Tag Archives: Shandon Historic Quarter

The 2025 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival Dates Announced.

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The Cork Mother Jones Committee wishes to announce that the 2025 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival will take place in and around the Shandon Historic Quarter over three days from Thursday, 24th July, until Saturday, 26th July.

Large Crowd Attend the Mother Jones Plaque at 2024 Festival.

According to James Nolan, spokesperson for the festival,

“We are delighted to confirm that our 14th Annual Spirit of Mother Jones Festival will once again be held in Shandon in 2025. This unique festival is dedicated to labour leader Mother Jones and has become an eagerly awaited festival and summer school in Cork each year.  It is entirely organised by a voluntary committee and attracts huge crowds to our community annually.

Audience Response at 2024 Festival.

We appreciate the support of the Irish trade union movement and the Cork City Council, along with local businesses, which enables the festival to remain free and open to everyone who wishes to attend. We will announce participants and speakers over the next months, but we promise that our emphasis will, uniquely among summer schools, remain on heritage, history, trade union rights, social & climate justice and human rights issues, all matters close to the heart and rebel spirit of Cork-born Mary Harris.”

Some Participants at the Launch of the 2024 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival. Photo: Claire Stack.

The Cork Mother Jones committee is asking people to suggest ideas for topics, possible speakers or issues they might wish to see at the 2025 festival.

Proposals should be based on material which is relevant, interesting and challenging and we promise to consider all suggestions.

They should be sent to motherjonescork@gmail.com. 

Further details can be found on www.motherjonescork.com

A Walkthrough the Historic Birthplace of Mary Harris.

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Peter Foynes of the Cork Butter Museum will conduct a walk through the historic birthplace of Mary Harris on Saturday morning 29th July 2023 beginning at 9.30 am at the Maldron Hotel.  All are welcome.

Peter Foynes.

Shandon was at the heart of the city food trade in the 18th and 19th Century. Cattle were bought and sold and slaughtered around the area for export. The Committee of Merchants (1769-1925)  conducted the butter trade here and Cork butter was exported from here all over the world. The wealth of the city was largely derived  from these exports.

While the existing portico in the Butter Exchange building dates from 1849, the building and those nearby were extremely busy places when Mary Harris was a young girl.

Cork Butter Museum.

It was a period of Church building and renovation. The Cathedral of St. Mary and St Anne (North Cathedral) where Mary Harris was baptised was reconstructed in the 1830s after a fire. St. Mary’s Dominican Church on Pope’s Quay was built in the late 1830s. The Church of St Anne, home of the Shandon Bells dates from the early 1700s and was by the 1840s a local landmark, indeed the bells were added in 1847. Other local landmarks familiar to Mary Harris include the Civil Trust Building (1730s) Skiddys Home (1719) and the North Infirmary (1710) site of the present day Maldron Hotel where many of the Spirit of Mother Jones events are held each year.

Shandon Bells.

The Shandon Historic Quarter contains some of the network of streets familiar to Mary Harris and while in 1750, 23 streets and passageways were connected to Shandon Street itself, some still remain as they were in the 1840s.

The area is ideal for walking, so join Peter on Saturday 29th to learn of the home of Mother Jones and a present day local vibrant community.

Then later that day at approx. 4:30 p.m., Maggie O’Neill will conduct a Feminist Walking Tour of Cork City. Meeting point at the Maldron Hotel, Shandon.