TIM KEANE
I suppose my first memory was when I was in school in Christians and one year we won the senior
rugby cup and we all marched in and put a flag on the statue – that was a kind of a tradition. And
then as I got older I suppose I remember it as a meeting point that you hoped you might meet a
young lady at or nearby. And then when I went into business it was a marker for where my business
was. We used to say Michele Jewellers near the Statue and it’s part of Cork’s history and I would
always love to say that it should stay there, it’s part of it and it should stay where it is.
Q: And what about Fr Mathew himself ... would you know now who he was?
That’s a tough one because I know personally who he was and the founding of the temperance
movement and all that but I would say ninety per cent of people, well now I’s wrong now, maybe
fifty-five per cent of people don’t know what it commemorates.
Q: Is it important to commemorate the anniversary of the statue?
I think it is. We should celebrate anything that’s history in Cork – you know from that point of view I
think it would be a good thing to so.