Hornpipe Magazine Book Reviews Vol. 7

By Michael Quinlin | The Globe Pequot Press

Reading Quinlin’s book is a walking tour of Boston through the ages. A scholar and historian by trade he methodically dissects Boston with chronological precision taking us through the alleys, streets and commons of America’s most prestigious Irish city—Boston having the advantage of early immigration when this nation was forming.

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Volume 7, Issue 2

Forgotten Cork: Photographs from the Day Collection

Colin Rynne and Billy Wigham

Forgotten Cork is a crystal ball-view into the past and should be welcome in any home especially those of you with roots in Cork. This is one of the many new revelations of Cork City that are bestowed upon us during their year of celebration as the Cultural City of Europe 2005.

Robert Day was a successful businessman that ran a large saddlery business and sports shop in Cork. He married into a wealthy ironmongery family, Scott and Co. His son, A. R. 'Alec' Day (1902 - 1980), indulged more in his hobby of photography rather than running the family business. This collection is but a few photos taken by Alec and his father.

The photographs are broken in sections: The City Streets, Work and Play, Cornmarket and the Coal Quay, Trains and Ships, Bridges, Boats and the Harbor. This rare collection of glass plates reveal such past times as swinging, riding bicycles and horse races. They also document fires, trollies, and slices of life revealing an accurate snapshot into the way of life in Cork. There are a series of rare photos of St. Fin Barre's Cathedral shortly before its demolition in 1865 and images of women in Kinsale cloaks, shawlies and every day life in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Most impressive is a series of photos of the Titanic leaving Cork harbor. Consider that the photos are not of any great composition or artistic value as in comparison to Ansel Adams. This book's value is in the pure documentary of a time and place when few photos were taken.

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Pearse's Patriots: St. Edna's and the Cult of Boyhood

Cork University Press

Even though it is more than eighty years after his death, celebrated Irish patriot Patrick Pearse continues to exert a strong level of interest in his short life. Much has been written about Pearse’s political life but there is a scarcity of work on Pearse’s legacy as a social reformer and headmaster of St. Edna’s, a school founded to provide a new Irish aristocracy with firm ideals of Irishness and the Irish masculine identity.

Elaine Sisson, senior lecturer at the Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology, draws upon unpublished material from her doctoral thesis to explore the visual and myth-making writings of national identity and masculinity, which the school so successfully promoted.

When the gates of St Edna’s opened in September, 1908, Patrick Pearse dreamed that the school would be “an educational adventure” in nationalist schooling. ...

St. Edna’s roll call reveals the appeal of the school to committed “Irish-Irelanders”. ...The commitment of the teaching staff to nationalist politics was well established and five of the staff, including Pearse, were executed for their part in the Rising of 1916.