Philip Stokes is a man more conscious of time than most. The Cork-based horologist’s work repairing and restoring clocks, indoors and outdoors, takes him to all corners of the country. This week he hung a restored clock at Dalkey Dart station in Co Dublin, serviced a clock dating from the 1800s at Government Buildings in Dublin, and did jobs in Tullamore and Mullingar before making a trip to a private house in Co Mayo to get an antique clock ticking again.
Next week, his plans include servicing a clock at the town hall in Dundalk, as well as working on a restoration project at St Mel’s Cathedral in Longford involving bells.
A third-generation horologist with a shop and workshop on MacCurtain Street in Cork, where he also fixes watches, he says that in his line of work there is simply no such thing as an average working week – or even an average day.
“One day we could be at the bench here in the workshop and the next we could be up a clock tower,” he says.
“A lot of it is down to the weather. If I’m doing an outdoor job, you can’t do it if it’s windy, as the clock is always in an exposed area, so you have to plan your day as it happens. It’s unpredictable.
“Domestically it’s not a good policy, when you think you’re away for a day and you’re gone for three. Its downside is long hours. It’s not a nine-to-five by a long shot.
“And there’s an awful lot of working on your own. Most of the time when you are up a clock tower it’s pigeons you are talking to. There are not too many people passing.”
Grandfather clocked
Clocks are in his genes. His grandfather, an avid clock collector, repaired them in his spare time, while his father Christopher turned his passion into a family business, opening Stokes Clocks and Watches 50 years ago.
Philip, who “inherited” the love of clocks from his father, completed a three-year diploma course in watch-making at the Irish Swiss Institute of Horology, in Dublin, at the age of 17 before returning to work in the family business.
“I have worked away here since. It’s the type of game you couldn’t do unless you loved it,” says Stokes (51) , who has one employee, Matteo Pagalie, while his mother Sally runs the shop.
Among the well-known clocks made by the family are those at Clerys and Eason’s on O’Connell Street in Dublin.
Famous clocks they have restored include the Tait Clock in Limerick and that at the National University of Ireland, Galway.
In the 1980s, they remade the clock on Kilkenny City Hall after it was destroyed by fire. “We did a big restoration. You’re coming into something that’s in bits, so when it’s finished there’s great sense of achievement.”
While Philip says it’s difficult to pick out one project that stands out over all the others as they are all “so different”, he says their current work fixing Cork’s Shandon clock at St Anne’s Church, is “particularly important” to him, coming from Cork. “It’s a monument of national importance. It was the biggest clock in Europe at one stage.”
The clock, older than Big Ben and weighing 2.5 tonnes, stopped telling the time 12 months ago and will be completely repaired in two weeks.
“We have two-thirds of it done. We have [fixed] the time and the hour strike, and we are making some parts for the quarter strike so that it chimes every 15 minutes.”
Ticking along
He believes clocks and watches have their place in the future, although there is a “bit of cooling off at the moment”.
“It’s like everything – fashions change and then they come back again. Unfortunately this generation seems to be very much into the now rather than the history, with family heirlooms being thrown or given away. I think that’s a terrible shame. The ‘good watch’ will always do well, but the disposable cheaper watches are gone for the moment. Everybody is just using their phones.”
