This is the 100th year of annual school visits by the Lord Mayor of Cork, a tradition that dates back to Terence McSwiney’s mayoralty in the 1920s .
For 22 of the 119 schools to be visited this Autumn, this will be the first occasion that they will receive a visit from a Lord Mayor as these schools just became part of the city this year following the expansion of Cork City on May 31.
Lord Mayor, Cllr John Sheehan said: “The traditional annual visit by the Lord Mayor has been enjoyed by generations of Cork students. I am honoured to be Lord Mayor during the 100th year of the annual school visits and also to be the first Lord Mayor to visit schools in our newly expanded city. For some schools, this will the 100th visit by the Lord Mayor and for others, it will be the first visit”.
To mark the centenary of the visits, the Lord Mayor will present each of the 119 schools with a framed picture containing photographs of the two martyred Lord Mayors of Cork, Tomás Mc Curtain who was murdered by British forces in March 1920 and Terence McSwiney who died on hunger strike in Brixton Prison the following October.