Hi
I Recently came across a picture of Cork's South Mall showing the Imperial Hotel in 1872 on the NLI website. The picture can be magnified, so I decided to have a look down the side street called Pembroke Street. Thinking here was to see if I could identify the shops and thus positively date the picture using the information in Guy's street directory for 1875.
This I succeeded in doing. The shop visible here facing the end of Pembroke St was occupied by a bookseller named Nassau Massey. It's blurry but you can make out the words N Massey over the first floor window, and the sign on the downstairs retail shop (trust me) says School + College Books.
He was gone from this premises by 1881, and the shop is now occupied by the Cobbler, a shoe repair and leather goods shop just diagonally across the road from the Cork GPO.
Here's the link to the NLI photo.
http://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000339590Lots of interesting things to be seen in the front view of the Imperial, also. Photography was in it's infancy and there are a dozen or so ghostly images of Imperial Hotel bystanders . Enjoy.
