☕️The Friday View 09/05
This week, it's a festival special: From Fringe to Fastnet, Roots to Midsummer - the lineup stretches longer than the Lee. Plus our guide to what's on.
Hello and welcome to the Friday View. Did the new Pope once drink in Callanan’s? He did not. But now that you’re here, read on.
The City Council’s anti-dog fouling awareness campaign, as it’s bureaucratically termed, turns 10 this year. Once again, that means primary school children are left to do the heavy lifting, tasked with designing a cute awareness poster while the real culprits escape scrutiny. The campaign sidesteps directly targeting those responsible for this public health scourge: dog owners who let their pets shit, poo, foul - pick your more palatable verb - in public, then claim they ‘didn’t see it happen’, or, worse, insist their dog ‘just wouldn’t do that’. Now run along.
The overall winner of this year’s competition was St Luke’s School in, you guessed it, St Luke’s. Their posters come as close as kids are allowed to get in pointing the finger at the real culprits: the dog owners themselves. The message is simple: Dogs can’t pick up their own poo, so you have to!
The children aren’t wrong. But the problem lies with a small, hardcore minority of owners who don’t give a figurative shit. Try as it might, and it’s hardly alone in this, the City Council faces a Sisyphean task in changing the behaviour of this stubborn demographic: dog owners who simply look the other way.
In 2024, just 34 fines were issued to dog owners across the entire island of Ireland for failing to clean up after their pets. Cork County Council accounted for nearly a third of these penalties, while Cork City Council didn’t impose a single one. The unspoken truth, absent from the children’s posters but understood by every dog owner on the street, is simple: “It’s not like I’ll actually be fined.”
Thankfully, most owners are law-abiding and recognise that leaving dog mess is not just disgusting, it’s actively harmful to those with visual impairments or limited mobility, who can’t avoid what others leave behind.
No offence to the kids, but perhaps the City Council should push the boat out further? Instead of yet another primary school competition, why not open this to professional artists - God knows they could use the cash injection - and demand posters that are radical rather than cutesy?
We need something with bite. A campaign that doesn't tiptoe around the issue but goes straight for the jugular of that shameless minority who either:
Walk on obliviously while their dog squats in full view, or
Bag the mess religiously - only to launch it into the nearest tree like some kind of biodegradable artillery
Most owners are responsible citizens. But for the rest? Perhaps shame is the only language they'll understand. That, or we could start fining them properly - with the added punishment of being forced to design the next round of posters themselves.
Heroes, all: To his folk artist of the year award, John Spillane can now add a 2025 Culture Award from Cork City Council. The Bishopstown boy was one of number of individuals and groups recognised at the Lord Mayor's Community & Voluntary Awards which took place this week. Fellow musician Jimmy Crowley was also among the recipients, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the musical landscape of Cork, as a collector and performer of the city’s cultural heritage. Likewise, Maria Young, who readers of T+D might know for her work in setting up Togher Community Garden, was awarded for her dedication to environmental sustainability by encouragement to all working and interacting with nature.
Lord Mayor’s Civic Awards
Graham Clifford: In recognition of his work with Sanctuary Runners, promoting solidarity and inclusion through sport.
Jimmy Crowley: In recognition of his outstanding contribution to the musical landscape of Cork, as a collector and performer of the city’s cultural heritage.
Joanna Dukkipati: In recognition of her commitment to supporting and empowering migrant communities through encouraging cultural expression.
Nora O Donovan: In recognition of her advocacy and efforts in championing the rights of older people in Cork.
Siobhán O’Dowd: In recognition of her long-term contributions to community development, inclusion, lifelong learning and LGBTI+ activism in Cork.
Maria Young: In recognition of her dedication to environmental sustainability by encouragement to all working and interacting with nature.
Culture Award 2025
John Spillane: For his lifelong contribution to the popularising of the Irish language and the mythology, music and storytelling of Ireland
Lord Mayor’s Community and Voluntary Awards 2025
Arts Culture Recreation and Heritage: Mexican Community Cork
Climate Action, Active Travel and Sustainable Development: Save Our Bride Otters
Community Development and Lifelong Learning: Clogheen Kerry Pike Community Association
Recreation Sport Health and Wellbeing: Mayfield Men’s Shed
Social Inclusion Advocacy and Integration: Cycling for All Cork
Social Services Charities and Environment: The Hut Youth Project
Overall winner for 2025 in the Lord Mayor’s Community and Voluntary Awards: N.A.S.C.
Festivals galore: Festival season begins this weekend with the first ever Cork Fringe Festival taking over the city’s theatres and bars. From Forde’s to The Everyman, the festival features art, theatre, comedy and tunes across eleven venues. The lineup is eclectic and diverse, using spaces that haven’t seen audiences in months such as the Triskel’s TDC. It also pays homage to traditional foods with the Three Bs at Forde’s Bar combining Beamish, ballads and bodice (cured pork rib that is boiled until tender), The Beamish is cheap, the bodice is free and the ballads are, well, you’ll have to turn up.
The TDC, currently in use by the Cork Theatre Collective, is open for shows for the first time since last year’s Cork Midsummer and will host comedians Allie O’Rourke and Ross O’Donoghue. Theatre and soundscapes come together at AIMSIR Theatre’s The Answer, a site-specific audio theatre piece about climate anxiety and the commercialisation of self-help is at the Marina Market , while the soundscape artist Jodot performs in the TDC on Saturday.
There are collaborations everywhere: the Irish language theatre company Cois Laoi Productions bring a rehearsed reading of Gael Gore, a meta comedy horror dráma dátheangach to the TDC on Sunday, while UCC Youth Theatre present a Youth Theatre Short Play MiniFest in The Granary. Litreacha bring poetry and spoken word to Nudes as part of the festival on Sunday.
The local DJ collective and multi-disciplinary platform Dose take over Dali on Friday night, with Ana Palindrome and File na Farraige, a showcase of both ancient and modern sound incorporating contemporary experimental techniques with Irish folklore and performance art. The music continues on Saturday with the Electronic Music Council presenting an homage to Cork’s electronic music scene in the Kino.
The Everyman Theatre also sees performances from up-and-comers Isolde Fenton and Tommy Harris, who present ‘In A Bad Way’ and ‘Happy Capital’, a double bill of one man/woman shows. There’s cabaret too, in the Everyman’s bar - performer Sarah Rose presents a love letter to her younger self in her journey as a performer with ‘Coming of Age (….at 30): A Musical Cabaret’.
On the art side of things, the Laneway Gallery hosts Dreamscape and Eden, a pair of exhibitions by Ailbhe Reilly Tuite and Sorcha Browning. Dreamscape is a canvas and a projection screen that creates an interactive game of ‘trace the dot’, while Eden is a nine minute video loop displayed across two screens.
This festival looks like an incredible addition to the Cork calendar, with a good mix of venues, bars, traditions, theatres, comedy, and languages. All it needs is the public to get on in and support it. If it doesn’t look appealing enough, anybody who goes to see a show at the TDC gets a complimentary drink from Paperboys.
Pádraig spoke to festival creators Daniel Cremin and Ineke Lavers during the week, you can read that interview here.
On the eve of Cork's first Fringe Festival
This time last year, Ineke Lavers and Daniel Cremin were coming to the end of their Masters in Arts Management & Creative Producing and thinking about what to do after they graduated.
Cork Roots Festival, Fastnet Film Festival, and more festivals to come: The weekend after this sees the Cork Roots Festival in Coughlans, which features Lemoncello, John Blek, Kevin Quigley and the Great Ideas, Ricky Lynch and the Lynch Mob, Briars, and others, while the Céilí Allstars perform on the Sunday. The Monday features a night of seven local singer songwriters, with Finn Fletcher-White, Ronan O’Driscoll, Julia Maria, Kit Barrett, Molly Fawl, Sam Healy, Jodie Lynn and Finn Fletcher White all performing.
And then the following weekend sees the return of the Fastnet Film Festival, down in West Cork. Based around short films, the festival this year brings Barry Keoghan, Aidan Gillen, Nicola Coughlan, Lenny Abrahamson and Domhnall Gleeson to the Mizen Peninsula for 28 different screenings and events taking place in the village’s Harbour Hotel, Holy Trinity Church, Church of Ireland Hall and Parish Hall. Full programme here.
AND the weekend after that, Open Ear takes over Sherkin Island. The lineup features some of the country’s best experimental musicians, with I Dreamed I Dream, Trá Pháidín, and Elaine Malone all representing the Cork scene. There’s alternative trad with Bríghdhe Chaimbeul, Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh, RÓIS and Séamas Hyland. There’s also industrial music, synths, DJs, compositions. Check out the lineup here.
Cork Midsummer Festival Programme Launched: An important part of the city’s arts calendar, the 2025 Cork Midsummer Festival programme was launched last Thursday. Midsummer, which turns 27, is aking place between the June 13 and 22 of June across 29 locations.
The headliner events this year include Helios by Luke Jerram at St Fin Barre’s Cathedral. Much in the same vein as his Gaia Globe that floated in St. Coleman’s Cathedral, Cobh, at the festival two years ago, Helios is a direct replica of the sun, with each centimetre of the six metre sculpture representing 2,300km of the real Sun’s surface.
Eileen Walsh performs The Second Woman, a 24 hour theatrical marathon where she performs the same scene 100 times with 100 different men. Inspired by John Cassavetes’ film Opening Night, Walsh and the man play each half of a couple whose relationship has lost any trace of creativity and romance. None of the men will have performed or rehearsed with Walsh before this, as she plays Virginia and the man plays Marty.
Co-created by Nat Randall and Anna Breckon, it was originally performed in Australia between 2016 and 2019 by Randall. It has also since been performed in Taiwan with Zhu Zhi-Ying in 2018, in Toronto with Laara Sadiq in 2019, in New York with Alia Shawkat in 2019, and in London with Ruth Wilson in 2023.
Other theatre performances include Kwaku Fortune’s The Black Wolfe Tone, a play about identity and masculinity, touring Ireland following its premiere in New York. Irene Kelleher performs two plays: Stitch in J. Nolan’s Stationary shop on Shandon Street, and Footnote in the TDC. Aaron O’Neill presents a play about Fungie the Dolphin’s disappearance with Bottlenose: A Mystery For Modern Ireland at The Granary, while Caryl Churchill presents Escape Alone at The Everyman. There’s also a Theatre for One box on Emmet Place, where you see an actor perform a play for you, one on one, for five minutes.
There’s circus, as The Lords of Strut present Chop at Test Site, and Will Flanagan presents Scattered Sideways at the Marina Market. There’s dance too, at the Firkin Crane, with Australia’s Pony Cam and Lewis Major performing in the space. Pony Cam perform Burnout Paradise, featuring treadmills, while Lewis Major performs Triptych. The Italian Alessandro Sciarroni performs Save The Last Dance For Me at Millennium Hall.
Visual artist comes in the form of Amanda Coogan’s Caught in The Furze at the Cork Centre for Architectural Education on Douglas Street, a seven-day performance within an immersive installation of seven gorse bushes. Sarah Lou Kineen’s Fruiting Futures, an immersive installation grown from waste, takes place next to the Lord Mayor’s Pavilion in Fitzgerald Park.
There’s lots of literature this year, with Western Frequencies bringing four literary talks to UCC, featuring Claudia Rankine, Patrick McCabe, David Murphy, Michael Lightborne, Aideen Barry, Sinéad Gleeson and GauZ’.
And of course, there’s music. As If I Always Knew performs at St. Fin Barre’s Cathedral, as does Amanda Feery’s Nest. The Crash Ensemble performs Glassworks at the Triskel, while Jane Deasy performs part-concert part-cabaret Opening Night at The Green Room in the Opera House.
There’s installations too, across the city. The Cork Theatre Collective present their works in progress at the TDC, Sample-Studios exhibit Jane Hayes’ First Impressions in the Lord Mayor’s Pavilion, and Basel Zaara recreates a Palestinian home with Dear Laila in the MTU Gallery.
The festival closes with the French Compagnie OFF’s Les Giraffes: An Animal Operetta, where seven towering red giraffes head down Patrick Street, led by an operatic Diva. This is what the festival is all about, bringing visual and performance art to the masses, and those who seek it out, drawing their attention, and bringing life to our streets. Long may it continue.
And let’s not forget Cork Harbour Festival which takes place from May 24 to the June Bank Holiday weekend, during which we’ll see Ocean to City – An Rás Mór, Ireland’s very own long-distance rowing race, featuring hundreds of rowing boats. The full lineup for that is here.
More festivals: In MORE Cork Festival news, Sounds From A Safe Harbour last week announced their artists in residence, and to be fair, it’s a serious list. Led by Mary Hickson and curated by Bryce Dessner, Cillian Murphy, Max Porter and Billy Mag Fhloinn, there are sixty artists on their 37d03d residency. They include The National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner, Oscar winner Cillian Murphy, his wife Yvonne McGuinness, the far more interesting half of the Rubberbandits Bobby Fingers, David Kitt, Fionn Regan, Memorial, RÓIS, rapper Serengeti, SOAK, The Staves, and many more.
Sponsored by Beamish this time out, what could end up being the biggest hipster fest in the country runs between the 11 and 14 of September. There were complaints last time out of saucy ticket prices and short run times for the shows, so we’ll have to see if they are addressed this year. Either way, according to organisers it’s a spiritual f*cking thing (cringe). Let’s hope it’s just not a really expensive f*cking thing too.
Also around that end of the year, River Runs Round announced their festival dates for October, which will be split between the River from the 10 to the 12 and the Estuary on the 18 and 19. With the West Cork Chamber Music Festival returning in June, Pitch’d Circus Festival and Cork on a Fork returning in August, the Coughlan’s Live Music Festival coinciding with Autumnfest in September followed by Sounds From A Safe Harbour and the Clonakilty Guitar Festival, the Jazz and River Runs Round in October, and Quiet Lights returning in November, we’re on course to having a festival every week in this city, although sadly, Quarter doesn’t seem to be making a return this year.
Rory Craig gig: Musician Rory Craig tragically passed away late last year at the young age of 24. Last week, his first single, ‘Seen It All Before’, was released, and went top of the Irish iTunes charts. A concert in celebration of Rory’s life will take place at the Curtis Auditorium in MTU on the 15th of June.
Ballyvolane plan begins construction: The Ballyvolane Strategic Transport Corridor begins construction this week, according to the City Council. The scheme sees improved junction layouts, new cycle lanes, and new footpaths on Ballyhooly Road, Rathcooney Road and Ballyvolane Road to accommodate new housing in the area.
Out + About
The Cork Fringe gets underway today, with events across the city. Loop pedal musician Rob Carlile performs in The Roundy tonight, while Dose take over Dali with Ana Palindrome and File na Farraige. Soundscape musician Jodot performs in the TDC tomorrow, while the Electronic Music Council present Macallaí Corcaigh with Blaskets and Bagheera in the Kino. There’s a musical cabaret by Sarah Rose in The Everyman Bar on Saturday too, while Andy Ingamells and Benjamin Burns present a piano recital in the the TDC on Sunday.
There’s plenty of theatre too. The Marina Market hosts AIMSIR Theatre’s The Answer, The Everyman hosts a double bill of Isolde Fenton’s In A Bad Way and Tommy Harris’ Happy Capital. The Granary hosts The Horgles’ A Xerox Of A Deer, Ciara Ní Tuathaigh’s A Scent of A Mock Orange, and Cois Laoi Productions’ Gael Gore.
There’s poetry with Litreacha in Nudes on Sunday, comedy in the TDC tonight, and an exhibition in the Laneway Gallery tonight. Something for everyone. Check it all out! Lineup and tickets here.
Time, date, place: Friday May 9 - Sunday May 11, The Roundy, The TDC, Forde’s Bar, Marina Market, Nudes/Dali, The Granary, The Everyman, The Kino, Lavit Gallery, Laneway Gallery, Cork.
Fiddles: The Baltimore Fiddle Fair also gets underway this weekend, having begun with a performance from Martin Hayes last night. Tonight sees performances by Genticorum and Mike McGoldrick, John McCusker and John Doyle at the Fiddle Fair Marquee, while the legendary Altan and Spanish-American Celtic Duo San Miguel Fraser perform there on Saturday. Young talent emerges at St. Matthew’s Church, as Megan Nic Fhionnghaile and Cathal Ó Curráin perform on Saturday too. A ferry with a trad session around Fastnet leaves Baltimore port on Saturday too, while there’s an opportunity to meet the Arts Council’s Head of Traditional Arts, Paul Flynn, at a free clinic at Baltimore Sailing Club. On Sunday, the festival welcomes Lisa O’Neill and Clare Sands to the Fiddle Fair Marquee. The full lineup and tickets are here.
Time, date, place: Thursday May 8 - Sunday May 11, Baltimore.
There are plenty of opportunities to see Fermanagh’s RÓIS in Cork this summer. She performs at Open Ear on Sherkin Island, and is an artist in residence at Sounds From a Safe Harbour, with her blend of elements of folk, sean-nós, electronics, and jazz harmony. However, if you’re not around for either of those, she’s in St. Brendan’s Church in Bantry this evening. Tickets are available here.
Time, date, place: 9:30pm, Friday May 9, St. Brendan’s Church, Wolfe Tone Street, Bantry.
Italian Jazz piano musician Federico Albanese lived in Berlin, but returned to Italy to release his latest album, Blackbirds And The Sun Of October. He performs at the Triskel on Saturday night, tickets are available here.
Time, date, place: 8pm, Saturday May 10, Triskel Arts Centre, Tobin Street, Cork.
Will it rain this Sunday? Possibly, check the weather forecast, but if it is, then the Triskel might be worth dropping by for a screening of ‘Housewife of the Year’, a 2024 documentary about the celebrated - and dated - competition that ran for years to find the ideal matriarchal figure. The documentary is a less a celebration of the competition but an exploration of some of the women who entered and won and the lives they led, which didn’t really figure at all in the competition. Tickets and more info here.
Time, date, place: 11am, Sunday May 11, Triskel, Tobin St
That’s it for this week’s Friday View. As always, any tips, comments, news or events you’d like to share with Tripe+Drisheen, you can contact us at tripeanddrisheen@substack.com. We are always happy to speak to people off the record in the first instance, and we will treat your information with confidence and sensitivity. Get in touch. Have a lovely weekend.
From the archive:
A unique house goes up on the island in The Lough
A few minutes into our walk around the perimeter of The Lough skirting alongside the Lough Road, Noel Linehan paused and pointed into the gray sky hanging over the city.