Music, baguettes, and a sense of belonging

If you passed through Rory Gallagher Square in Cork city during the 2000s or 2010s, you might have thought, 'Wow, those emo kids really love their plain baguettes'. Well, you’d have been wrong.

The baguettes, the Cork independent can exclusively reveal, were an Ill-conceived effort by the teenagers to conceal the smell of alcohol from their parents.

“They were a euro at the time,” recalled Conor Scannell who was part of the last wave of youngsters to gather at the popular spot outside Paul Street Shopping Centre.

“And you'd just inhale that, because apparently your parents wouldn't notice you were langers drunk if you ate a kilo of bread before you went home,” he said.

Now 30, Conor has only the fondest memories of his Paul Street days, a time when teenagers of an alternative persuasion would gravitate towards town every weekend, often with no plans made at all, on the hope that their buddies would be at that magic spot.

“I didn't even have a phone at the time, like, my parents wouldn't let me have one,” said Conor.

“I was flying blind the whole time. I would just get on the bus and just kind of wander in.

“I'd normally get the bus in town around 2pm, and then it would be hanging out in Paul Street for a while, and probably confessing to a minor crime now, but you'd try and like source some alcohol. And then we would all walk down to the skatepark down by UCC.

“You'd go have a drink there, and then usually your parents would be looking for you by about 9pm,” he added.

At the core of Cork’s emo scene was a common love of music, and it was a live concert that first introduced Conor to who would become some of his closest friends.

He said: “Everyone listened to the same kind of music and kind of dressed the same.

“When I was in school, it was just me dressing all in black with the eyeliner and all that stuff. And there was no one else. So, there was one one day, I went into this gig in town in the Unitarian Church and that's where I met people.

“I ended up hanging out on Paul Street. They were like, ‘Come hang out with us over here’, and then it was like every weekend from then on.”

As if the memories weren’t enough, Conor has another memento from his Paul Street days that he will carry for his whole life: a tattoo on his leg that reads 'PaulStreet' under a PlayStation logo.

“I'm sure it was my birthday about six years ago,” recalled Conor.

“A friend of mine came up with it. He's a tattoo artist, and he was like, ‘We should do this!’, and I was just in no position to say no.

“Funnily enough, he's actually just opened up his own tattoo shop just off Paul Street, so it's like everything's kind of come full circle!” laughed Conor.

Asked if another wave of Cork’s youth might ever take up residence on Rory Gallagher Place again, Conor said he feels it would have already happened if it was going to.

“I walk through the street now and it's just empty, like it never happened,” he said.