Fire Cock

Just back from a big day in Cork city. A while ago I took my rings off to give them a clean and was horrified to find that my wedding ring had a crack in it - in fact it had cracked all the way through. When I looked at my engagement ring, the base had practically worn through. I did a bit of Googling and came up with someone who sounded promising in Cork so I made an appointment and nipped in today. It was a really beautiful day and I lost the will to shop instead decided I would walk out to the Marina where her workshop was - a good 2km from the city centre. It was a fabulous walk with lots of interesting things to look at on the way .This area was once home to to a railway terminal, a marina and some massive silos. I came across a row of intriguing little buildings complete with interesting plaques and other architectural details. -The Hibernian Buildings, Tithe Eireannacha. I was hoping the signs referred to what I thought they did in which case they would be perfect for today's challenge - and they do! FC stands for Fire Cock and indicates that the building was insured and, in the case of fire, the privately operated Fire Brigade would be happy to nip out as they guaranteed payment. The date 1858 refers to when the Waterworks were opened in the City and fresh water was supplied to the citizens. The fire cocks themselves were hydrants of some sort, presumably paid for by the inhabitants of the street. How interesting. Even more fascinating, I discovered that this was originally the Jewish quarter of the city, even known as Jewtown, populated by Lithuanian Jews fleeing a Russian pogrom at the beginning of the late 19C. Bloody hell, we really don't change. Local folklore says many of these refugees were trying to reach New York, but instead ended up here with the unlikely explanation  that when they heard the call Cork they thought they a had arrived in New York! Nice grungy windows too.


Alex was very professional and unfazed by the awful state of my rings and has promised to do something miraculous. Good job I still have two more on the relevant finger or the rumours would be flying.


Cork was looking pretty ravishing in the sunshine but give me small roads, sheep and tractors any day to city traffic - terrifying as Arachne recently described in one of her posts. And now I'm' going to add jeans to my whinge list (bras and knickers already on it) for I was totally befuddled the jean possibilities and seem to have come home with high rise boyfriends! What??


Thank you everyone who's entered in this week's TT Challenge with the theme of Fire, some of us have interpreted it very loosely! and apologies for initially giving the wrong tag - thankfully most people ignored me.