One of the ancient names for Cork harbour - Bealach Coullach, or way of the tribes - still carries a resonance, and an application, to the tides of trade, traffic and tourism converging at the Port of Cork.
As the start of a new millenium the Port of Cork enters its third official century. The Port of Cork has its legal origins in several Acts of Parliament consolidating in 1820 with the constitution of the Harbour Commissioners.
The earliest town was marshy, its streets more like canal, its core huddled between the river's northern and southern channels and bisected by yet another. That town was walled, with castellated watch-towers and early maps show ships below the walls. For several hundred years the city spread only when there was enough money.
For most citizens the river is a scenic playground, providing pleasurable walks along such banks as Tivoli, the Lee Fields or the Marina, a focus for local rowing clubs. The ports policy of leisure being integrated with industry is reflected by a commemorative millenium project which takes the form of a garden beside the river at Tivoli.
The port has been marked by the great events of its own past, with famine, destitution, emigration and disease all part of a complex growth. But the accumulation of experience breeds resilience at least, and this the Port of Cork had and still has, in abundance.
For a port to survive it must have a high degree of anticipation. Since 1920, a hundred years after the formal institution of the Harbour Commissioners, that very organisation has been to the forefront of industrial development in Cork.
Cork was the first port in Ireland to set up a planning and development department. By 1972 this produced the Cork Harbour Development Plan in which a blueprint was designed for a future which would include sites such as that at Ringaskiddy.
The Port of Cork has maintained for longer than the last half-century its role as a strategic authority with a vastly important regional role. It has also established strong and productive links with the European Commission and with other port authorities around the world.
The Harbours Act of 1996 changed its relationship with the national government but it continues to work with the Department of Transport, so that, while a significant economic entity itself it maintains a national profile in terms of strategic planning.
The terms of national and international commerce have a certain sameness; mission statements and corporate images proclaim what is best about any organisation, and do so with justifiable pride and with faith in their own vaibility and future prospects. In the case of the Port of Cork Company both pride and promise are supported by the past: a past in which trading responsibilities, civic conciousness, environmental sensitivity and a deep committment to its own human resources have coalesced into a sophisticated and commercially agressive operation.
Times have changed, titles and trade are transformed, personnel have roles and vessels have tonnage and capacities unimaginable to their commercial ancestors. Yet the port which still dominates the harbour of Cork and which still welcomes all the tribes of the world who enter between its two coastal headland continues to incorporate the adventure of sea-borne trade and to advance the fortunes of those who go down to the sea in ships, past present and future.
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