The Friday View 10/12
There's something (festive) in the air. There are also some lovely exhibitions and Christmas markets taking place this weekend.
It’s beginning to feel a lot like…last Christmas. We don’t mention the two C words much on Tripe + Drisheen - Covid and Christmas - but in the lead-up to Christmas we’ll flag a few events and ideas related to the latter as we head towards the festive break.
The Counting House at the former Beamish & Crawford brewery, in what marketing departments will now desperately try and brand as Cork’s Brewery Quarter, is finally finished and open for business. According to Archiseek, the early 20th Century Germanic-looking Counting House was most likely designed by Houston & Houston, who also designed The Oval just across the road.
The Counting House is one of the most distinctive city centre buildings, and it’s lovely to see its face again. There have been a few glimpses inside, but we’ll reserve judgement until we get inside for a look. But why oh why does nearly every new or refurbished building in Cork city have to have a glasshouse added to it? It’s possibly some of the most uninspiring design and architecture ever. Yawn. And the plaza that extends to South Main Street, no trees or public seating…yet. Or robotrees with seating built in!
In some good news for rail commuters, the National Transport Authority (NTA) announced that commuters will finally be able to use the Leap card on the Cork- Mallow train route by the middle of next year. Additions like this need to happen faster if we are going to have viable alternatives to driving everywhere.
Painting of the week 1
Out and about
🍱 Eat local
Nano Nagle Place will hold its second Christmas market this Sunday, December 12 and the theme for this one is food. Amongst the exhibitors will be Good Day Deli, Lauana Designs, Hanna's Bees, Hurrah Hurrah, and Green and Grain. There’ll be one more market before Christmas and if you’re dropping by, check out their lovely book shop where you can pick up a copy of Tripe + Drisheen in print. More information about this week’s Christmas market here.
Also, a slightly belated congratulations are in order to all the staff at Nano Nagle Place for being awarded the Council of Europe Museum Prize for 2022. As NN CEO Shane Clarke pointed out, “Nano Nagle was a true European. She spent her youth in France, she also looked to Europe for help and inspiration when she invited the Ursuline Sisters to come to Cork.”
🎧 Listen to the (colour of the) rain
As part of a day of arts and performances Glounthaune Community Association have lined up some lovely events geared towards a younger audience. While the rain probably doesn’t need much introduction on these shores, artist Rachel Doolin takes precipitation as her inspiration as she explores what colour is the rain using sounds, colour and play in a creative way. Another show, Petra Dreams of Snow by Rosie O'Regan, is geared towards preschoolers. If the weather holds, Damian Punch will be outdoors with his excellently-titled Christmas Gone Wrong! More information on all the shows here.
🖼 Exhibitions 1: Winter Exhibition at The Lavit
The annual winter exhibition at the Lavit is one of the gallery’s largest exhibitions every year. It’s a comprehensive collection of art from artists across Ireland and includes paintings, prints, photography, sculpture, jewellery and ceramics. Prices go from low to high, so if you’re looking for a Christmas gift, or just looking to look at some art, it’s worth heading over. More information here.
🖼 Exhibitions 2: Cork in watercolours
Painter Sebastian Thommen will hold his debut exhibition at Pigalle on Barrack Street. All proceeds from the exhibition will be donated to the Marymount hospice. This Sunday - December 12 - sees the launch night and there’ll be food, wine and Pigalle will be raffling off one of Sebastian’s works. Sebastian has painted quite a few of Cork’s landmarks including Coughlan’s, The Lobby (now L’Attitude), Miyazaki and many others. Bravo Sebastian. Tickets and more information here.
Painting of the week 2
Stat of the week: 846,423
That’s the expected population of Cork - city and county - by 2050, quite the jump from where it was in 2016 at just over 540,000. (Source Cork 2050)
Also, December 8, 1752 was the first day the bells on Shandon Bells rang out via Joe Kavanagh.
This week on T+D:
Ellie’s long read this week looked at Cork’s regional bike share scheme, the former Coke Zero bikes you see docked all around town, and being cycled around the town too. It’s an investigative piece that tries to tally the numbers and make sense of the cost, which comes via our taxes. This is local shoe leather journalism at its best and backed up with data. Like these graphs we put together with the stats the National Transport Authority gave us that show that even before the predictably massive impacts of Covid-19 restrictions on the figures, the number of journeys being taken on the rental bikes had been falling for several years:
Or the sheer cost of the scheme:
The maintenance of each bike in the scheme is €1,380 per year according to this report, with the NTA paying the operators €85,100 per month, or €1,021,200, to maintain the 740 bikes.
We had a few short news pieces earlier in the week on the latest figures in dereliction. Bottom line: Cork City Council is getting better at collecting levies.
Also, local councillors and senior Gardaí in Cork discussed the scourge of cyber-crime, with the elderly particularly vulnerable to online and phone scams.
And finally, just in case you didn’t hear us mention this 100 times already, but if you’re looking for a Tripe + Drisheen themed Christmas gift and you want to support local journalism, then we have mugs, T-Shirts and tote bags over at our online shop.
All the proceeds will go back into commissioning more journalism about and from Cork. You can also give a gift subscription of Tripe + Drisheen to anyone around the world. All you need is their email address to sign them up and keep them informed about Cork all year round.
We’ll be back tomorrow with our Arts + Culture newsletter. You can always contact us with news, tips or information at jj.odonoghue@gmail.com or emailellieobyrne@gmail.com.