Happy Christmas and sayonara 2021
The good news is...2021 is nearly over.
Feliz Navidad!🎅🎄
That song has been the soundtrack in our house for the past two weeks now as my sons sing their way through every Christmas song on Spotify, especially this one! Cliched as it is, kids do make Christmas special and entertaining.
How will you be spending Christmas and New Year?
In Cork, and then in Kerry. The greatest footballing and hurling counties on the planet, but not in that order. After presents have been unwrapped, all going well and all going to plan we will visit my parents in Kerry and eat, drink and go swimming. But not in that order.
My father goes swimming pretty much all year round. He’s some man, and Haruki, who’s eight, said he’d like to get into the Atlantic as well this Christmas. And I should too. Last month I went down to Myrtleville to film the swimmers who swim there throughout the year and they have the same passion and zeal as cyclists. Swimming - or sea swimming as it’s now known - is great and I should get in over Christmas. But will I? Someone needs to hold the towels!
It’s our second Christmas in Ireland and it will be nice to retreat from the daily mix of running here and there for a day or two. If only they would turn the internet off for a day or nine! Also, it would spare you from having to read more Tripe missives.
What did you do in 2021?
I finally got a job for which I am very grateful for, and I also started Tripe + Drisheen, and somehow both of them are still going! As Ellie said, we’ve racked up a fair amount of journalism in the space of less than eleven months and honestly I had no idea where it was going when I launched Tripe + Drisheen back in February. Thank you so much for reading and supporting T+D and sending us tips, information and feedback. Journalism is a team effort.
Some of the pieces I have enjoyed reading most have come not only from Ellie or me, but from our contributors in the Our Cork 2040 series, a great mix of people who have a vision of what Cork could be and how we could be.
Seeing the print version of Tripe + Drisheen in my local library made me very proud. Our libraries are fantastic, they’re one of our best community resources and to be in the company of so many books all of which can be enjoyed freely and for free, well that was special. I kept pointing out the copy of Tripe + Drisheen down in the library to my two sons, but they’re sick to death of seeing it at this stage. Wait until they see what Santa brings them?
A lot of the credit for the magazine goes to Ellie; she helped steer, beat and guide it until we finally got it to the printers and back out into the world. If you have a chance to pick it up over the Christmas, please do (and let us know your thoughts).
I really enjoy reading and writing profiles, and the longer the better. So, some of my favourite pieces to write this year have been where I could go and spend a few hours in the company of the person I am writing about. Simon Lyons, the (very) polite engineer from Cork City Council, was hugely generous with his time and knowledge, as was publican Benny McCabe, who has a way with words and business.
I miss Japanese food a lot (multiply that 500 times for my wife and kids), so it was lovely to be in the kitchen at Ichigo Ichie filming Chef Takashi Miyazaki back in September. He prepared a sliver of nigiri sushi with tuna, Irish truffle and eggs on it and it was without doubt the single most delicate and amazing thing I ate all year.
There’s a lot of scope to develop and be creative in journalism and I’ve really enjoyed and learned a lot working with another colleague Andrei Scintian, a videographer based in Dublin. Together we’ve made some mini-documentaries that I’m really proud of.
One of the short documentaries we made was on the parklets, and it was great to meet and interview some of the people who want to make Cork better, whether it’s getting glyphosate banned, or those campaigning for cycling and cycles lanes, bus lanes, dog parks, regular parks or highlighting dereliction.
As Justine Looney from Cork Flower Studio told us, the first parklet installed outside her shop was only ever meant to be a temporary structure, but look what it’s led to. It can take a great deal of time for things to change in Ireland, but that should never be the reason for not trying.
I’d love to say I got fitter in 2021, but journalism does the opposite to you. 2022 is the year I get fitter. And read more books. I’m joining a book club with some old friends (who are now like me also old!) Some of them are from Cork and scattered across the globe and some of them who are not from Cork and were included so we can make fun of them. Kidding. Not.
Cultural highlights
Not much then, because mostly I was at home looking out the window while pretending to be working.
I have been living away from Cork for a long time and moving back in a pandemic isn’t the best time to reacquaint yourself with your hometown. Last month I went to St Luke’s to see John Grant. It was my first time to hear him live and my first time in the former church - what a venue and what a lovely walk to the toilets. Granted I missed four songs for the journey out and back! I’ve missed live music, especially seeing small loud bands, especially the ones I know nothing about. Also, I think I heard more Irish music played in Kyoto than I did here in Japan, but le cúnamh Dé things will get better next year for musicians and performers of all stripes.
Towards the end of the year it was really lovely to hear a very Cork-themed short story read out by the actor Hilary Rose. “Town: A Love Story in Body Parts” was a literal (and very funny) traipse around Cork written by the super-talented Lisa McInerney.
I went on the audio tour with my parents and youngest son back in August but we got as far as the other side of Daly’s (Shakey) Bridge before my Dad said something along the lines, “argggha don’t mind this shit” and then we just went on a walk through the Mardyke and my Dad said hello to more or less everyone we met. I should clarify that it wasn’t Lisa’s story or Rose’s delivery that disgruntled him. In fact it wasn’t the story at all, but, like many he’s had enough of having everything served up digitally.
Ardú, for the second year running, managed to bring some great artists to the city, load them up with paint and plank them in front of a city wall. There were two ways the murals unfolded: either you saw the pieces being painted as you walked around town, or more likely they came at you through a flurry of posts and videos on social media until you finally saw all the composite pieces together. I liked also the different reactions - ultimately the point of art. People I’ve chatted with have loved and been indifferent or actively disliked the giant murals. Hopefully, there’ll be another crop of artists back next year.
Other highlights
In August I took the boys across to the other side of the city to Ellie’s polytunnel where around four hundred tomatoes were ripening on vines. The tomatoes were in the company of edamame and Ellie’s nephew was there too and the shrieks of joy from my boys was something I should have recorded. We’ll be back next year.
We grew daikon - Chinese radish - this winter and now my youngest son is busy preparing for when we will plant beans and rice crackers. The rice crackers are his idea. It was also lovely one day this summer when we went to town and as we were sitting outside Myo Cafe a dolphin swam up as far as the Gate Cinema. Fionn kept calling it an elephant.
The Tokyo Olympics were great, even if they were a nightmare to stage. We watched loads of the Games via Japanese broadcasters every morning over breakfast, all those sports that I only ever see every four (or five) years. Other things I have watched include way too much shite on Netflix and Amazon, but I did watch Squid Game, which led me to watch a lot more Korean-made dramas, and damn they’re making some great series (here’s looking at you RTÉ).
By the way, speaking of content, specifically Cork content, on New Year’s Day on YouTube some fine Cork talent will be premiering in “Standing Up”, a feature length film set in Cork. Check out the trailer on YouTube here.
Don’t mention the C-word
Some days have felt like weeks in which we’re slow walking backwards. Sick and shit were two words I “reached out to” frequently. With the vaccine rollout earlier in the year came hope, but now it feels a lot like this time last year, albeit with hospitalisation rates way down. I suppose all we can do is support each other, and hope that sooner rather than later the pandemic moves to the epidemic stage and that I don’t reach for a cliche.
Here and there
After living for so many years in Japan and starting a family there, comparisons are inevitable. (My wife, if she’s ever made Lord Mayor of Cork will instantly ban 95% of the chocolate in shops here - I think she thinks we have a fair bit of chocolate going on in this country!)
Haruki made quite a few comparisons in his piece on Our Cork 2040. He was the youngest contributor, and the only one to comment on Cork people’s fascination with…Cork. I’m very grateful our sons have settled in so well at their respective schools - Fionn will be joining his big brother in his school next year, which is a cause for huge excitement for him. We’ve met great neighbours and lovely people all round, and at the risk of sounding like the quintessential American tourist in Ireland people here are welcoming and friendly. And that counts for a lot.
Some of the readjustments have been hard, especially when it comes to housing and health. Ireland, like Japan, is a rich country but the waiting times in the public health system here are beyond belief. Likewise, I’ve talked with new arrivals to Ireland who are struggling financially and mentally because of the housing crisis. Many of them moved here for work, with their families, but they’re really struggling to find affordable housing. And it’s not just new arrivals; you can read Ellie’s piece from earlier this week to see how our housing crisis affects us all. The worst part is I’m not sure how quickly change is going to happen, and what effects waiting will have on hundreds of thousands of people in the meantime.
One of the toughest interviews I did this year was in Dublin during the last Mica protest and the woman we were interviewing - she was a bit younger than me - started crying while we talked to her because of the frustration of not knowing what her future would be like. She’d bought her own house in 2008 and this year she learned it would have to be demolished. The toil and torment that that brings is incalculable.
Our hope - my wife and me - is to be able to move into our own place in 2022. We’ve been very lucky that my parents have been so helpful thus far and we have to remain hopeful about the future.
There are many things to be grateful for: we moved across the world during a pandemic, I found a job in an industry I want to work in, I get to walk and cycle my sons to school on a safe pathway, away from cars and through nature and with other neighbours and friends every morning. I started a local publication with an odd name and I’m lucky to work with one of the best journalists I know and we’re both lucky to be supported by incredibly generous readers. And at Christmas we get to see my side of the family in person. (And my wife gets to meet her in-laws!!!!!!:)
So finally, thank you for your support and faith in us for the past year and we hope to see you all in 2022. Now I must go take the tripe and drisheen out of the oven!
Lovely to hear about your year JJ
T&D is a really wonderful production!
If you’re looking for a safe and wonderful place to swim with your kids then try Derrynane, it’s magic and one of my favourite places. I might even get down for a swim around New Year
Keep going and Happy Christmas to you and Ellie