North Mon students celebrate school's Lord Mayor legacy

North Monastery Secondary School’s History Club visited Cork City Hall to meet the 16th Lord Mayor to have come from the North Monastery.

Lord Mayor of Cork, Damian Boylan, a councillor for the North West Ward, hosted the History Club, led by teacher Shane Ryan.

The club received a tour of City Hall from the Lord Mayor, and they made him an honorary member of the history club, which he accepted, and presented him with a gift, a framed list of all the past pupil Lord Mayors that had come before him.

The first was Patrick Kennedy, who was mayor in 1879, followed by Daniel J Gavin in 1881, Eugene Crean in 1899 and Joseph Barret in 1905.

Both Tomás MacCurtain who was shot in his Blackpool home in 1920 and Terence MacSwiney, who took over as Lord Mayor before being captured and dying of hunger strike in an English prison that same year, were past pupils of the school also and appear on the list.

They were followed by Donal O’Callaghan later in 1920, Walter Furlomng in 1951, Patrick McGrath in 1952, Anthony Barry in 1961, Augustine Healy in 1964 and 1975, Paud Black in 1981, Dan Wallace in 1985, Bernard Allen in 1988, John Murray in 1993, Tim Falvey in 1994, Michael O’Connell in 2010.

Councillor Tony Fitzgerald is also on the list of Lord Mayor past pupils for his time in the role in 2017, as well as Mr Boylan in 2026.

Mr Boylan was elected Lord Mayor in June, by 19 votes to eight, with one abstention, before the ceremonial passing of the historic lord mayor’s chain by Fergal Dennehy.

He summed up his policy for the coming year with a simple two-word phrase: “Be sound”.

The school, which is set to celebrate its 215th anniversary later this year, holds the record for the most Lord Mayors of Cork.

Other past pupils include three past presidents of UCC, famous actors such as Joe Lynch, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Edward Mulhare,  comedian Niall Tóibín, and famous inventors such as Dr Vincent Barry, who discovered the cure for leprosy, John Philip Holland who invented the submarine.

More recent past pupils include snooker player Aaron Hill and Young Offenders actor Daniel Power.