Nobbled: Cork spends €6,000 polishing door handles to impress Prince Charles

It has long been known as Ireland’s “rebel county” for its resistance to authority, especially English authority, but Cork’s reputation may be somewhat tarnished after it emerged the city council spent almost €6000 polishing door handles before a visit by Prince Charles.

It was part of a €203,761 splurge on cleaning and refurbishment to make a good impression on Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, and apparently out-Windsor Windsor, during a one-day visit last June.

Publication of the breakdown of the expenditure this week prompted accusations that the city had gone overboard.

“This is crazy when you think of the homeless, people on trolleys & the disabled,” tweeted Thomas Gould, a Sinn Féin councillor.

“Why did they polish them? It’s not as if Charles and Camilla were going around trying all the doors,” Catriona Twomey, an advocate for the homeless, told the Irish Examiner. “They have people to open doors for them. I’m sure this money would have been better spent turning around a house for a family.”

Cork city council defended the €5,936 spend on polishing city hall’s handles by saying it entailed specialist work on over 260 individual brass items by a local firm.

“It included reconditioning, polishing and lacquering door knobs, door handles, escutcheons, push plates, finger plates, brass fittings and kick plates. These items had not been refurbished since they were first put in place over 80 years ago and were due to be refinished but the project was brought forward due to the royal visit.”

Other expenditure included €5,448 on blasting and painting city hall’s gates, just over €8,000 on sanding, varnishing and power-washing railings and pillars and €6,222 on replacing a foyer light.

The city council statement said up to half of the total expenditure related to the acceleration of planned refurbishment works as well as the installation of greenery and flowers around the city, which lasted throughout the tourist season.

The visit by the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall followed a 2011 landmark visit to Cork, Ireland’s second largest city, by Queen Elizabeth. She received a rapturous welcome, underlining improved relations between Britain and Ireland.

The rebel county nickname reputedly dates from 1491 when local leaders backed Perkin Warbeck, a pretender to the English throne, in a doomed revolt against Henry VII. Cork also played a lead role in Ireland’s 1921-22 war of independence.