No timeline to repair Cork's iconic Shandon clocks 

With the Four-Faced Liar telling the wrong time on three of its faces and stopped on the fourth, the horologist who for years maintained the clocks on St Anne’s Shandon has stepped back due to serious safety concerns.

The 253-year-old clock tower on Shandon is arguably the most defining image of Cork city, but its reputation as an unreliable timekeeper is probably almost as old as the clock mechanism which was installed in 1847 by the then Cork Corporation.

According to locals in the Shandon area, the clocks on St Anne’s Shandon, which are the responsibility of Cork City Council, have been telling the wrong time since at least last May.

At 3.30pm yesterday afternoon, three of the tower’s four clock faces were working, but, with the big hand at 12 and the small hand at eight, they were out by either seven and a half hours or four and a half hours. The east face was stuck, as it has been for months, at six o’clock.

Horologist steps back due to safety concerns 

The clocks at Shandon have, for many years, been maintained by Philip Stokes of Stokes Clocks and Watches on MacCurtain St.

Speaking to The Neil Prendeville Show on Cork’s RedFM, Mr Stokes said he had “stepped away from” the maintenance of the clock mechanism, due to concerns about the safety of small windows on the clock faces which, he said, were in “fairly bad shape”.

“The wooden windows went in day one and they’re carrying quite a considerable weight on them and they are in disrepair and I’m afraid of a weakness on them,” he said.

A spokesperson for Cork City Council said the council was “preparing an application to the national Historic Structures Fund for the necessary funding to repair the clock at St Anne’s, Shandon”.

The Department of Housing funds the Historic Structures Fund, but it is administered by local authorities.

Cork City Council did not respond when asked the estimated time it would take to complete repairs, or how the council proposed to address the safety concerns raised by Mr Stokes.

Shandon St butcher James Nolan said it was a shame to see the clocks not working properly.

“Everybody likes to look up and see the clocks on Shandon give the right time, and that was something people all over the city always liked to do,” Mr Nolan said.

“There was a woman above in Kerryhall Rd always said she didn’t need a watch or a clock in the house, she only had to look out her window at Shandon.”