The spirit of murdered Lord Mayor of Cork, Tomás MacCurtain, was honoured last night as Cork officially embarked on its programme of 1920 commemorations.

Fionnuala MacCurtain said she feels humbled and honoured that tomorrow night’s event also marks the start of the city’s 1920 centenary commemorative events.

The Indian Ambassador to Ireland, Sandeep Kumar, paid tribute to MacSwiney in City Hall as his embassy staged a showcase of his country’s food, dance and culture to mark India’s Republic Day.

Independence was an issue in Cork’s local elections in 1920, but a housing crisis, the cost of living, and widespread poverty also influenced the vote, writes Kieran McCarthy.

In this year of significant commemorations, Dr Aodh Quinlivan of UCC’s Centre for Local and Regional Governance recalls the Cork Corporation elections of January 15, 1920, and the first meeting of the Corporation on January 30, at which the doomed Sinn Féin man became the city’s first citizen

The Department of Foreign Affairs was extremely concerned in the late 1980s that its staff would get dragged into a libel action taken by a colourful councillor from Cork against a Sunday newspaper

Details have been announced of a special local authority centenary commemorative meeting in Cork next month to mark a key moment in the birth of the nation.

Almost five years since the historic 172-year-old clock mechanism underwent significant repair and restoration.

A long-running campaign to get a posthumous medal for an IRA Volunteer has finally come to a successful conclusion.

A councillor leading the hunt for Cork’s ‘lost’ fountain has called for a nationwide audit of historic street furniture and public artefacts.

Questions have been asked about the whereabouts of a missing antique fountain which once stood at the end of Shandon Street in Cork city centre.

A city councillor has offered a €100 reward for information leading to the return of an historic 19th-century fountain gifted to the people of Cork but which officials admit has been lost.

Attempts to give Henry Ford the Freedom of Cork failed to materialise, but Thomas Grimes reveals how UCC finally honoured the man after some persuasion.

The Ford operation in Cork nearly came a cropper just two years after the production line began operating, says Kevin O'Brien.

Many eyes have been trained recently on the grounds of this new-to-market large family home, Rockville, at the very city end of the Boreenmanna Road, not much more than 500 metres from Cork’s City Hall.

A century after he went to fight in the First World War, diaries and letters about the death of an east Cork man just two months later, can be seen by the public all this week.

He spent countless hours walking that road, meeting constituents, and enjoying the views over Cork. Now it bears his name, ensuring his work for his beloved northside will never be forgotten.

It’s been fooling some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time in its efforts to keep time — but the temperamental behaviour of Cork’s most famous clock may soon be a thing of the past.

Let the bells ring out — and not before time. Cork’s landmark Shandon clock, which has been at a standstill for months, is set to tick again within weeks.

The Taoiseach has led tributes to the country’s longest serving councillor who attended his last local authority meeting last night ahead of his retirement from politics.

President Michael D Higgins has received the Freedom of Cork City.

In my senior years, it is somewhat frightening to find that the “City by the Lee” continues to be devastated during spring tides by floods, not withstanding the intervening years of advances in technology and a ravaging tiger in funding availability.

The local authority which voted against making Nelson Mandela a freeman of Cork in 1987 was asked, just hours before his death, to “right that wrong”.

Cork City Council has warned that it will take some time to restore the city’s iconic Shandon clock to full working.

Horse-racing is returning to Cork City after almost a century.

Glowing tributes were paid last night to the only public representative to have served 40 consecutive years in Cork’s City Hall.

Streets in Cork City were closed for over two hours yesterday after fears were raised about a potentially dangerous building.

A Cork Gaelscoil has welcomed a court decision that should let its new school building go ahead.

A previously unknown letter written by Lord Mayor of Cork Terence MacSwiney, who died on hunger strike in a British jail in 1920, could fetch up to €2,000 at auction next week.

Cork City Council has said it acted in the interests of residents as a court case concerning access rights to a green area in Mayfield came to an end.

Jack B Yeats, Leo Whelan, Roderic O’Conor, Tony O’Malley, Patrick Scott, Harry Kernoff and Gerald Dillon are among a roll call of leading Irish artists whose work will feature at Whyte’s sale of Irish and British art at the RDS in Dublin next Monday (Oct 1) at 6pm.

A small village in North Cork is preparing to commemorate the 100th anniversary of a train crash which left one person dead and more than 90 injured.

CERTIFICATE of “Corkness” is a good idea.

HAVING read your front page story and inside article of your newspaper (August 16) in relation to the proposed speed limit plan by Cork Corporation, it strikes me as a wonderful decision.

ALCOHOL is set to flow at some of Cork’s flagship open-air festivals and carnivals.

AS an unemployed horticulturist, trained in Cork and living in Cork, I would like to complain about the €2.5m wasted by Cork Corporation on the garden designed by Diarmuid Gavin.

I HAVE just returned to my parish near Southampton after a vacation in my native Cork city.

MICHEÁL MARTIN will lead Fianna Fáil into the February 2011 general election exactly 24 years after being rejected by the people of Cork South Central at his first attempt for a Dáil seat.

VETERAN Fine Gael TD Bernard Allen confirmed last night that he will not contest the general election.

THE Cork city street on which a building collapsed will not reopen to the public until this afternoon at the earliest.

ONE of the country’s most iconic industrial sites – the first Ford plant built outside America – is poised to become a protected structure.