Sign the petition here

University College Cork have lodged a planning application to demolish one of Cork’s last great examples of mid-century industrial heritage. It was completed in 1964 by Cork architect Frank Murphy, active mainly in the 1950s and 1960s, whose works included a number of modernist structures. Frank Murphy B.Arch FRIAI RIBA(1916–1993) was an acclaimed Irish architect who utilised modern design principles to bring this style of architecture to Cork in the middle of the 20th Century.

The Cork Distillers Bottling plant (Later Irish Distillers) has architectural details which are unique and unusual for a utilitarian building found in Cork City. Recognisable by its glossy bright yellow glazed brick and sculptural cast concrete, it originally bottled Paddy Whiskey and Cork Dry Gin on the North Mall, Cork City until 2007. The site faces the river Lee on a former island distillery.

This building formed a major part of the research for a body of work that I completed in 2019, titled Monuments of Abandoned Futures which focused mainly on Modernist and Brutalist structures in Cork City and County. There were not many to be found, as I was disappointed to discover at the time and so here I am today, appalled at the idea of losing this architectural treasure and appealing to the wider public to consider both its beauty and our heritage before allowing its destruction.

“The Building is currently not protected (despite publications, requests and several architectural Thesis’s on its conversion). In fact, Cork’s twentieth century architecture is scantly acknowledged or included in the Cork City Register of Protected Structures.”- from the petition text created by Conor English who also wrote the book: Cork’s Modern Architect: The Work of Frank Murphy

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