The City Hall, Cork () is a civic building in

Cork Cork or CORK may refer to: Materials * Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product ** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container ***Wine cork Places Ireland * Cork (city) ** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

which houses the administrative headquarters of

Cork City Council Cork City Council ( ga, Comhairle Cathrach Chorcaí) is the authority responsible for local government in the city of Cork in Ireland. As a city council, it is governed by the Local Government Act 2001. Prior to the enactment of the 2001 Act, ...

History

The current building is likely the 6th or 7th city hall to have existed in Cork city. In 1833, the original building on the site was completed, when the city's corn exchange was moved from Corn Market Street to Albert Quay. The corn exchange was designed by Cork architect

Henry Hill Henry Hill Jr. (June 11, 1943 – June 12, 2012) was an American mobster who was associated with the Lucchese crime family of New York City from 1955 until 1980, when he was arrested on narcotics charges and became an FBI informant. Hill testif ...

, and constructed by

Sir Thomas Deane ''Sir'' is a formal honorific address in English language, English for men, derived from Sire in the High Middle Ages. Both are derived from the old French "Sieur" (Lord), brought to England by the French-speaking Normans, and which now exist i ...

. In 1852 the building was converted and expanded upon by Sir John Benson to facilitate the Cork Exhibition, opening on 10 June 1852. In 1883, following the closure of the exhibition, the building was offered to the Cork Corporation at a price of

IR£ The pound (Irish: ) was the currency of the Republic of Ireland until 2002. Its ISO 4217 code was IEP, and the symbol was £ (or IR£ for distinction). The Irish pound was replaced by the euro on 1 January 1999. Euro currency did not begin cir ...

10,000 and became property of the Corporation in 1893, following the passing of the Cork Corn Markets Act, 1889. The building was opened to the public as a city hall in roughly 1903, and a brass plaque commemorating this event is on display in the

Cork Public Museum Cork Public Museum ( ga, Músaem Poiblí Chorcaí) is a city museum in Cork, Ireland. Housed in a mid-19th century building within Fitzgerald Park in the Mardyke area of the city, the museum's exhibits focus mainly on the history and archaeolog ...

. This original city hall was destroyed on 11 December 1920 by the

Black and Tans Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have ...

during the

Irish War of Independence The Irish War of Independence () or Anglo-Irish War was a guerrilla war fought in Ireland from 1919 to 1921 between the Irish Republican Army (IRA, the army of the Irish Republic) and British forces: the British Army, along with the quasi-mil ...

as part of the

Burning of Cork The burning of Cork () by British forces took place on the night of 11–12 December 1920, during the Irish War of Independence. It followed an Irish Republican Army (IRA) ambush of a British Auxiliary patrol in the city, which wounded twelve Au ...

. Following a design competition, designs by Alfred Jones and Stephen Kelly (Jones and Kelly architects, based in Dublin) were selected, and the construction contract for the replacement civic buildings awarded to John Sisk & Son. The foundation stone of the new City Hall building was laid by

Éamon de Valera Éamon de Valera (, ; first registered as George de Valero; changed some time before 1901 to Edward de Valera; 14 October 1882 – 29 August 1975) was a prominent Irish statesman and political leader. He served several terms as head of governm ...

on 9 July 1932. The cost of this new building was provided by the British Government in the 1930s as a gesture of reconciliation. On 24 April 1935, Cork Corporation held a meeting in the new hall for the first time, when the Council Chambers were first opened. The City Hall was officially opened by de Valera on 8 September 1936.

Architecture

The structure's entry in the

National Inventory of Architectural Heritage The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage (NIAH) maintains a central database of the architectural heritage of the Republic of Ireland covering the period since 1700 in complement to the Archaeological Survey of Ireland, which focuses on arc ...

describes it as one of the city's "monumental classical buildings" and its site as important. Unlike the original city hall, the current building originally didn't bear the city arms on its exterior, though it does feature mosaics of the arms contemporaneous with the building's construction on both the floor of the entrance hall and also on the tympanum above the stage of the concert hall. In 1985, as part of commemorations of the 800th year of the Cork Charter, a limestone plinth bearing the arms was erected outside the building. The building is faced with dressed limestone quarried in Little Island. A major extension was completed by ABK Architects in 2007 and opened that year.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:City Hall, Cork Buildings and structures in Cork (city)

Government buildings in the Republic of Ireland Government buildings completed in 1935

History

Architecture

See also

References

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