Church, state, and the building of Ireland's south coast cities: Cork and Waterford, c. 1935-1965

This project will analyse how state and religious groups interacted in the planning and governing of Cork and Waterford in the mid-20th century. It will propose a theoretically rich understanding of Ireland's distinctive engagement with urban modernity and Ireland's central importance in the analysis of religion in modern European urban history. In focusing on town planning schemes, the project will shed new light on how international trends - garden cities, slum clearances, road schemes - found roots in Ireland. Both cities in turn were transformed with new suburbs, churches, and schools - including in the case of Cork the most intense period of church building since Emancipation. The project begins with the 1940s town planning schemes, where planners proposed substantial - unexecuted - demolition in both cities. It ends with the major housing schemes and new churches of the mid-1960s.

Both cities are currently undergoing rapid urban expansion and are earmarked in the recent government report, 'Project Ireland 2040', for population growths of 60% over the next 20 years. Yet this document is remarkably light on historical reflections. This project will address this gap in our knowledge. It will proceed with three separate themes. First, it will explore mid-twentieth century town planning. Second, it will investigate the urban governance of both cities, focusing in particular on the actions of city managers, elected councillors, and engineers. It will study their decision-making processes in the building of new housing estates and their interactions with Catholic leaders in the provision of new churches and schools. Third, it will consider the perspective of these leading religious figures - bishops, priests, orders - by a study of their published literature, negotiations with city officials, fund-raising, and land purchases.

The five research questions will be:

a. How were provincial Irish cities imagined by town planners in the mid-twentieth century?

The extensive town plans for Cork and Waterford will be examined, alongside correspondence from secular and religious leaders. This will include recently catalogued Department of Local Government papers for Cork, the rich material in the Cork and Waterford local archives, and Catholic diocesan papers.

b. What was the relationship between state and religious power in the governing of these cities?

The balance of urban power between sacred and secular groups was never uncontested or unidirectional, and this will be explored through an analysis of archival correspondence. It will explore the church's perspective on town planning in publications such as The Furrow, Muintir na Tire, Christus Rex, and newspapers. It will question who was writing about cities, what ideas they had, and how they saw the Irish urban future.

c. How were decisions made about the building of new housing estates, churches and schools?

We will use council and diocesan archives to explore the process by which new housing estates, churches and schools were planned and built. We will research material in the archives of the Presentation Sisters order, who built schools in both cities, and will use oral interviews with residents, former planners and city officials.

d. How can Irish urban history explain Ireland's distinctive engagement with modernity?
e. How can religion be (re)integrated into the history of modern European town planning?

We will situate the Irish urban experience of the mid-20th century within European scholarship, with a particular focus on religion in the city. We will also argue the importance of studying Irish cities in seeking to understand the complexity of religious history within modern European urban history.

In collaboration with the Waterford Museum of Treasures we will create a public exhibition and workshop on Waterford's urban development. We will also host a workshop as part of the Cork City Council 'Cork Conversations' series of public events.

Who will benefit?

The project will benefit urban planners, architects, heritage practitioners, government officials and other professionals working on contemporary urbanisation issues in Ireland and further afield. Through the impact activities, the project will also directly benefit the wider public in both case-study cities, with a public exhibition and two public workshops. In Cork, the 'Cork Conversations: Planning for the Future' workshop and talk will join an established and popular series of public events in that city. The project's main partner, the Waterford Museum of Treasures (WMT, see letter of support below), will benefit from establishing a research connection with the Centre for Urban History, at the University of Leicester, and from the quality and depth of archival research that will inform the exhibition on town planning and urbanisation in Year Two. This exhibition, 'Modern Waterford: making a city', will be attractively presented in collaboration with the WMT in the most popular cultural institution in Ireland's south-east.

Through the project's social media platforms, and its research network and conference activity, a wider international audience of urban planners, architects and conservation officials will benefit from broadening their knowledge of European urbanisation through the study of how transport, housing and school provision in Irish cities was transformed in the mid-twentieth century.


How will they benefit?

Professionals and policy makers often focus on discrete projects with a short timescale. History reminds us of urban problems that persist, and solutions that have worked or failed in the past. The urban problems of today - congestion, pollution, housing shortages, environmental sustainability - all have long historical antecedents. Taking an urban history approach to understanding Irish cities, within the context of European urbanisation in the twentieth century, can reveal the limits of policy-making. The recent 'Project Ireland 2040: National Planning Framework' government plan is remarkably light on historical analysis. Urban history can expose the unintended consequences of government policies - for example in housing schemes - in planning and managing urban growth. History can also provide examples of successful and unsuccessful policies, including how planners proposed to create environmentally sustainable transport systems and suburbs and how housing schemes and schools were proposed to create cohesive communities and safe pedestrian spaces for children and parents.

The lessons of successes (and of failures) can provide inspiration for those seeking solutions to contemporary urban problems, both in Ireland and further afield. Successful strategies from the past - for example in local authority-funded housing schemes - can be adapted to contemporary urban problems. The project will result an executive summary of our key findings, arising from the two public workshops, being presented to town planners and policy makers in the city councils of both Cork and Waterford.

Beyond the professional and planning spheres, the project will, via the two workshops and the public exhibition, allow ordinary citizens in both cities to engage with their own history, bringing communities together, and allowing families to engage with the history of their estate, their church, or their city ward. I will offer local citizens the opportunity to record their memories via an oral history interview if they wish. Our impact agenda (as set out in Pathways to Impact, below) - and in particular the public workshops and exhibition - will also showcase the project's findings to a wider public audience.