So goes the inscription on the iconic clock machinery of St Anne’s Church, Shandon, Cork and an analogy, which can be connected to the 51 years since the Lee hydroelectric scheme. Fifty years is a lot in a lifetime, but when you think in terms of a country’s history, the period is short. We tend to forget how young the Republic of Ireland is today and even how far we as Irish citizens have come in order to carve out a vibrant and positive State.

The archives of the ESB in Dublin, which include documents and photographs from the time of construction, show the original valley and the processes of construction and transformation. There was significant interaction with the natural world of the Lee valley. At low water levels in the reservoirs, the ghostly remnants of a farming community can be viewed including ruinous houses, stone walls, bridges, roads, rubble, gate pillars, tree trunks and the ruins of a paper mill. The story of the Lee scheme is about the facts and figures of construction and was a national infrastructure project. However, the scheme is also about an exploration of the cultural heritage of Cork, past traditions, community, memory and identity and how those ideas changed and evolved, forging the modern Lee valley.

The socio-economic realities of Ireland in the mid-twentieth century and within a city and county such as Cork were very different to those of today. Our ‘Celtic Tiger‘ economy was only a dream for Corkonians in the 1950s. Economic decline and emigration were widespread. Cork City was emerging with new suburban housing estates, a reaction to the slum situation of fifty years previously. In the midst of all that, the Irish government and the ESB carved a vision for the future. The aspiration to provide and modernize the country with electricity was a bold initiative. The success of the Shannon hydroelectric scheme in the 1920s and the Liffey and Erne schemes in the 1930s and 1940s led the policy makers to look at the potential of the river Lee.