Tom McCarthy: Stonemasons, Sculpture, Seamus Murphy

0.00.00 - 0.04.33

The McCarthy family history, ‘McCarthy Generations’ book, Tom McCarthy, Denis McCarthy and Theo McCarthy

Tom started his trade in 1949 which was a continuation of his family tradition, his great-grandfather was a stonecutter

Tom uses the book ‘The McCarthy Generations’ written by Deirdre Coleman, to point out pictures of his grandfather and great grandfather in 1874

Tom’s grandfather was 5 years old in 1874

Some of Tom’s family emigrated to America, his grandfather, Tom, went over and worked on the Chicago City Hall

He returned from America and opened a stone yard in Copley Street, and a dancing academy too

Tom’s grand-uncle, Denis McCarthy was the clerk of works when the spire was being added to Trinity church, Cork.

Tom shows more pictures from the book

Denis McCarthy opened a stone yard in White Street

The building of Cobh Cathedral was 1868 to 1915

The Holy Trinity church was built 1832-1850- the steeple was added in 1891

Tom tells an anecdote about Theo McCarthy, “a pugnacious and belligerent fella” he had a dispute with his family and went to Australia and ended up fighting in WWI in the Dardanelles [also called Gallipoli Campaign], “he was a bit cracked after that, what he went through was horrific”

0.04.34 - 0.06.28

‘Toss the Boss McCarthy’, Clerk of Works, the Customs House Crest

Tom shows more pictures of his grandfather from the book, his nickname is “Toss the Boss McCarthy” because he came back from America with an American accent

The clerk of works was in charge of all the stone, which had to be cut to particular shapes and proportions by the stone cutters- then the building masons would build it

Tom shows a picture of a coat of arms up over the Customs House- designed by Marshall Hudson, a teacher in the School of Art, it was built in Copley Street, built in portions

Tom shows more pictures, of a crest done for Duffy’s circus

0.06.29 - 0.10.09

Starting his trade, working on St Francis Church, the School of Art, monuments at Crossbarry, Kilmichael, the Lusitania Memorial in Cobh

Tom started his trade at 15 in 1949

He lived next door to the stone yard in Copley St.

Two years into his trade, he worked on St. Francis Church, sent out to Maguire’s who had the contract for the stone. two apprentices with him were Declan Cahill and Donie Ring

7m30s “They had to get a load of very old stone cutters out of retirement because a lot of them had packed up over the mass concrete in relation to church building and all that kind of thing”

There is a big ornate window at the front of St Francis church made out of stone, Tom worked on that, trefoil window [Trefoil is a term in Gothic architecture given to the ornamental foliation or cusping introduced in the heads of window-lights, tracery, panelling, etc., in which the centre takes the form of a three-lobed leaf (formed from three partially overlapping circles)]

Tom was delighted to start his time as he hated school

Part of serving your time you had to sign up for the school of art as well, to get the layout and design of letters, all the different fonts

Tom shows pictures of monuments he laid out by freehand and carved by chisel, at Kilmichael and Crossbarry

This can be done by computer and sandblasting now

Tom shows a picture of a rifle on the monument carved by Liam Cosgrave and Taighee McCarthy- who was a relation of Tom’s

Cosgrave was a beautiful carver

Tom’s father put the angel up over the Lusitania Memorial in Cobh

0.10.10 - 0.13.17

The wages, a 7-year apprenticeship, the union, using the hammer and point on stone ‘sparrow picking’

The basic income was from stonecutting

“The apprenticeship was supposed to be for 7 years but that was only to rob us to give us minimum wages”

Tom shows a picture of Trinity church

Tom used to be sent with the union dues to the Grand Parade, the stonecutters were affiliated with the plasterers rather than the masons, tom does not know why

Tom describes some of the things an apprentice would do, the little perforations they made with a hammer and a point in stone are called sparrow picking, you did that until you got used to the hammer and then you would advance

Part of their job was making a rough boulder into an oblong shape, it took a while by hand- put a chisel on it and put a chase on it- Tom describes this

It was all hand-stuff they would be doing- chisels etc.

0.13.18 - 0.14.00

The first pneumatic hammer in Cork around 1900

Then they started using small foot-long pneumatic hammers with a compressor

Tom’s grandfather was supposed to have brought the first one back from Chicago to Cork, Ingersoll Rand [famous brand] was the name of the hammer, around the turn of the last century, 1900 maybe

[Type X portable compressor line was introduced by Rand 1902]

0.14.01 - 0.17.29

The School of Commerce, Seamus Murphy and the inscription, working with Seamus Murphy, and the trade nickname ‘the dust’

Tom’s father worked on the school of Commerce, the stonecutters cut the stone and the masons built it

Tom describes some features of the building

Seamus Murphy, the famous sculptor has a foundation stone down at the corner

Tom worked with Seamus Murphy

He shows a copy of his book ‘Stone Mad’ 1970 with the inscription, “To Tom McCarthy one of the dust from his friend Seamus Murphy, the second of January 1970”.

The nickname of the trade was the dust because they used to be covered in dust

Seamus was very jovial, great conversationalist, a lovely man

Tom shows a picture of his great-grandfather and says he looked like him

Tom was about 40 when he worked with Murphy when he got old he would mark out the letters because he had his own particular style of lettering and Tom would cut them out with the hammer and chisel

He worked with him on and off over the years

He worked on Sherkin Island with him in 1968/69 doing Simian’s headstone [no record of this is showing up on google search]

0.17.30 - 0.18.49

‘Bud Alfred McCarthy’, Joe Mac of the showband, ‘The McCarthy Generations’

Tom shows pictures of his uncle Bud Alfred McCarthy, the father of Alf McCarthy the actor and on the radio

Joe Mac [McCarthy] of the showband is Tom’s brother

The McCarthy Generations book was done by Tom’s cousin, Deirdre Coleman, she tracked a lot of things down for it.

0.18.50 - 0.21.01

Describing the work and working conditions

Tom liked the job, he had protection from his family, they all worked together on Copley St

It is a very cold job in the winter

As he developed he took to engraving the lettering in the cemeteries, that was tough in the winter, but lovely in the summer

There was about 13 working in the yard at one stage

They were monumental and ecclesiastical carvers, they did churches, alter rails, holy water fonts, pulpits and all by hand

But then the machinery came in, the Ibix [U.S. company] sandblaster

The major development in the last 40 years was the sandblasting

They can do the stencils by computer and then sandblast it

0.21.02 - 0.23.03

The wages, handing the money up to his mother, going to the pictures with his pals

Tom started work at 8.30 and they did a half-day on Saturday and that was the payday

Tom was paid ten bob for the first 8 months, he should have got about 17 and 6, he was told to see the union by an older worker

He used to hand up the money to his mother and he would have got 5 shillings back

He would go to the pictures and have milk and cakes on the way home, a crubeen [pigs feet fried or boiled] if you were very hungry

Tom would pal around with other apprentices, bakers, painters, and they didn’t drink

The pictures were a big deal, the ‘Assems’ if you were short of cash (Assembly rooms in the South Mall) or if you were short, the Imperial in Oliver Plunkett St. that was known as Miah’s

0.23.04 - 0.25.22

Moving the Tracton Memorial from St Nicholas’ Church to the Crawford Art Gallery

The sculpture gallery in the Crawford used to be the School of Art- there’s a huge figure in it called the Tracton Memorial, it used to be in St Nicholas’ church, the corporation took it over and the statue had to be moved, Tom’s son devised a method to get it out without damaging it

[Sculptor, of London, for whom see Rupert Gunnis, Dictionary of British Sculptors 1660-1851 (revised edition, [1968]), 24-28. John Bacon the elder was the sculptor of the fine monument to James Dennis (d. 1782), first and last Baron Tracton, which was formerly in the Church of Ireland church of St Nicholas, Cork, and is now (2010) in the Crawford Art Gallery, Cork. The monument, dating from 1788, consists of a large statue of a standing female figure with right arm outstretched; a roundel on the base depicts Lord Tracton on his deathbed, attended by his wife, who attempts to ward off the skeletal arm of Death.]

When they were examining it, they found on the left shoulder T Mac and M D, and that was his great grandfather, Tom McCarthy and Mary Daly- you can see it inside there still

They had to use a forklift to get it out, moved inch by inch

0.25.23 - 0.26.38

A lovely quote describing how Tom used to make a chisel by fire and anvil

25m23s “When you started learning your trade, you’d have to be acquiring tools, you know, chisels and points and hammers and, now a lot of the older stonecutters could sharpen their tools with an open fire and an anvil and all this kind of thing and temper them, I was never very good at it, I’d always lose the temper when the blue would run out of, there’s a blue band would run down the bit of steel, and you had to keep the copper end. There’s copper and, that was very technical now I don’t know how, anyway.

MM The blue was the heat, was it?

TMC Yeah the heat, you’d have to, you’d have to get em red hot in the fire, take them out, punch them out on the anvil until you get the width that you wanted in the chisel and then you’d have to temper that in the water, with a bit of, you’d just gently put it into the water and get the steel running up, I was never good at it, but anyhow we survived and we got on anyway” 26m38s

0.26.39 - 0.28.08

Using a hay fork to get a chisel, mallets made from crab trees

They made the tools mostly when Tom started and then they bought them years later

26m52s “One of the best lettering tools you could get was fork off a hayfork…very thin steel and you just put a chisel top on that…”

The mallet was timber, the best wood was from a crabtree

The mallets gave a softer touch

There is ridging on the stone done by the mallet

0.28.09 - 0.30.03

Working on the Munster and Leinster bank, what they cut, stone and quarries, mullions

Years later Tom got a job with Sisk doing the extension on the Munster and Leinster bank in Marlborough St

It had to match the original, all done by hand

Mullions, windowsills, ashlar plinths, it was unbelievable but took them a long time to do it

There were 6 stone cutters on it

It was limestone from Walsh’s [quarry] in Carlow

The original stone was local, Cloyne or Little Island

Tom loved it, though it was tiring

The mullions are the uprights at the sides of the window- they are rounded [a vertical bar between the panes of glass in a window.]

0.30.04 - 0.31.50

Getting a ‘feel’ for the mallet, stone from quarries, using heated beeswax to glue stone breakages

Tom describes getting a feel for using the mallet on the chisel- soft top ridging

There was a joke going about the spire on Trinity church, that if there was really hot weather then it would collapse- it was done with a local stone (could be Beaumont or Little Island quarry) it was notorious for breaking off, it was shaley in parts- they’d be just cutting a corner and it would fall off- so they had a technique using beeswax, heat it up and stick the part back on

0.31.51 - 0.35.14

Quarries, blasting stone, proper ledge cutting at a quarry called ‘feathering and wedging’, old quarries in Little Island, Beaumont and Cloyne

Originally the stonecutters would go to the quarries but when Tom started, the quarries would deliver

There was Beaumont [very near Blackrock] quarry which was finishing

“you can destroy a quarry if you blast it, it has to be taken out in ledges, the headstone, to get the correct thickness of the stone… they’d feather and wedge…if the layers of limestone were solid enough they’d drill holes down say six feet in from the face and then they’d feather it out [track seems to skip during this passage]

There was Beaumont, little Island, Cloyne was a huge quarry and O’Connell’s had their own yard in Watercourse Road and their quarry was in Copstown up by Mallow, that was a fairly good stone

Seamus Murphy’s yard was next to O’Connell’s, there is a bank there now, Murphy’s yard was next to it, there was a pub next to it

The interviewer talks a little bit about the old technique of feathering and wedging stone in quarries

They have huge saws now that can do all that

0.35.15 - 0.36.28

Tom’s favourite stone, and bad stone for carving

Tom’s favourite stone to work with was marble

For lettering, you’d get a nice letter on marble limestone

The polished black granite came in, that was tough to cut

The chisels would hop off it- which is why they introduced sandblasting

Sandstone was too soft to use, and the grit in the stone would wear your tools very rapidly

36.29 – 0.37.16

Workers in the yard

There was banter in the yard, but most of them were head down fellas- they’d be very busy in the day

Tom saw the fellas polishing the stone by hand with lumps of

End of Interview

[The power goes on the digital recorder, and the last 13 minutes of the interview failed to record. There is a detailed note in the folder CFP00610]

Some topics discussed in the lost 13 minutes, as best I can recall were:

Tom said how much he loved his trade and he missed it and is sorry to see it fall away in later years

Tom spoke towards the end of the interview about Seamus Murphy, the famous sculptor. He told how he was very radical in his views, but then would not elaborate on this, despite been asked several times. He told how when he went to Dublin to do a bust of the archbishop Charles McQuaid, that McQuaid was sitting for the sketches. He held out his hands to Seamus to show them off, and said: “what do you think of my hands, aren’t they beautiful?” Seamus Murphy looked at him and replied that “the long frock suited him”. This was a slur on his masculinity and probably his sexuality. This is a fascinating story and I am very upset that it was not recorded.