Foreword
Maritime Cork by DAPHNE POCHIN MOULD
I am much honoured to be asked to write the foreword for the booklet be ing produced by the admirable group ofmaritime minded Cork citizens, organising, as a contribution to the Cork 800 celebrations, a splendid maritime exhibition. I greatly hope_ that this fine initiative will lead, as those who have taken it hope, to the establishment in Cork of a permanent Maritime Museum. Few cities anywhere in the wide world are more deser ving of having their maritime history recorded in a museum, both to celebrate a remarkable past, and more important still, as an inspiration for the creation of a still more remarkable future.
Cork is a city born of the sea and of the ocean highways chat lead from her to the rest of the world. It was by sea chat the first settlers arrived, maybe around 6000 B.C., and the flint cools they fashioned are scill ro be found along Cork coasts and up the big Cork rivers. By sea, the Bronze Age cop per miners of west Cork brought in the tin to make bronze. By sea, Sc. Ciaran of Cape Clear, 'first born of the saints oflreland' went to continen tal Europe long before the coming of Sc. Patrick and brought back the first news of the Christian gospel- Ireland's first Christian church was almost certainly in county Cork. By sea, the prosperous cattle farmers and big land owners of the great ring forts, brought in items like wine and oil, and the broken amphorae, big jars, in which they were shipped, turn up in ex cavations, jars made in the eastern Mediterranean. And St. Finbar, mov ing down che river Lee from his Gougane Barra hermitage, laid the foun dations of the city of Cork, on a rise of dry land in the river marshes at the head of che sea, of Cork Harbour. Was St. Finbar, like so many of the early saints an amphibious man, as ac home on water as on land? We do not know, but he is the much loved saint of che island of Barra, named for him, in che Outer Hebrides of Scotland, co which either he, or Cork sailors bearing his fame, must have come. The Vikings, who were some of the finest seamen and ship builders the world has ever known, arrived in Cork in the 9th century and established a small town there. From Finbar's monastery, the Viking settlement, Cork was established wich its face set always co the sea. This year, celebrating 800 years since Cork got ics first formal charter, we should remember that the county then had two other medieval walled towns and seaports, Youghal and Kinsale, which once rivalled our city in importance and sea borne trade. Bue Cork's great harbour into which very large ships could sail and anchor, tipped the balance co which rown would become the major sea pore. Not for nothing is the city's coat of arms, a great ship sailing between twin castles and her motto, Statio Bene Fida Can'nis, a safe harbour for ships. Excavations in medieval Cork have shown how much was imported, with a glittering collection of broken pottery made in continental Europe and in England. Cork ships traded with Bristol and many other English ports, with those on the continent, in particular Bordeaux. Cork exports included hides, wool, tallow, fish and speciality items like the shaggy Irish cloaks; her imporrs were all the things not produced at home, metals like
John de Courcy Ireland
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Cork City and County Archives SM994
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