Row over Victoria Quarter branding

A war of words broke out in City Hall last night over councillors and officials calling MacCurtain Street the Victorian Quarter. 

The row broke out as the Lord Mayor announced that a special meeting will take place at the end of January to commemorate the first meeting of Cork City Council in 1920, when Tomás MacCurtain was the lord mayor. 

Sinn Féin Cllr Thomas Gould saw red when some councillors referred to the street as the Victorian Quarter added that it was an insult to the memory of Tomás MacCurtain and his family, given that he was shot dead during the War of Independence by the Royal Irish Constabulary and given he said that Queen Victoria was the so called “famine queen”.

Cllr Gould was of the opinion that Tomás MacCurtain’s memory was being “diminished and diluted”.

Cllr Gould said he had submitted a motion before the local elections in May urging that the term Victorian Quarter was erased from all official council documents while he insisted that councillors stop using the term too.

Workers Party Cllr Ted Tynan said he would back this type of motion.

The Victorian Quarter was established as marketing tool in the past few years by the traders in the area to rejuvenate life back into the area and encourage tourists and local to visit the area. 

The Victorian Quarter website explains that the name is a tribute to the buildings, not Queen Victoria. "The story of the Victorian Quarter is just beginning, although it gets its name from the area’s gorgeous old Victorian buildings which once housed merchants, traders and craftsmen. The story of the Victorian Quarter is just beginning, although it gets its name from the area’s gorgeous old Victorian buildings which once housed merchants, traders and craftsmen."

Fianna Fáil’s Colm Keheller said: “We all know it’s called MacCurtain Street but the Victoria Quarter is bigger than MacCurtain Street. Let’s face it, I can remember MacCurtain Street when it was decimated and the businesses came together to call it the Victorian Quarter and it boomed again.” 

Cllr Gould seemed to take issue with what Cllr Keheller was saying and began to interrupt him with the Lord Mayor having to call for order on the council floor. He asked that councillors stop shouting over one another and to “behave themselves”. 

Cllr Keheller claimed that Cllr Gould was only looking for headlines in newspapers with his take on the matter. 

Fine Gael’s Shane O’Callaghan sided with Cllr Gould adding that the area shouldn’t be named after Queen Victoria. However his party mate Joe Kavanagh said that there dozens of streets and terraces named after English generals and royalty. 

“At the end of the day, this had nothing to do with Cork City Council. The Victorian Quarter is being used as a marketing tool and has nothing to do with history. Our history will always be our history whether we like it or not. It’s being sold as the food and drinking quarter of the city.”

However Cllr Gould wasn’t finished fighting his corner and asked: “Who would name a food and drink quarter after a famine queen?”