service, based in Sullivan’s Quay, Watercourse Road, and at the service headquarters on Anglesea Street. When he retired, he devoted himself to researching and documenting the story of the fire and rescue services in Cork.

“Early indications revealed that, to treat the subject as it deserved, it could not be undertaken in just one book,” Pat says. “That is where the concept of a ‘trilogy’ began.”

He took his research seriously.

“I knew I had to acquire the necessary skills and so undertook an MA in Local History at UCC; I graduated in 2007,” he says. “Research was undertaken at the Church of Ireland Representative Body Library in Dublin, the National Library, the National Archives, and at the Insurance Institute of Ireland Archives. Locally, both City and County Library staff, and staff at the Cork City and County Archives, could not have been more helpful.”

One find was crucial.

“The Minutes of the Waterworks and Fire Brigade Committee are deposited in the Cork City and County Archives in Blackpool," Pat explains. “These constitute a fortnightly state of affairs of all matters appertaining to the Fire Brigade from 1877. It was long assumed they were destroyed in the burning of the City Hall by the Black and Tans in 1920, but, some years ago, they were discovered, in a decrepit state, in an old building at the Waterworks by Dr Colman O’Mahony of Monkstown. 

"It is no exaggeration to say that, without them, my research would not have been possible.”

Pat’s first book went back to the beginnings of the city, through the Vikings, the Great Fire of 1622, the Siege in 1690, and took the reader up to 1900, while the second looked at the Great War, the War of Independence, the Civil War, and the Emergency, and the impact they had on Cork’s firefighters - including the ‘Burning of Cork’.

For his final volume, Pat had his own memories as well as historical research, and he includes his experience of three major fire incident, the Opera House (1955), Sutton’s (1963), and Scott’s (1965).

“In 1955 I was only a schoolboy, but I helped fight the other two fires mentioned,” he said.

Illustrations are also a major part of this book, which includes 240 colour and monochrome images of fire brigade operations, staff and appliances from the latter half of the 20th century

“While the [first two] volumes were well-illustrated, I felt that there was a significant corpus of photographs available from 1950 on that the general public would have a great interest in, and having been influenced by a similar ‘Visual History’ produced on the Army, I decided the final volume in the ‘trilogy’ would largely comprise a book of illustrations,” Pat says.

The result is a beautiful volume with particular appeal for readers with an interest in local and social history, or a background or family members in the fire service or wider emergency services.

It is currently available online at buythe book.ie and on eBay, and at the Bookstór, Newman’s Mall, Kinsale, and is shortly due to be available in Waterstones on Patrick Street.