Page 6 - COBH EDITION 18th JANUARY DIGITAL VERSION

History’s Harbour

Glenn A. Baker drops anchor in a port that was known for migrants, celebrities
and shipping tragedies.

SOMEWHERE in the streets of Cobh I started thinking of Rudolph Valentino and Mary
Pickford – epic stars of one generation now virtually unknown to subsequent ones – for
fame can be as fleeting for towns as for silent movie stars, the Route 66 syndrome kick-
ing in when a new interstate passes them by.

It’s hard to overstate just how important, how famous, the Irish port of Cobh (pro-
nounced Cove) in County Cork once was. It bears powerfully on the history of the New
World as the gateway through which both emigrants (willing and otherwise) and celebrity
continent-hoppers passed. Its close association with maritime tragedy rendered it infa-
mous, foreboding even. The world knew where it was and what it was renowned for.

As with every thronged seaport, in an era when giant liners and merchant tonnage were
the true powers to be reckoned with, it had a salty, salacious tone. Indeed, some would
say there was a divine role in its eventual decline, with the Methodist Church founder,
John Wesley, supposedly once disdaining it as “a sinkhole of sinners”.

Well, the citizens were almost saintly the day the famous screen comedy duo Laurel and
Hardy dropped by. The day was Wednesday, September 9, 1953 and the pair was aboard
the SS America, having departed New York. In the twilight of their careers, they were
looking to revive waning fortunes in Europe, beginning with Ireland, where they had al-
ways been popular. As they steamed into the cavernous Cobh harbour on the lower coast
of Ireland, an eruption of sorts took place – one that could and did reduce grown men to
tears.
Stan Laurel, the thin English-born one, would later marvel: “The love and affection we
found that day at Cobh was simply unbelievable. There were hundreds of boats blowing
whistles and mobs and mobs of people screaming on the docks. We just couldn’t under-
stand what it was all about. And then something happened that I can never forget. All
the church bells in Cobh started to ring out our theme song [Dance of the Cuckoos] and
Babe [Oliver Hardy] looked at me and we cried. I’ll never forget that day. Never.”

In fact, it wasn’t church bells but a remarkable and relatively rare instrument known as
the carillon, a stationary set of 49 chromatically tuned bells tuned to the accuracy of a
single vibration and played from a keyboard in a tower. Ireland’s biggest, then and now,
it is in St Colman’s Cathedral on a steep winding path high above the vast harbour and it
let loose that day as an impromptu gesture of welcome.

The comedians insisted on being taken – when the two overpowered Garda finally found
their feet – in a car up to Cathedral Corner where they were so overcome by the emotion
of it all that Hardy could not get words of appreciation out of his mouth and so just tear-
fully engulfed the “bell ringer” in his not inconsiderable embrace.
Locals still like to tell that story to visitors, though it is but one of a brace of tales that
form a formidable fabric – one of the decidedly less-tragic ones. For the others, one
needs to wander down from the cathedral and spend some time in the Cobh Heritage
Centre, one of Europe’s more engaging museums, put together in a spacious old train
station. It is a place popular with Australians, for this port was the starting point of most
of the Irish convict transportations in the dreaded “coffin ships” that sailed into Sydney
Cove, their wretched refuse barely alive below decks.