Kieran McCarthy on fulfilling his dream of becoming Cork's first citizen

It might have been getting no homework, or getting the rest of the day off school, but Kieran McCarthy remembers being 11 in Coláiste Chríost Rí and looking forward to the annual visit by the new Lord Mayor.

“I’m sure we were one of the earlier schools, 10am and the rest of the day was off,” Mr McCarthy says as he laughs. 

“I remember some of the boys who lived in the county were told there was no point in coming in.

“It was like a Christmas Day, and you wouldn’t even know who the Lord Mayor was. 

“They’d come in and they’d give a speech and there’d be a lady mayoress or there wouldn’t be.”

He says he dreamed then that one day he might be Lord Mayor himself, and he says that now he is looking forward to school visits.

The incoming Lord Mayor meets The Echo for a chat in the churchyard of St Anne’s Shandon, as he has just come from a walking tour of Blackpool.

He responds with a shrug to the slagging that he’s far from the Douglas Road now, pointing out, not unreasonably, that he will be Lord Mayor for all of Cork city.

He was always fascinated with history, and he remembers that, when Micheál Martin was Lord Mayor from 1992 to 1993, the future taoiseach had a history project, and a young Kieran McCarthy entered and came second in his category.

One of his ambitions was to be a primary school teacher, and he began to teach local history in schools to build up experience. 

Not getting enough points for Mary I, he says he finds, almost 20 years after his BA degree, that he is involved heavily in the city and in local government.

“It’s been a journey with this history and this heritage, which in 2009 led me to go into the council chamber, and not enter as, ‘oh, I want to be a politician’, more, ‘how can I play with the city a lot more, what can I do, I can add my voice — I have the heritage element of how the city came together, I’m big into community-building, promoting education, giving people a voice’,” Mr McCarthy says.

“All of a sudden, I was swept away on what has now been a 14-year journey that has brought me to wearing the chain.”.

Cllr McCarthy has a BA in archaeology and geography, and a PhD in geography, with Cork playing a major role in those studies, and he has built “loads and loads” of walking tours.

“I do find in the walking tours there are always old faces and new faces, and it’s been really interesting, in that this is also my 30th year giving walking tours, because I started when I was 16, and I’m now 46 this year.”

His 30th book, Curiosities of County Cork, is going to press and he has to proofread it the day before he becomes Lord Mayor. 

The 30 books tell their own story, he says, with three of them on the River Lee Valley, two of them on Cork Harbour, two on West Cork, and he says he is constantly being pulled to other stories.

Another book, a walking trail from the southside to the northside, is a sequel to a book he wrote, from west to east, a few years ago.

“It’s been a 35-year journey from that 11-year-old, where I wanted to become a primary schoolteacher and instead I’ve spent 35 years looking at how the city developed and its people and what makes it actually tick,” he says.

“It’s not just the heritage. 

“I have met people who have said ‘oh, Kieran will just put a focus on the history and sure that’s of no use to us in the present day’, but I have spent the last 14 years sitting on housing committees, on roads committees, on planning committees, speaking up on dereliction and trying to make sure social housing projects go through, and make sure the most affordable affordable housing projects can be created.”

He adds that he is “not just a one-trick pony with the history”.

“I’m actually quite vocal in committees, I tend to be constructive because at the end of the day, you have to work with people.

“When I entered the council chamber, I probably entered naively. There’s no councillor in my family way back in time, no TD, no senator. 

“It’s also interesting for my family to watch me on this journey and this adventure,” he says.

“I’ve been lucky with my parents, my teachers, over time, through school, through my younger years.”

Cllr McCarthy adds that his experience as a councillor has been very rewarding, and it is a role he continues to cherish.

“When I take the chain as Lord Mayor, it’s not just representing the city. 

“I’d like to work closely with the incoming county mayor as well because there is a massive divide between Cork City Council and Cork County Council,” he says.

When asked what he will do differently during his year as Lord Mayor, he replies ruefully that it may be more what he will have to drop.

“I have run history programmes in schools for the last 25 years, I have three books out this year, with a possible fourth one as well, and then I run the walking tours,” he says.

“I have 30 schools with 1,000 kids involved in the Discover Cork schools heritage programme, part of which is kindly funded by Cork City Council,” he says.

“There’s all these milestones coming up.”

He says he plans on running a July and August series entitled The Lord Mayor’s Historical Walking Tours.

“It’ll still be the same tour, except suddenly here’s this historical chain from 1787 that actually connects into all of the heritage of our city,” he explains.

“For me, it’s going to be very emotional because I know the value of the chain because I have been forever reading the stories of what the mayors and lord mayors have done back through time,” he says.

As we exit the churchyard at St Anne’s Shandon, Cork’s newest Lord Mayor talks about the history of St Anne’s, noting that iconic as it is, it is far from the first church to occupy that site, and he points to the bits of the architecture recycled from earlier Shandons.

And, whisper it, he says the design is not even unique to Cork.

If you want to know more, you’ll just have to come along for the next of The Lord Mayor’s Historical Walking Tours.