Day Thirty-Six - 16/10/2012 - Cork

     Every city has its quirks.  Cork has its fair share.  The oldest piece of free-standing street furniture in Cork is a cannon, protruding about 1,1m from the pavement on the corner of the Grand parade and Tuckey Street, just outside Bishop Lucey Park.  Nobody knows what its intended purpose was or how it wound up stuck in the pavement.
     A local historian Michael O'Leary guessed that the cast-iron gun may have served as a bollard against cart wheels, but also noted wear on the cannon consistent with use as a mooring post for ships, when St. Patrick's was a quay before the water channels were filled in.  It is even possible that the cannon was intended as a street ornament.