☕️The Friday View 13/06
Midsummer Festival has arrived, Douglas Street enters the next phase of its post-car life, rents are going up and our usual round-up of what's on for the week ahead.
Hello, and welcome to the Friday (13th) View. Let’s get to it.
Rent hikes and a housing crisis: The coalition government this week unveiled its plan for when the current tenure of Rent Pressure Zones (RPZs) ends this year. In short, the entire country will become one large Rent Pressure Zone, and the new legislation will enhance tenancy protections. However, new renters will almost certainly face the highest rental rates ever seen in this country. The government is betting that the financial sacrifice renters will have to make is worth it, as it claims this will incentivise investors to build more rental accommodation.
Separately, there was a Dáil debate this week on vacant council houses. There are 495 boarded-up houses across Cork County, while Cork City has 345 vacant council homes, 196 of which have been unoccupied for over 12 months. Over the past five years, Cork City Council has spent €890,000 boarding up these properties.
“The Taoiseach came into the Dáil a few weeks ago and said council houses should be turned around in three weeks. Yet in his own area, Cork City Council, the average turnaround time is 32 weeks—nowhere near the three-week target. Pressure must be put on local authorities, and they need proper resources to expedite this process,” Pádraig Rice, Social Democrats TD for Cork South-Central said in a statement.
A Raise the Roof protest will take place on 21 June at 2pm at the National Monument on Grand Parade in Cork, highlighting the struggles of renters and those in housing crisis.
Public art: This week, Cork County Council announced details of the Per Cent for Art scheme that will see an artwork (or artworks) placed somewhere in the sprawling spaghetti junction that is the Dunkettle Interchange. Clocking in at €215m, the junction connects the N25 to the N40 and the M8 (the Dublin Road) and is used by roughly 95,000 vehicles daily. Traffic jams are regular occurrences at the junction during peak times, despite the upgrade, and they’re likely to be a feature and not a bug as long as we keep adding private cars to our roads.
The Per Cent for Art scheme, tied to public infrastructure, explains why we’ve roadside oddities like Macroom’s mighty bull or the jaded Pegasus near the airport. The policy dates to 1978, when Charlie Haughey, Taoiseach, art patron, and notorious corruptocrat, championed it first for the Office of Public Works.
Haughey loved statement pieces (see: silk shirts, yachts, private islands) but was uniquely progressive on arts funding. His tarnished legacy now lands at Dunkettle, with a €375,000 open call (via Cork City/County Councils and TII).
Given the junction’s spaghetti-junction chaos and drivers’ sheer desperation to escape it, the selected artist(s) face a paradox: How do you make people notice art in a spot they’d rather zoom past? Watch this (congested) space.More info here.
Make Douglas Street…a village: In September last year, at the Nano Nagle Centre, the City Council launched a public consultation on public realm improvements for Douglas Street, White Street, and Mary Street, which would claw back space from cars and return it to people, breathing life and possibility into the area.
This week, they launched the full public consultation on the consultation portal, which includes a bit more detail than the original and some mockups of what the improvements could look like.
The improvements begin at the confusing five-arm junction between Friar Street, Evergreen Street, Abbey Street, and Industry Street—not included in the previous consultation. It will be replaced with a raised table, new high-quality paving, and lots of greenery, making it far safer for pedestrians.
Ninety-seven percent of eastbound traffic on Douglas Street is through traffic, but now, traffic on Abbey Street will only be able to go as far as the Centre for Architectural Education, with Douglas Street no longer taking through traffic. The sections between Mary Street and Dunbar Street, and between Murphy Engine Overhauls and Langford Row, will be pedestrianised, while new one-way systems will be in place for eastbound traffic on Douglas Street and southbound traffic on White Street. Mary Street and White Street will both see upgrades with an emphasis on public space, while Red Abbey Square will be improved and gain new greenery. Travers Street will be turned into a staircase, with new plants in the middle. There will be space for outdoor seating outside Douglas Street’s cafés, restaurants, and pubs.
Cork Flower Studio told T+D they are firmly behind the redesign and upgrade.
“It’s been an incredibly thoughtful process with plenty of consultation with the community. The parklet outside our door will have to go, but we feel it’s a fair trade-off! The parklet is six years old this July and has been a massive asset to the street—proof that people want nice places to sit and socialise in the city. The businesses and neighbours on Douglas Street have worked hard to develop the sense of community that makes this the Best Street in Cork 😉. The feedback we are getting from customers and neighbours is also very positive. Bring it on!”
Both Ample Space and FMD Architects were also positive about the plans for Douglas Street and the consultative process as a whole.
“Working on Douglas Street, we believe the proposed design holds great potential for our neighbourhood and will offer improved and increased access to our streets and squares,” Ample Space said.
“We congratulate the City Council and their consultants on their foresight and clear understanding of the issues in our area. The concept of ‘Our Village in the City’ will be fully realised,” FMD Architects said.
One criticism, from T+D, is that the plans don’t go further and include more of Dunbar Street and the area around the South Chapel, nor do they do anything to improve the junctions at either end of George’s Quay. There could have been opportunities here to tie this in with the Morrison’s Island works and create a safe pedestrian route from the area into the heart of the city. Alas, this a strong start.
Details of the scheme, the drawings and associated images are available to view on the Cork City Council Consult platform.
Two upcoming public consultation open days will take place on Friday June 20 and Friday July 4 in Nano Nagle Place. Members of the public can view the plans, meet members of the design team and make their submissions. All invited and feedback welcome.
New bridge: The second of two bridges connecting the former Beamish & Crawford site with Crosse’s Green was installed this week. The bridge curves to create a seamless connection between Wandesford Quay and Lambley’s Lane, which means you will be able to walk from one end of the city centre to the other in an almost straight line! Jokes aside, it does improve connectivity in that area of the city and creates a new link to the Crawford College of Art and Design and to the Mardyke from that part of the city. It is scheduled to open later this year. As for the other bridge, already in place, it might take a bit longer
Out+About
Cork Midsummer Festival, the city’s flagship arts festival, kicks off today with a packed programme of theatre, music, art and much else. It runs until June 22.
🎷Weekend highlight: The Trygve Seim Ensemble (Norway) lands at Triskel on Sunday night for a 25th-anniversary celebration of Different Rivers, Seim’s seminal album. Hailed as "melancholy, lonely, hypnotizing—harder to escape from than to listen to" (The New York Times), the record is like "a fireplace in an ice palace: immersive, almost physical." Expect a spellbinding performance. Tickets and more info here.
Time, date, place: 8pm, Sunday June 15, Triskel Arts Centre, Tobin St.
😊Free events are thin enough on the ground for Midsummer, but at St Peter's on North Main Street, artist and arts educator Chris Finnegan has been working with school kids on the Northside of the city for his PlaySpaces - co-designed prototype play pods that are welcoming and inspiring, imagined for and by the kids of Cork city. You can check out these small, safe and joyful spaces to play throughout Saturday and all of next week. More info here.
Time, date, place: 10:30am-4:30pm, Saturday June 14, St Peter’s, North Main Street
🐂 Best in Show: The Cork Summer Show returns to Curaheen this weekend (Saturday and Sunday), from 9am to 6pm each day. The organisers are running three free Park & Ride services from Black Ash, the Greyhound Stadium, and Ballincollig Shopping Centre. Additionally, the 208 bus will take you right to the showgrounds' gates. What to expect? Everything from "Best in Show" pony competitions to bread-making, tractors, trailers, bulls and heifers, live music, prize-winning lettuce displays, and stands of every description. Children under 16 go free, while adult tickets cost €25. Tickets and more info here.
Time, date, place: From 9am - 6pm, June 14+15, Cork Showgrounds, Curraheen, Co.Cork T12 AX2F
🎸Coming home: Rory Gallagher’s guitars have come home, and they’ll be on show at the Cork Public Museum as part of a major exhibition dedicated to the blues legend, which opens this weekend. Continental Op, the title of the exhibition, takes its name from a song of the same title from the Defender album and the exhibition includes concert posters, photographs and other memorabilia.
Time, date, place: Opens June 14 at 1pm and runs until December, Cork Public Museum, Fitzgerald’s Park.
🎤The Gab returns to Callanan's for their monthly meet-up - known as The Mixtape - this Tuesday night. Described as "storytelling for grown-ups" (you hope that doesn't mean talk of work, meetings and houses), it offers storytellers a chance to hone their craft. Just to note: this isn't an open mic night - the setlist is preordained. Expect a little music too. Get in early to grab a seat and a glorious pint of Beamish in Cork city.
Time, date, place: 8pm, Tuesday June 17, Callanan’s, George’s Quay
📖 Book launch: Cork-born poet and novelist Theo Dorgan signs copies of Comrade, his first novel in a decade, at Waterstones in the city centre. Set between Paris and Cork, it traces a life altered by a single moment and the weight of self-reckoning. Comrade is published by Mercier Press and you can pre-oder it here.
Time, date, place: 6:30pm, Tuesday June 17, Waterstone’s, St. Patrick’s St, Cork
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:
Negative reviews force Dean Hotel to turn the lights off earlier
One of Cork city's most distinctive looking hotels has agreed to switch off its powerful beams of light, which penetrate the night sky, following a targeted online campaign. The campaign resulted in scores of negative reviews, highlighting the impact of the lights.