Lord mayor of Cork in South Korea to attend major conference on historical revolutionaries

Fine Gael councillor Deirdre Forde, the mayor of Cork City said she is looking forward to showcasing the city’s Decade of Centenaries programme to an international audience. Picture : Domnick Walsh / Eye Focus LTD

The lord mayor of Cork has travelled to South Korea to attend a conference that will highlight the key roles of the former lord mayor, Terence MacSwiney, and Michael Collins, in Ireland’s struggle for independence.

Their stories will be told alongside those of Cuban revolutionary leader Che Guevara, and Thomas Müntzer, the leader of the German Peasant Revolution in 1525, at the major international conference in the city of Jeongeup in South Korea, examining the role of revolutionaries in cities around the world.

Fine Gael councillor Deirdre Forde, the mayor of Cork City and the first to travel to Korea in an official capacity, is accompanied by the city librarian, David O’Brien. All their accommodation and flight costs have been sponsored by the authorities in Jeongeup.

The city, about 180km south of Seoul, is the birthplace of the Donghak Peasant Revolution in the mid-1890s, which marked the beginning of the modern Korean era and encouraged its various popular movements.

The Jeongeup City Government said it wanted to connect with other cities with a revolutionary past, and last year it hosted its first international forum to learn about how other cities have commemorated their history.

As Ireland hosted its Decade of Centenaries events commemorating the War of Independence period, many of which were focused in Cork, Jeongeup extended an invitation to Cork City Council to participate in its second forum, being held next week.

The organisers said they believed that Cork's history of resistance during the War of Independence and the city's commemoration programmes would “broaden their horizons”.

Mr O’Brien’s presentation to the conference will include a special focus on Terence MacSwiney, the Sinn Féin lord mayor of Cork in 1920, whose death in Brixton Prison after 74 days on hunger strike helped bring Ireland’s struggle for independence to international attention.

The deputy mayor of Dublin, and its deputy city librarian, will also attend, with an address on Michael Collins, with delegates from Alta Gracia in Argentina focusing on Che Guevara, and delegates from Mühlhausen in Germany focusing on Thomas Müntzer.

Ms Forde said she is delighted to be the first lord mayor of Cork to visit Korea, and to help showcase the city’s Decade of Centenaries programme to an international audience.

“Korea is the world’s 10th largest economy, and I am also looking forward to exploring the possibilities which exist for our city," she said. 

I would like to thank our hosts in the city of Jeongeup for their hospitality.” 

Their itinerary includes attendance at the national commemoration of the Donghak Peasant’s Revolution, a visit to Seoul and a tour of Seoul Library with its collection of some 200,000 books, meetings with Corkonian civil society and business representatives, and a meeting with a member of the Colomban Order, which has a long history of missionary work in Korea.

Ms Forde will also lay a wreath at the Korean War memorial in honour of combatants from Cork who died in the Korean War.

The Irish Institute of Korean Studies is based in UCC.