Kieran McCarthy: ‘My astronaut story’

In October 1999, a young man from Ballinlough with bucketloads of ambition and a profound love for his city wrote an article for this newspaper.

That article was the first of what has become a 25 year weekly column in what originally was Inside Cork and what became the Cork Independent called Our City Our Town. That young man was the one and only Kieran McCarthy.

This month marks 25 years exactly since the beginning of Our City Our Town, a column that, in deeply exploring the history of Cork city, has itself become a part of Leeside history.

A historical geographer by trade, Kieran has been an independent councillor on Cork City Council since 2009 and served as the Lord Mayor of Cork in 2023/24.

“I think the original column was only meant to be for a few weeks, way back in October 1999,” recalled Kieran. “Eddie Lyons was the person who gave the column a shot. He wanted a larger set of articles on the history of Cork.

“I think when you read the first article in 1999, it kind of gives the impression that it would be for a year or two, just to cover some brief histories of Cork, but over the years it's just grown and grown,” he added.

With close to 1,300 articles under his belt, Kieran has never been short of something to write about when it comes to Cork, describing the city as a “bottomless pit” of history, stories, and heritage.

“It never ceases to amaze me,” he said.

“There's still a way to go, lots of stuff that I want to comment on and research.

“You become very well versed in Cork history over the years, and you know where things are, and it becomes a kind of language.

“It's something I'm very proud of. It's a nice legacy to have,” added Kieran.

In summer 2023, Kieran fulfilled a lifelong dream by becoming the Lord Mayor of Cork, a role he took in his stride and one that tied in well with his knowledge of local history.

He said: “When I was 10 or 11 years old, what I wanted to be when I grew up was the Lord Mayor of Cork. Other kids wanted to be an astronaut. Never in my wildest dreams would I have been swept away and become my astronaut story.”

Kieran said that writing his column for the Cork Independent had a massive knock-on effect on his mayoralty and how he presented his speeches and gathered his thoughts.

He continued: “It was a really great honour to be lord mayor. There's such a blank canvas and it's up to yourself what you want to do with the year. One of the things that began to emerge early in my mayoralty was that I had three messages. One of the messages was all about the power of stories and that stories matter in Cork. The second message was always about the city's coat of arms, the safe harbour for people. The third message was always about the future.

“With the ‘Statio Bene Fide Carinis’, (A Safe Harbour for Ships), I've been lucky to be able to study the history of the ships and the harbour through the column, but as lord mayor I thought, maybe it's not just ships – maybe it's a safe harbour for people as well, that we're lucky to live in Cork with all its challenges and all its positives,” Kieran added.

During his term as lord mayor, Kieran attended more than 1,600 events around the city and said he was blown away by the depth of community activity.

“From a person in a small building in the corner of a street doing something to help two or three people, to something like 100 people helping people. I think the essence of community and the roots of community run way deeper than what we think, and we just need to mind those stories,” he explained.

“We need to very much celebrate the volunteerism we have in the city a lot more, try to build a new generation of people interested,” added Kieran.

Recalling one specific event he attended as lord mayor, Kieran said he by chance had stumbled across records of a lecture that had taken place in the same area and on the same topic 100 years earlier.

“I remember there was one event, it was about the future of education, and the same week 100 years ago there was actually a lecture on the future of education,” he said.

“I ran through that paper and what they were trying to do in 1924 was as relevant as what we are trying to do today. It was interesting to join up the dots, that some of the stories in Cork repeat themselves.”

Through his service as lord mayor, Kieran said he also learned a lot about the character of Cork and where its strengths and weaknesses lie.

“I think we do need leaders to rally the city more, to push it forward more and help it believe in itself a little bit more.

“Cork is one of 500 cities in Atlantic Europe. Our history way back in time was trading with Atlantic cities and I think we need to be more aware of those cities that we were trading with that are now like mini-Corks, small scale European cities.”

Looking ahead, Kieran said he is considering putting himself forward for the general election, but that he also feels very privileged to represent Cork at the European Committee of the Regions in Brussels, which he has done for the past ten years and would like to continue for another five year term.

“If I get back on that European committee for the next five years, I mean, I'm quite happy to be at that level,” he said.

“Either in Dáil Éireann or at European level, I'll be able to debate with other local politicians, regional politicians. I mean, I get to debate with the presidents of regions and directly elected mayors of big cities, small cities.

“I'm lucky that I can go from local level, from doing projects with school kids, writing the history column, and then all the way to European level where I can showcase why communities and neighbourhoods need to be looked after and all the different difficulties and challenges, whether that's housing or energy or climate action,” added Kieran.