Throwback Thursday: Summer Show a long tradition for Cork people

AT this time of year, the old, traditional agricultural fairs come into their own once again, in tune with the summer season.

Did you have a local fair close to you, growing up?

Glencar is always one of the first, held way out in a maze of tiny Kerry laneways, and still retaining much of that old charm of yesteryear, where the elders of the area come together to talk cattle and crops, youngsters compete in step dancing competitions, and the womenfolk eye each other’s cakes and jams jealously, to see who has gained the coveted First.

Then all the others follow in turn, as they have done for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

A good trader or cattle dealer would know automatically which fair was coming up next. Children in West Cork chant “Ballyvourney, Ballingeary, and then Bantry” to remind themselves of the sequence in their region, which more or less comes to an end with the big agricultural show down on the shoreline by Bantry Bay.

Puck Fair has been held on the same three days in August for millennia (and well before the English put an official stamp on it).

But what about the greatest of all (to Leeside minds anyway) - Cork Summer Show? Oh, wasn’t that something to look forward to all year? Held since time immemorial, or so we thought it surely must be, at the venerable showgrounds down by the Marina.

It was back in 1886 that the County of Cork Agricultural Society first resolved on hosting a two-day summer show. Exhibitors could display their products for the princely cost of half a crown (two shillings and sixpence, which is 12.5p in decimal coinage, although, including inflation, that is about €20 today).

By the second year, show classes were expanding, as were special exhibitions such as butter making and sheepdog trials. The makers of the latest farm machinery began to realise the possibilities of displaying at this event and from then on they became a staple feature.

Those first shows were actually held at the city’s Corn Exchange (where the City Hall now stands), but it soon became clear that a larger and hopefully more permanent home needed to be found.

Thus it was that in 1892, the Agricultural Society leased 27 acres at the old Cork Racecourse in Ballintemple and invested in all the necessary building work, including exhibition halls and stabling.

And so the grand old Munster Agricultural Society Summer Show came into being, the one so many of us will remember with deep affection.

In the time of our parents and our grandparents, going to the Cork Summer Show was part of life, part of the unchangeable calendar. Indeed, some businesses closed down completely during the show afternoons so that both managers and staff could make their way to the Marina.

Groups organised trips from outlying towns. In 1955, for example, Johnstown Rural Science Group held their annual outing to Cork Summer Show, combining it with a visit to Ford’s factory.

Whole households planned their coveted day’s enjoyment. Less fortunate children raced down to the Marina to see how they could manage to get in without paying. And, of course, visitors poured in from every other part of Ireland, bringing groomed and cosseted prize cattle, sheep and pigs, or steering their horseboxes towards the stables prior to checking out the show rings or jumping enclosure.

By the late 20th century, though, economic recession and the shift away from agriculture and towards other fields such as IT and pharmaceuticals, dealt a death blow to this great old tradition, finalised in a compulsory purchase order for the show’s legendary site.

For a few years we languished; then, in 2009, a new Summer Show was organised outside the city, off the new Ballincollig Bypass (in the days when the old show was at its height, Ballincollig was just one street, and nobody could have envisaged the need for a huge bypass - how times have changed!)

That new Summer Show is coming up this weekend, and will doubtless attract thousands to its bright stalls and entertainments. It’s a real family event in the new style, no denying it.

But how many Corkonians jogging or strolling down the Marina or the Boggy Road glance over at where the proud complex once stood, and hark back to their childhood when echoes of announcements or music could be heard from far away, when the whole world seemed to be bustling down and crowding through the turnstiles to enjoy the indescribable atmosphere and see all there was to be seen?

It was part of our lives, as it had been for our parents’ lives before us.

Competition in handicrafts was very keen right from the beginning. In 1956, reported the Munster Tribune, “Miss Florrie Saiche, from Fermoy Road, and Miss Patricia Roche, of St Fanahan’s Place, won a first and second place respectively in the Needlework competition at the recent Cork Summer Show. Both are students at the Mitchelstown Vocational School Day Classes.”

“Oh we would all try to enter for the Handicrafts competitions,” says Katie O’Brien. “The little printed catalogue came out about a month before, and we would go through the tiny print at the kitchen table, deciding which one we would try for.

“I made crochet tablemats for several years, and then switched to felt toys. One year, I got a First for my multi-coloured felt dragon - I was so thrilled!

“To actually enter for a class, you had to go down to the office of the Munster Agricultural Society, which was, I think, up some steep stairs at the South Mall end of Princes Street - or maybe it was Cook Street?

“Anyway, a strict little old lady behind a wooden counter would take your entry money and give you a receipt. The finished items had to be handed in several days before the show.”

“If you were entering plants or flowers, though, you had to bring them down on the morning the show opened,” Katie’s friend, Margaret, reminds her. “I remember one year my sister and I were entering several little cacti in pots, and we had come down to the showgrounds with them, accompanied by our young cousins. We hit on the wheeze of giving one little plant to each of the other kids, so that we could all walk in free with our entries!”

Margaret remembers vividly the wonder of the flower tents. “It was the first time I had seen delphiniums, and their height and incredible colour stayed with me ever after.

I would often try to win a prize in the Miniature Garden class, but never did. I would spend ages arranging moss and stones and little trees and a scrap of mirror for a pond.

And then there were the prize cattle to admire, as they were hosed down, shampooed, combed, made as elegant as possible. In 1955, a pedigree dairy shorthorn called Jennie Deans hit the headlines when she yielded no less than 76 lbs of milk in 24 hours at the show. In addition, her average butter fat yield was found to be way above the norm at 5.16%, giving her the top prize in her class.

It cost extra to go into the jumping enclosure but it was always packed, as adults and children alike watched avidly the cleverest horses who lifted their heels at just the right moment going over a tricky double gate. In 1952, a well-known Waterford horsewoman, Miss Ivy de Bromhead, scored a notable jumping victory against a field of some 30 other competitors. Including three Lieutenant Colonels, no less.

Do you have fond memories of the great old Cork Summer Show in its immemorial grounds down off the Marina? Do tell us if you do.

Email jokerrigan1@gmail.com or leave a comment on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/echolivecork.

Last week, we heard Eileen Barry’s memories of being sent to Irish college in Ballingeary and how she hated it there, and learned very little if anything of our native language. In later years, though, she says that a fortnight in west Kerry, at Dunquin, courtesy of UCC, was the best time of her life, and all the Irish she has today can be credited to that sojourn

It does seem the West Kerry experience for learning the language was generally a far happier one than that found in the stricter Cork colleges, where the atmosphere was one of a boarding school with a multiplicity of rules and regulations and strict controls.

One can of course see the point of the regulations - trying to keep hundreds of young people quiet and well behaved in this environment must have been an impossible task - but it did lead to unhappy memories in many cases, and all too often a resentment for our native tongue that the original creators of the scheme surely never envisaged.

Fintan Bloss has written to confirm that going down West was definitely a happy experience for him, when he spent a month in Ballyferriter in a long-ago summer.

“I attach a photo taken of me on Slea Head when I was down there with my school pals, John Mintern, of Ballintemple, and Sean Coughlan, from near St Vincent’s Convent on Peacock Lane,” said Fintan.

“We stayed in a guest house called Teach na Feile, and breakfast was porridge and a boiled egg (or Sticky Jimmy and a boiled egg, as John called it.) We went down with the North Mon school, and I can remember Sean Coughlan’s parents visiting him, and me delightedly receiving a parcel of goodies that my mother had thoughtfully sent down with them.

“You were always hungry as a schoolkid, and all that fresh air really whetted your appetite.

“Mark Cagney of TV3 fame was staying in the same Teach na Feile, which is still going, I think. Mark was from a different school in Cork, but staying in the same guest house with his fellow school mates, I think Christians in Sidney Place was the school he went to.

“Our bikes came down from Cork on a lorry, and we were cycling along Slea Head overlooking the Blasket Islands when the photo was taken. I can’t remember who took it though.

“We went to school each day in Ballyferriter and had to keep a diary as Gaeilge of course, of our daily activities. We would later study Peig Sayers for our Inter Cert, ach sin sceil eile! The cupla focail still come in handy though. You don’t forget.

“We climbed Mount Brandon on one of our daily adventures, with proper boots, or daisy roots as my late dad Don called them from the song My Old Man’s A Dustman, by Lonnie Donegan. Ah, ni fheicfimid laethanta mar seo aris!”

Well, we may not see their like again, Fintan, but you have recaptured the careless joys of childhood and summertime so well in your memories. Wonderful stuff.

Let’s hear from more of you about that summertime study to improve your grasp of Irish. Did you go into the wild West or were you immured in a strict college? Have you loved your native language ever since or resented it?

Whatever you felt, tell us! I told you how to above, but in case you forgot, here it is again. Email jokerrigan1@gmail.com. Or leave a comment on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/echolivecork.