The Friday View 12/07
☀️Levies, dog wardens, motions, question and answers from this week’s City Council meeting; a bike box must go in Ballintemple and Corcaigh abú! Welcome to the Friday View on T+D.
It’s on! The run for one. Liam McCarthy’s coming home. The Cork hurlers and fans turned up for a classic for the ages last Sunday in Croke Park. Limerick brings out the best in Cork, well they have this year, and the All-Ireland final, coming in less than two weeks, is the talk of the city and county. There were so many standout performances, but the way the entire team outplayed Limerick in the second half - their half in every match - was inspiring
Less inspiring, but entirely predictable, is the way Ireland’s most famous amateur sporting organisation is out to cash in on the hurling final. Cork GAA has a preview happening on July 17 at supermarket Páirc Uí Chaoimh. A table for 10 will set you back €3k, or €2,500 for the slightly less expensive half-forward table. Drinks will be provided by a Dutch multinational beverage company, while we can safely assume that the fish fingers will be from [insert supermarket name here]. Elsewhere, Cork Chamber, Cork Business Association, and the City Council all united this week to call on the people of Cork to display red and white on cars and houses. Ah, thanks for the guidance?
Away from the patronising and crass commercialisation, enjoy the build up, reflections and excitement as the final looms, but most of all the hunt for tickets. That’s all T+D is asking of you…along with tickets to the final. LOL. Corcaigh abú!
News in brief: City Council round-up
Questions and answers: Newly elected councillors asked 11 of the 18 questions submitted to the City Council this week. That’s probably to be expected from newbies keen to get accountability from authority, etc. But there’s a definite pattern to the councillors who ask questions vs. those who don’t.
Cllrs. Sean Martin (FF), Oliver Moran (Green Party), Kenneth O’Flynn (Independent), Kieran McCarthy (Independent), and Shane O’Callaghan (FG) all submitted questions ahead of this week’s meetings, along with the newly elected members, which included Cllrs. Peter Horgan and Laura Harmon (Lab), Padraig Rice (SD), Honore Kamegni (Greens), and Michelle Gould and Joe Lynch (SF).
A good chunk of councillors don’t bother to use this privilege, but they might table motions.
A promising sod: In response to newly elected Labour Cllr. Peter Horgan, the outgoing chief executive of Cork City Council said she expects 220,000 people to pass through the Event Centre when/if it’s eventually operational.
According to the Council, the yet-to-be-built, eight-years-in-the-(non)making theatre of (bad) dreams will have “15 large events with a minimum capacity of 4,500 people and at least 50 small events with a minimum capacity of 2,000 people and comprising at least 10 family, culture, and arts-focused events such as musicals.” All told, 220,000 punters according to the City Hall bean counters.
Doherty also said that the Centre, which has cost the public €57m so far, will have two public representatives on the Review Committee, as well as one person nominated from the Event Centre and one more nominated from the joint venture. All the talk of the past few weeks is that the coalition government is expected to sign off on the white elephant (black swan) – choose your metaphor – imminently
Derelict site levies: Cllr. Laura Harmon, another newly elected councillor, wanted to know how much money the City has collected on derelict sites, and lord knows we have some. The answer: since June 2023, Cork City Council has collected €427,993, with by far the largest slice of the pie coming from one local electoral area – Cork City South Central. In contrast, the southwest ward netted a grand sum of €7,500.
LEA DS Levies collected since June 2023
Cork City North East €26,600
Cork City North West €64,893
Cork City South Central €319,705
Cork City South East €9,295
Cork City South West €7,500
Incidentally, Cllr. Harmon also put forward a motion for a lido in the Lee. We’ve been here before, and the Lee Lido was a feature on T+D in October 2021. Cllr. Harmon’s motion came on the back of the Lee Swim, held in the city last Saturday, July 6. It will be taken up at the Environment, Water & Amenity Strategic Policy Committee on September 17.
Shandon Street Festival redux? Festivals come and go, and it can feel like there’s a festival every week, but one that’s unlikely to come back anytime soon is the Shandon Street Festival, which has been on hiatus for the past few years.
In response to a question from newly elected SF councillor Michelle Gould, Rebecca Loughry, Director of Services, Community, Culture, and Placemaking (also a newbie), said the council would support a local initiative to make the festival happen. However, whether a local group(s) would be able to find the volunteers necessary to restart the festival is another question.
€630k and counting: The City Council regularly shares pictures and videos of the street cleaners who dutifully clean up the city centre streets in the early mornings of weekends when the city looks like… well, shite.
According to David Joyce, in response to a question from Oliver Moran, the annual cost to Cork City Council's Street Cleaning Section for the collection of illegally dumped waste is estimated at €630,000. However, that figure does not include the costs of street sweeping, mechanical street cleaning, or the emptying of public litter bins, meaning that the city’s cleaning bill is much higher
Never a fool came our of Macroom: Indeed, it would seem so, as quite a few newspaper column inches were devoted to Morgan McSweeney, the man from Macroom who masterminded Labour’s crushing defeat of the Tories and the hard left in the Labour Party.
According to a Guardian profile published prior to the general election, the Scotland-based Svengali was the mastermind of Labour’s victory on July 4 and previously in taking the party back from the Corbynites. Morgan, 46, is the son of Macroom-based accountant Tim McSweeney and his wife Carmel. His first cousin, Clare Mungovan, also from Macroom, is a special advisor to Taoiseach Simon Harris.
From that Guardian piece: “Morgan’s the saviour of the Labour party,” one former colleague said. “Remember all those fuckers who abandoned the party [under Jeremy Corbyn] for Change UK or for fake jobs with Boris Johnson. Morgan stayed in the party and pulled us out of the mire, by raising money, commitment, strategy and most of all his own bloody sweat”.
Taking flight:As every dog on the street knows, Cork Airport is criminally underserviced. However, the cap on flights at Dublin Airport has prompted DAA, the company that runs both Cork and Dublin Airports, to take a closer look at Cork and perhaps, like the rest of us, recognise that there’s room for growth!
Cork Airport boss Niall McCarthy announced that airlines will be encouraged to relocate seat capacity from Dublin to Cork through discounts on airport charges at Cork Airport, as the airport management company seeks to maintain airline interest amid caps at Dublin Airport. Three million passengers are expected to use Cork Airport this year, while nearly 32 million passed through Dublin Airport last year. Amazing then how a passenger cap in Dublin could refocus the minds!
No means no: Spare a thought for cyclist Denis O’Regan, whose appeal to keep his bike box in the front garden of his house was rejected this week by An Bord Pleanála. The statutory body upheld the City Council's decision, ruling that the storage box "would conflict with the existing pattern of development in the area."
Staying with bike boxes, there are two in the city center that appear to be causing no conflict. Interestingly, they also seem to be empty 24/7
Out + About
Noel Lenihan, an amicable man who knows a thing or ten thousand about birds, and who has been quietly going about installing bird boxes across the city and county will be accompanying Cork City Council biodiversity officers on a tour to St Finbarr’s Hospital on the evening of July 15 to catch a glimpse of the swifts and swallows which nest in the hospital. Free to attend, but more info from rosemarie_mcdonald@corkcity.ie
Time, date, place: 7pm, Monday July 15, meeting at entrance of St Finbarr’s Hospital, South Douglas Road
Kinsale Arts Weekend is upon us, with a theme this year of ‘Mealladh na Mara’ (The Allure of the Sea. Jon Kenny is in town for a surprise performance of Ships in the Dawn in The Lord Kingsale on Friday and Saturday, while a screening of Our Blue World: A Water Odyssey takes place at St. Catherine’s Cultural Centre, followed by a discussion with executive producer and water technology expert Paul O’Callaghan and Dr. Tara Shine, CEO of Change by Degree, on Saturday. On Saturday and Sunday, historian John Thuillier and trawler owner Johnny Walsh giving people a free tour of a modern trawler, and talk about how life is and was for fishermen. All tickets available here, programme available here.
Time, date, place: Thursday July 11-Sunday July 14, Kinsale.
Sample-Studios presents a commentary on Artificial Intelligence at the Lord Mayor’s Pavilion from this weekend onwards. Curated by Robin Parmar, The Object Itself explores the increasing suspicion that arises from seeing images, and whether they are physical, fictional or social objects. It features works by Aoife Claffey, Caileann Finn and Manuel McCarthy Valderrama. More information here.
Time, date, place: Saturday July 13-Sunday July 21, Lord Mayor’s Pavilion, Fitzgerald Park, Cork.
Venus Patel is a Dublin-based artist from Los Angeles, with Indian and Latin-American heritage. Her works reference narratives of the body and performativity, and her film Daisy: Prophet of the Apocalypse mocks the documentary form to examine social and sexual conformity. It screens at Sirius Arts Centre until August 3. More information here.
Time, date, place: Saturday July 6-Saturday August 3, Sirius Arts Centre, Westbourne Place, Cobh.
As part of the Creative Communities on a Shared Island initiative, The Duncairn Arts Centre in North Belfast take over Levis’ Corner House for Belfast X Ballydehob. Tonight, for the famous 12th of July, they present cabaret of music, poetry & cinema from artists of both traditions in Belfast. On Sunday, they host a Super Sunday Session for all to attend. All tickets and information from the Levis’ website.
Time, date, place: Thursday July 11-Sunday July 14, Levis’ Corner House, Ballydehob.
A National Day of Commemoration Ceremony to honour all Irishmen and Irishwomen who died in past wars or on service with the United Nations, is being held in Fitzgerald’s Park on Sunday. The ceremony is open to members of the public, and will also be attended by members of the Defence Forces, Religious Leaders, and Community Representatives.
Time, date, place: 11:30am, Sunday July 14, Fitzgerald Park, Cork.
That’s it for this week’s Friday View.
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