The Friday View 1/3
We're marching into... March. The Docklands is taking shape and it's inevitably going to shape the city centre. Plus, our round up on what's on for the week ahead.
Welcome to the Friday View on Tripe + Drisheen, let’s get to it!
Marina Park Phase Two: At a meeting recently at City Hall it was outlined what the next phase of Marina Park will look like as new buildings, bridges, paths and parks progress. The Marina Promenade project is fully funded and enabling works have started on Horgan’s Quay. A planning application is expected to be lodged next year.
So what’s in there? The short answer is a lot. It’s detailed, as you would expect, and builds on the on first phase of Marina Park and includes the Atlantic Pond which has long been due some attention. There will be no increase in access points or additional parking for Páirc Uí Chaoimh and Kennedy Park will be extended. The “red shed” that stands in the middle of Marina Park could be expanded, and a website should go live this summer to give people a much better picture of the plans and progress. Lots of “shoulds” in there!
The plans also extend on to the River Lee, which will in time be home to three new bridges: they are Kent Station Bridge, Water Street Bridge and Eastern Gateway Bridge. There’s not timeline yet for any of these new bridges, although Kent Station Bridge will be the first to be built. The City are taking a strategic approach to designating some of the new bridges, some will be used only for public transport, cyclists and pedestrians, while vehicular traffic will flow along Eastern Gateway Bridge.
So where does the long proposed Lee Lido fit in all this? Well, Fáilte Ireland released details of a Cork Harbour Tourism Plan, “which will enhance the visitor experience and unlock the tourism potential of Cork Harbour”. That’s light on details at the moment, but it was just launched at the end for February, but anything that’s good enough for the tourists is good enough for the locals!
R&H Hall: The demolition of the R&H Hall grain silo, which has dominated Cork’s skyline for the past 90-odd years, got underway last week on Kennedy Quay. A video shared by The Irish Examiner on Monday shows the mixed, but mostly positive, views of the watching public on the demolition of the building, undertaken by O’Kelly Bros.
Naturally enough, some people mourn the loss of a landmark, and wonder why the grain silos of that scale could not have been repurposed before, such as was done with the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town. However, the architects of the development, Henry J. Lyons architects, stated in the architectural design statement that “it is impossible to compare” both buildings, as the Cape Town silo already had six usable floors.
Cork City Council did ask the developer, O’Callaghan Properties, to consider retaining a portion of the silo, although the Examiner also reported the planners knew the building was “technically deteriorating” and its retention “economically unviable”. Regardless, an archeological recording and conservation process took place in order to find what could be retained, and the demolition is happening is progressing in order to safely retain these elements, which will be incorporated into the new structure.
The replacement building is designed to be similar in shape and size, and will be home to a cafe, supermarket, and 16,000sqm of offices, as part of a wider development of the quayside that includes apartments, a hospital, and a repurposed Odlum’s building.
Greene’s and Burnt Closure, and Beamish inspired sandwiches: On Monday, news of yet another restaurant closure surfaced, as Burnt Pizza on Princes Street has closed up shop. Owner Damien Twohig told The Irish Examiner that the increase in VAT was to blame. The family’s other businesses, Soma Coffee Company and The Black Market in the docks, which are run by his wife Irene and son Paul will remain open, as well as their two gyms. Once labelled Cork’s “foodiest” street, Princes Street has now seen two restaurants close in the first two months of 2024.
Elsewhere, Greene’s Restaurant on MacCurtain Street is to cease trading “in its current form” and shifting to a new dining style. Greene’s is the latest in a long list of local businesses that have closed, albeit in this case it is not permanent. There’s been a micro-trend of some city centre restaurants shutting up shop in the city, while concentrating their operations in the Marina Market (The White Rabbit and Tung Sing). With the scale of developments in the Docklands, it will undoubtedly have a knock on effect on the city centre. Throw in the shift towards more deliveries and the hard times for restaurants continue. Was it ever thus?
While we are on food, last July we wrote about Paperboys, which set up shop in the Triskel, and have started a monthly sandwich. This month’s sandwich was the ‘Dreamy Beamy’ - a Beamish-braised brisket sandwich.
Out + About
Music at Midday returns to The Crawford this Sunday where Guitar Plus take to the art gallery. The MTU ensemble directed by Jerry Creedon specialises in exciting and colourful works composed and arranged for multiple guitars. They perform regularly around Cork performs regularly in the community in an effort to expand the audience base and promote an appreciation for classical guitar music. More info here. Free entry.
Time, date, place: 12pm, Sunday March 3, The Crawford Art Gallery, Emmet Place
Lynn-Marie Dennehy is coming out of an extended period of research and has produced a single immersive work, [We Must Not Act Like] Children of our Parents, an experimental exhibition for Backwater Artists’ Studio 12. Investigating the ongoing colonial legacies that exist within our cultural subconscious, the exhibition launched last night and runs until the 29th of March, with an in conversation event on Saturday next week. More information here.
Time, date, place: Thursday February 29-Friday March 29, Studio 12, Wandesford Quay, Cork.
Contemporary Perspectives is a collaboration between Sample Studios and San Francisco Artists’ Studios Group, who have worked together as part of the Twinned Cities Scheme to host professional development workshops for artists. The exhibition celebrated the transatlantic connection between Cork and San Francisco by showing different perspectives and worldviews from both sides of the Ocean, with artists hailing from South Korea, Romania, Latvia, Egypt, and parts of the United States. Featured artists include Emily Eunnuri Lee Dobbs, Alexandru Salceanu, Nate Mahoney, Ebti, Daniel Valenza, Laura Vitolina and Ingrid V. Wells. It launched on February 29th and runs until April 7th.
Time, date, place: 11am-5pm, Tuesday-Saturday, Thursday February 29-Sunday April 7, Lord Mayor’s Pavilion, Fitzgerald Park, The Mardyke, Cork.
The Cork French Film Festival returns to the Arc cinema this weekend for its 35th edition. The first screening of the festival, at 8pm Saturday, is director Maïwenn’s Jeanne du Barry, a historical drama starring her, Johnny Depp and Pierre Richard. On Sunday morning, Jean Cocteau’s Orpheus, a variation of the classical Greek myth, screens at 11am. Other highlights include Nadia, Butterfly (Sunday 4pm), a Quebecois film about a professional swimmer who is trying to escape from the sport, and Omen (Wednesday 6:15pm), about a Congolese man who returns to confront his family. The festival closes with The Three Musketeers, which has two parts - Part 1 screens on Saturday next week at 8:30pm, with Part 2 at the same time on Sunday.
Time, date, place: 8pm, Saturday March 2-8pm, Sunday March 10, The Arc Cinema, North Gate Bridge, Cork.
The Cork Cycling Campaign have organised a day trip to East Cork in a Mix-Your-Mode Cycling Adventure, in which participants will travel from Fota to Midleton by bike. The plan is to bring some lunch and meet at 10:30am at Kent Station and get the 11am train to Fota, from where a scenic cycle route will be taken to Midleton. Then, after all that exploration, the plan is to take the train from Midleton back to Cork.
Time, date, place: 10:30am, Sunday March 3, Kent Station, Cork.
Caoilian Sherlock is a local musician who combines psychedelia and folk, and plays in local bands The Shaker Hymn and The Tan Jackets. He released his debut solo album ‘Teenage Jesus’ in 2023, and takes his solo work to Coughlan’s on Sunday for an early gig. Tickets and more information here.
Time, date, place: 4pm, Sunday March 3, Coughlan’s, Douglas Street, Cork.
Pebbledash are an alternative rock and shoegaze band from Cork, who have previously supported Bar Italia, Elaine Malone and Girlfriend. They play Cyprus Avenue on Tuesday, with support from Mossy, a shoegaze band from the northside of the city, and Telebox. Tickets and information here.
Time, date, place: 7pm, Tuesday March 5, Cyprus Avenue, Caroline Street, Cork.
In case you missed it: We wrote about a new digital tool called the Collision Tracker, which can be used by cyclists to report collisions or near misses. It’s easy to use and Tripe + Drisheen as well as Dublin Inquirer and Irish Cycle.com will be paying attention to to see if there are significant clusters etc. More here.
That’s it for this week’s Friday View.
Any tips, news or events you’d like to share with Tripe+Drisheen, you can contact us via 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.