Group welcomes €250k restoration grant for iconic Cork landmark

News of €250,000 in Government funding to restore Cork’s historic Shandon clock and tower has lifted the spirits of members of a group dedicated to realising the potential of one of the northside’s most famous areas.

The funding, awarded under the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage’s Historic Structures Fund (HSF), will be used to repair the clock, which was installed in 1847 by the then Cork Corporation, and is the responsibility of Cork City Council.

The clock, known to generations as ‘the four-faced liar’, has been telling the wrong time on three faces since last May, while its eastern face has been stopped on six o’clock for as long.

Great News

Shandon St butcher James Nolan, a third-generation trader and a member of Shandon Area Renewal Association, said news of the grant was most welcome.

“It’s great news, and there’s an application in for funding for the Butter Market and the Weighmaster’s House as well. So hopefully it will snowball rejuvenation for the Shandon area, and I know St Anne’s Shandon are doing a lot of work to restore and refurbish the church as well,” said Mr Nolan.

“Hopefully it will all be good news for Shandon, but we won’t know until later in the year whether the other application is successful, but there’s a definite sense of positivity in the area.”

Important heritage asset

Independent councillor and former lord mayor Kieran McCarthy said the investment by the Government in St Anne’s Shandon was very welcome.

“I am glad that the movement on such an important heritage asset was quick through the national Historic Structure Fund,” he said.

“It will be great to see the clock dial mechanism revamped and the clock faces moving again.”

Sinn Féin councillor Kenneth Collins said he was delighted the grant had been awarded, having raised the issue of funding for Shandon several times at council level.