Every now and a Glen...

A new book tracing the history of the Glen in Cork city’s northside back to the early 18th century will be launched this month.

Written by Cork author Gerard Martin O’Brien, ‘Faeries, Felons and Fine Gentlemen: A History of the Glen, Cork from 1800 to 1980’ explores the Glen’s progression from a proto-industrial zone to the public amenity space it is today.

O’Brien was born in Cork in 1953 and grew up in the ‘Engineer’s House’ at the heart of Goulding’s Glen, as the Glen River Park was then known.

His latest book is the result of extensive research into the history of the area as well as his own personal memories and experiences of living in the Glen.

The book offers a distinctive insight into how a local area with a unique character contributes to the collective heritage of Cork city.

In the book, O’Brien looks at the 6 mills that once populated the Lee Valley: 4 corn mills, a flax mill, and an iron mill. In 1803, a distillery was added which later became Goulding’s first fertiliser factory in 1856. O’Brien’s account rediscovers these lost buildings and their owners, from the Dodge family in the 1700s to Sir Basil Goulding, who donated the Glen to be used as a public amenity.

O’Brien writes: “Fortunes were made and lost along the way: the hapless Humphreys Manders went bankrupt, Daniel Callaghan was the richest self-made man in Cork, and Anthony Perrier patented one of the first continuous whiskey stills in Europe. In the shadow of these industrial entrepreneurs, a social space was opening up for the growing city.

“The Fenian, Brian Dillon, nostalgically remembered the Glen mills in a poem written when in prison in England. Countless children learned to swim in the ‘Hatch’, and to play hurling on the ‘Black Patch’.”

Together with the archival research that forms the greater part of the book, the author shares personal recollections of growing up in the centre of the Glen in the 1950s and ‘60s.

Over the years, various short pieces have been written about the Glen but according to O’Brien, the area and its rich history have never been the subject of a longer, thorough work.

O’Brien studied at NUI Galway, the University of Bologna and the University of Limerick, focusing on 19th and early 20th century Irish history and literature.

He has lectured on several third level educational programmes in Ireland and the United States. He has also worked on numerous publishing and heritage projects as well as writing two historical novels, ‘A Kind of Innocence’ and ‘The Key is Turned’.