COBH GROUP OUTLINES PLANS TO COMMEMORATE 1916 CENTENARY

A recently formed group, the Cobh 1916 Commemoration Committee has announced plans for series of events to be held next year to mark the centenary of the 1916 Rising in the East Cork town.

The committee has applied for funding under Cork County Council’s 1916 Centenary Fund and hopes to raise additional finances locally with a view to commemorating the Rising in an appropriate manner.

Among the committee’s proposals are the staging of a re-enactment of the assembly of Cobh Volunteers at Tay Road on the town’s outskirts, the dedication of a memorial garden at the site of the former Royal Irish Constabulary barracks at West View the holding of an Irish traditional music event and a series of lectures on the history of the period in Cobh. Memorial plaques will also be unveiled.

The public events, which will be held on Saturday 22nd April 2016, will also involve the relatives and descendants of the original Cobh volunteers who will be invited from at home and abroad to join the town’s citizens

Cobh was one of a small number of towns where members of the Irish Volunteers assembled on Easter Saturday 1916 in preparation for the rising. The Cobh Volunteers marched to Cork under the watchful eyes of the RIC. Some of them cycled on to Macroom where they paraded in the town square until it became clear that the plans had gone awry when Roger Casement was captured and the arms ship Aud was discovered by the British Navy (unbeknownst to the Cobh volunteers the ship had already been scuttled by its German crew at the mouth of Cork Harbour even before the Cobhmen left their hometown).

The Cobh 1916 Commemoration committee is non-party political and draws its members from a wide cross-section of the local community including historians, musicians, community activists and local businesspeople.