The Honan Hostel

The Honan family connection with UCC began in 1910 with the foundation of the Honan Scholarships based on an endowment of £10,000 from Isabella Honan.[1] After her death in 1913, the disbursement of her fortune was at the discretion of Sir John R. O’Connell, her solicitor and executor of her will. In accordance with her wishes that her money be used for charitable purposes in Cork, further amounts were provided to UCC that were spent on completing the Biological Laboratory (named the Honan Biological Institute) and the Hydraulic Laboratory (in the Chemistry and Physics Building) and the rearrangement of offices resulting from this.[2]

The bulk of the funds, however, were spent on the construction of the Honan Chapel and the creation of the Honan Hostel. On 4 April 1914, Sir John O’Connell had negotiated the purchase of St Anthony’s Hostel (previously Berkeley Hall, which had opened as a residence for Church of Ireland students in 1884) for the purpose of vesting it in a statutory body of trustees with a view to creating a hostel for male Catholic students.[3] This building was located at the corner of Donovan's Road and College Road and was adjacent to the College. O'Connell communicated news of the purchase to Sir Bertram Windle, President of UCC, and also, in the same letter, O’Connell informed him that because ‘the existing chapel seems to me to be inadequate to the needs of the residents in the hostel, and of the Catholic members of University College’, he intended to proceed to build a chapel.

The first meeting of the governors of the Honan Hostel [Trust] was held on 26 January 1915.[4] The two bound volumes of minutes record information about the governors of the trust, the names of the Wardens of the Hostel, details about the administration of the hostel including the conduct of the students staying there and the costs of running it as well as a report from the chaplain. At the first meeting, it is recorded that the property was conveyed from Sir John R. O’Connell (as sole executor of Isabella Honan’s will) to the Trustees. 

Although the Hostel and the Chapel were owned by a separate legal entity, there were several close links to UCC. The chair of the governors was and still is the President of UCC and a number of the trustees were members of College staff. In addition, the Warden of the Hostel, appointed by the governors, had to be a member of UCC staff and to live in the Warden’s House with his wife and family. The Warden’s wife was crucial to the running of the Hostel as can be seen from the reading of the trust minutes. Sometimes there was also a Deputy Warden or a Sub-Warden who could look after the property in the absence of the Warden. The Warden also acted as secretary to the Honan Trust and had his own chair in the Honan Chapel, which can still be seen there.

Also on site was a gate lodge, where another family or servants lived, a tennis court for the use of residents, that had been there before 1915. There was also a Chaplain’s house at 54 College Road, which had been purchased by Sir John O’Connell for this purpose.[6] Inside the Hostel building, students had the use of a billiard table. Servants were employed to cook, clean and serve meals. A job for a ‘good boy for billiard room and for boots’ was advertised while a butler was also sought.[7]

Before the Hostel could open to residents, remedial works quickly took place supervised by local architect, James F. McMullen MRIAI. In September 1914, the Hostel was advertised to students who were going to be studying at UCC for the upcoming academic year.[8] The Hostel could accommodate between 40-50 students at a cost of £27 excluding laundry.[9] There is no indication in advertisements that the Hostel was a separate legal entity to the College (see for example the advertisement in the Cork Examiner, 18 August 1916, here). As with Berkeley Hall during the Rev. George Webster’s time, the Hostel was a success as a student hall but only with the close attention applied by the live-in Warden and most importantly his wife, who supervised the budget spent on food, fuel, servants and maintenance as well as the care of young men away from home.

The 50th anniversary of the Hostel and the Chapel was celebrated on 4 July 1965 with a Mass. Mrs Downey, wife of the second Warden, was asked to cut the cake at the celebratory meal and was photographed (with Bishop Cornelius Lucey) on the front page of the Evening Echo.[10] Five years later there was some modernisation of the Warden’s house when the contents including mahogany furniture, carpets and ornaments were auctioned.[11]

In June 1991, after 77 years, the Honan Hostel closed.[12] Times had changed — students no longer wished to live in a supervised atmosphere, a house with duties attached was no longer attractive to a warden and his family, and the cost of maintaining and upgrading the 107-year-old building had become onerous.

The site was purchased by UCC and the Hostel and Warden’s house was demolished in late 1995. The Chaplain’s house at 54 College Road survives, which now houses the Students' Union. Before construction of the Languages and Business building (now named the O’Rahilly Building) began, the building was used briefly for an art exhibition in 1995 when sculptors Ben O’Reilly and Andrew Boyle of the Cork Artists’ Collective created an installation on the top floor of the building.[13] This was part of the Universitas 150 celebrations to mark 150 years of UCC’s history since 1845. Phase one of the O’Rahilly Building was opened in 1998 with phase two completing the structure in 2000. The contractor was Sisks, who, in 1915-16, had built the Honan Chapel thus providing another link to the past.

References

[1] Report of the President of UCC, 1910-11, p.13. The first examination for these scholarships was held in October 1910.

[2] Report of the President of UCC, 1913-14, p.9.

[3] ‘The Honan benefactions’, UCC Official Gazette, no. 12 (June 1914), p.106.

[4] UCC University Archives, Minute Book of the Governors of the Honan Hostel, Cork.

[5] ‘Miller (sic) supplies solution for Irish crime writing fraternity’, Irish Examiner, County News, 16 March 2004, p.21.

[6] ‘The Honan benefactions’, UCC Official Gazette, no. 12 (June 1914), p.103.

[7] Advertisements, Cork Examiner 2 and 4 January 1915, p.2.

[8] Advertisement, ‘University College Cork. Honan Hostel’, Cork Examiner, 19 September 1914, p.4.

[9] Report of the President of UCC, 1913-14, p.9.

[10] Evening Echo, 5 July 1965, p.1.

[11] Advertisement, Cork Examiner, 19 September 1970, p.

[12] ‘Finding the perfect place to stay’, The Corkman, 30 August 1991, p.7.

[13] Isabel Healy, ‘At the Honan and Boole shows’, Cork Examiner, 1 February 1995, p.13.

University College Cork © 2024