When the worst fire tragedy to visit Cork in living memory occurred on a bitterly cold morning in 1927, the women of Cork’s ancient open-air market on the Coal Quay were not found wanting. They quickly engineered a new use for their traditional garment – the shawl – as a life-saving appliance, as Pat Poland explains.

 

The correct method of wearing the traditional black shawl, long associated with the women of Cork’s answer to Moore Street, the Cornmarket Street market (universally, if erroneously, known as the ‘Coal Quay’ (pron: ‘kay’: the Coal Quay is actually around the corner) was demonstrated to a younger generation recently, most of whom had never even seen, let alone worn, the garment.
The shawl can trace its origins back to the ancient Gaelic ‘brat’ – a cloak or mantle – made of thick wool with a decorative fringe. While its primary function was to protect the wearer from the vagaries of the Irish weather, it had a host of other uses, including wrapping and tying it in a special way in order to protect one’s baby.

During the reign of Queen Elizabeth l, a decree was issued banning the wearing of the shawl in favour of more English-oriented attire, but, in the words of the old song, ‘They might as well go chasing after moonbeams…’ As far as the resolute Cork women were concerned, the shawl was there to stay and stay it did until it eventually fell out of fashion as the twentieth century progressed.

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At six-thirty on the morning of Thursday, 17 February, 1927, James Manley left his one-room flat on the top floor of 4, Kyle Street, off Cornmarket Street, to go to work in the Cork Gas Company on the city’s south side, leaving his wife, Elizabeth, minding their three little children – Lily (five), John (three) and baby Jim, just three months old.
He never saw them alive again.

The ground floor of the house, a three-storey one, was occupied by an elderly lady, Mrs O’Dea, who carried out a furniture business there.
William O’Sullivan, a travelling musician, occupied a back room on the first floor, while Mrs Mary O’Brien rented the room overlooking the street.
The top floor tenants consisted of Mrs Woolley, 70, an invalid, who had the back room, and the Manley family was in the front room.

Mrs O’Brien was in the habit of bringing old Mrs O’Dea a cup of tea in the morning, and as they chatted together, she heard something falling in the back room on the floor overhead. She thought by the noise it was a fire ‘hastener’, usually a sheet of tin held in front of the fire to create a draught.

She went upstairs to investigate, and as she did, she met an agitated Mrs Manley coming down from the top floor who said, “Do you know the back room is on fire?” She could smell burning, she said.

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