How to turn a class project into a stocking filler

A pioneering group of transition-year students have created an unusual book on local social history

Streets, Lanes And Squares In The Southside might be the perfect stocking filler for anyone with an interest in Cork's historical underbelly. The transition-year students of Deerpark CBS have spent three months digging up little-known facts about their city's darkest social history. The venture began as nothing more than a class project, but what the students found was so fascinating that they decided to publish their discoveries.

"This book was an organic project that really took off as the students got interested in the process of being historians," says Kieran O'Halloran, the teacher who started the project with a story. "I told the class about an RIC sergeant killed in a gory execution by the IRA not 200 yards from the school in the 1920s. Like most teenagers, they were enthralled by the bloodiness of the incident and asked to go and view the site. I agreed to take them on a walk around the city if they each prepared a short history lesson for a chosen site."

From there began months of interviews, newspaper research, photography and library work as the students uncovered more and more fascinating details about Greenmount, a working-class area of Cork. Following their interests, they found gruesome tales about the IRA, the red-light district and the tenements, according to O'Halloran.

The book is divided into three sections, each with a walking map.

The walks are from Friars Walk to Sullivan's, from South Gate Bridge to Deerpark CBS and within the Triangle between Tower Street, Barrack Street and Friar's Street. Each map includes a montage of photographs (below) taken or sourced by the students. Many of the topics are based on primary research and are published here for the first time.

"Originally, I asked them to prepare local histories for their own enjoyment," says O'Halloran. "I thought perhaps I could use the work for future classes. Instead we produced a work of local history that can stand alongside any other published history of the area.

"The students were reluctant to see themselves as 'historians' as they carried out their investigations; now that there is public interest in the book they are starting to appreciate that their efforts are as valid as any other."

All proceeds from the book will benefit schools in the Christian Brothers' network of schools in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second city.

Streets, Lanes And Squares In The Southside is available from local bookshops or from Deerpark CBS from today, €15