Nostalgia: A brief look back at the history of Bishop Lucey Park 36 years on 

The €46.05 million Grand Parade Quarter project took a step forward at last month’s full council meeting as Cork city councillors approved the Part 8 Planning for the Beamish and Crawford Quarter Infrastructure Public Realm Improvement Scheme and the Bishop Lucey Park Regeneration Scheme.

The Grand Parade Quarter project will see a complete renewal of the area around the southern gateway to the medieval city, connecting the Grand Parade and a series of historic lanes, streets and Bishop Lucey Park with the south channel of the River Lee and the city centre business core.

Cork City Council has described it as “one of the most transformative and ambitious public realm renewal programmes ever undertaken in the city”.

Bishop Lucey Park is to be completely renewed based on an award-winning architectural design that opens up the park to the wider city centre, re-imagines space within it, has many biodiversity gains and protects and highlights the city’s medieval wall.

The popular city amenity, named after Bishop Cornelius Lucey, who served the diocese of Cork from 1945 to 1983, was officially opened by the Lord Mayor of Cork Alderman Dan Wallace, TD, on December 6, 1985.

The opening of the park was one of the events marking Cork 800, a celebration of 800 years of Cork's status as a chartered city with powers of local government since the granting of the charter by Prince John in 1185.

Among the interesting features of the park is the entrance archway, which was originally the entrance of the former city corn market at Anglesea Street before the archway was disassembled and later reassembled at the park entrance. 

Notable sculptures in the park include the 'Onion Seller', a bronze sculpture commemorating the street traders on Cornmarket Street by Seamus Murphy, and a bronze fountain with eight swans by John Behan symbolizing Cork's 800 years as a chartered city.

Bishop Lucey Park lies within the area of the historic medieval core of Cork city.

In 1997, an archaeological excavation of a site just outside the present-day park found evidence of a timber fence built from oak, with archaeologists estimating that the oak was cut down sometime between 1115 and 1122.

According to Cork Past and Present - an online service of Cork City Libraries providing information on Cork's history, culture, places, people, and events- development work on the park in 1984 a stone structure was uncovered along the line of the old city wall. 

Archaeologists on site felt that the structure may have been the remains of Hopewell Castle, one of the defensive towers along the city walls.

The tower was, however, demolished before it could be properly excavated.

Later that year, the section of the old wall visible just inside the main gates of Bishop Lucey Park, was excavated. Shards of pottery from Normandy, from the Saintonge region of France, from England, and from other parts of Ireland were also found during the excavation of the wall. 

These shards and some other finds are now housed in Cork Public Museum.