Qualla: Arch Building, Cobh

Arch Building, Cobh: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MaireNiUirthile, CC BY-SA 4.0. It has had three names. Queenstown Town Hall when it served the Victorian port that hosted the British Atlantic fleet. Cobh Town Hall after 1920, when the town shed its imperial name during the Irish War of Independence. And the Arch Building today, after the three arches at its centre were given their own quiet identity. The building stands at one edge of Casement Square in Cobh, thirteen bays of grey limestone and cement-rendered brick facing the harbour, designed by Alexander Deane in the neoclassical style and officially opened on 27 May 1852. It looks today like what it has always been: a substantial municipal structure built to last. What it has been used for over the years is the story.

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Image: MaireNiUirthile | CC BY-SA 4.0

Arch Building, Cobh: A Market House by the Smith-Barrys

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kenneth Allen, CC BY-SA 2.0. The site began as a market house, commissioned in 1806 by John Smith-Barry of Fota House - an Anglo-Irish landlord whose seat lay on Fota Island a few kilometres up the harbour. The original 1806 building was modest. The Arch Building as it stands today owes its proportions to Jo...

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Image: Kenneth Allen | CC BY-SA 2.0

Arch Building, Cobh: Bodies in the Assembly Hall

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit William Murphy from Dublin, Ireland, CC BY-SA 2.0. On the afternoon of 7 May 1915, the Cunard liner RMS Lusitania was struck by a torpedo from a German U-boat off the Old Head of Kinsale, less than twenty nautical miles south-west of Cobh. She sank in eighteen minutes. One thousand one hundred and ninety-eight passengers and crew...

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Image: William Murphy from Dublin, Ireland | CC BY-SA 2.0

Arch Building, Cobh: Casement Square, and the Angel

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit N Chadwick, CC BY-SA 2.0. When Queenstown became Cobh in 1920 - the local council passing the resolution on 2 July of that year - the square in front of the building was renamed too. Scotts Square became Casement Square, in honour of Roger Casement, the Irish nationalist who had been executed by the Briti...

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Image: N Chadwick | CC BY-SA 2.0

Arch Building, Cobh: Library, Court, Library Again

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Valdoria~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. In 1976 the building was converted into a public library - a project that cost £75,000 in mid-1970s money and turned the old assembly hall into reading rooms. A tourist information centre moved in as well, and the District Court took part of the space until that court closed in 2...

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Image: No machine-readable author provided. Valdoria~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims). | Public domain