Cost of restoring Cork's Shandon Bells clock could reach €400,000

Cork City Council do not have a timeline for the restoration works due to the lack of funding

The 253-year-old tower has been telling the wrong time on three of its faces and stopped on its fourth. Picture: Chani Anderson

Cork City’s Shandon Bells clock could see restoration works cost nearly €400,000 to repair and refurbish the landmark site.

The iconic attraction on St Anne’s in Shandon has seen a large number of tourists visit the area year after year and has been described as “our Niagara Falls”.

The costs come after the clock went out of sync nearly 18 months ago. The 253-year-old tower has been telling the wrong time on three of its faces and stopped on its fourth.

Additionally, the small windows on the clock which allow the horologists to service them are considered “ready to fall out”, which has led to difficulty in maintaining the accurate times on the "four-faced liar".

It then led to the horologist, who had been maintaining the clocks for many years under the direction of Cork City Council, to step back due to serious health and safety concerns.

Concerns have also been raised about the three-foot tall timber numbers on the clock faces which could drop at any point. Local councillor Kenneth Collins said he was concerned that they could fly away during another storm.

The Cork City North West councillor said

We’re not out of storm season yet, and one of the clock numbers could fly off and hit a roof, hit a car, hit a person and then god only knows what would happen then.

Now, it is estimated that some €400,000 would be required to repair and refurbish the landmark site. Cork City Council has said it will need to apply for funding under the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage Historic Structures Fund.

However, final costs for the restoration “will be determined prior to any works commencing”. “These repair works involve several specialists in conservation, horology and structural repair,” Director of Services Planning and Integrated Development, Niall Ó Donnabháin said in a reply to a question from Mr Collins.

He added that the timeline for these works is then dependent on “the outcome of the funding application.” 

Mr Collins said it was “concerning” how long they would have to wait to restore the clock tower.

“I got the costings (on Monday night) which is €400,000, which is an astronomical amount of money,” he told the Irish Examiner.

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He added that the council do not have a timeline due to the lack of funding and will have to go to the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage Historic Structures Fund to request funding.

“If they are unsuccessful, they’ll then have to go back to the drawing board and go look elsewhere for it. It is concerning, and it is a matter of health and safety issues. These numbers are ready to fall off the clock,” Mr Collins added.

Mr Collins further highlighted that while it would take a “large amount of money” to carry out significant work on the clock, priority should have been given to the tower.

“We can spend money willy nilly across Cork City on stuff like the sheds, the fireman’s hut, maybe we should have restored the clock before we went anywhere near restoring the fireman’s hut,” he added.