The Friday View 16/09
The museums are alright, construction bigwigs were in town this week, two more Cork city parks were awarded green flags and Cork county councillors are off to Bratislava.
In praise of museums
Hats off to the the staff at the Glucksman gallery on the grounds of UCC on becoming the second Cork cultural institution to be awarded a major European prize in 2022. Last weekend in Luxembourg, the Glucksman was awarded an Art Museum Award by the European Museum Academy, which singled out the gallery for its “excellence in curatorial practice, collections, care and audience engagement (which) constitute the core values of the Glucksman.” The judges said the Glucksman is an “inspiration for museums all over the world and brings communities and artists together, to explore, visualise and express their thoughts and opinions on important societal issues.” High praise and well earned.
The Glucksman joins Nano Nagle Place, on Douglas Street, which earlier this year received the Council of Museum Prize 2022 in Strasbourg.
Meanwhile the Crawford National Gallery is heading into a four-year €29 million redevelopment, which director Mary McCarthy said “is a generational opportunity to, very importantly, conserve the heritage of this building.”
It all points to a healthy state for three of our biggest museums in the city.
Culture Night, which takes place this night next week across the country, should hopefully be one more opportunity to fling open the doors to our museums and galleries across the city and county. Visiting a gallery can be a daunting experience if it’s your first time, or you haven’t gone in a long time. Typically they are quite and austere spaces. But they can also be wonderous and challenging spaces, and a place of discovery.
JJ
Collage of the week: A (bicycle) station rises
News in brief
Policy wonks, politicians, builders, developers and council executives were out in force this week for the annual Construction Industry Federation conflab at Páirc Ui Chaoimh which took place last Tuesday. The headlines, via The Echo, were that our planning laws aren’t strong enough to compel developers to build on land that has been zoned for building. That was the message Michael Lynch, director of strategic and economic development with Cork County Council had for the CIF summit, and he was backed up by Fearghal Reidy, director of services with Cork City Council. Minister Michael McGrath, also at the CIF talk fest, said an overhaul of national planning legislation is “nearing completion” according to The Echo.
CIF, the biggest building lobby in the country runs these events annually. Included in the agenda in Cork were two interesting discussions entitled Analysis of housing output in Cork city and county and Examining the school building programme, which, you would imagine would attract a lot of people interested in both areas. However, you’d have to stump out at least €250 (plus VAT) to attend (and that was the rate for CIF members). It was €295 (plus VAT) for non-members as part of the early bird booking deal to hear council execs, politicians as well as developers such as Michael O'Flynn and executives from Cork’s medical tech behemoths such as Boston Scientific and Eli Lilly.
BusConnects held several community forums this week about its plans for the public transport network in Cork. Those forums will continue through to next week and they are intended to keep community groups in the information loop of what is happening, and also get feed back from them. Interestingly, Joe Seymour, the National Transport Authority’s head of active travel and public transport investment, was also in Cork this week. Seymour turned up at CIF Southern Construct Summit & Exhibition where he gave a keynote address on “sustainable transport in this decade of delivery”. It’s not known if Seymour was at any of the (free to attend) BusConnects community forums that also took place this week in Cork.
At Monday night’s monthly city council meeting, the NTA came in for bashing from councillors Mary Rose Desmond (FF) and Derry Canty (FG) for its failure to engage over its BusConnects plan for Cork city. However, Northside councillors disputed this: Oliver Moran (Greens) said the NTA were “fantastic” to engage with, and are “ready to amend” any issues raised. John Maher (Labour) echoed his sentiments.
Tweets from The Echo and The Examiner saying that the “super bus lanes” had reduced people to tears, were picked up by Cork Twitter, who declared those tears were for joy on hearing about the new “super bus lanes” or from frustration from waiting so long for a bus. (They’re officially called “sustainable transport corridors”, but they might well be super once they’re up and running).
Water-Rock, possibly one of the only towns in Cork separated by a hyphen, is set for a major housing development with contractors BAM and Atkins moving into complete civil engineering and infrastructural work. According to a press release from Cork County Council “160 hectares, has been zoned to provide a mixed-use development in three phases which will eventually include 2,500 residential units, three schools, a neighbourhood centre, a railway station and parks.” We wrote about nearby Carraigtwohill earlier this year which would be on the same trainline as Water-Rock and is also set for major developments, many of which are still only at the planning stage.
Green flags. Four Cork city parks were this week awarded green flags for 2022/2023. Both Fitzgerald’s Park and Shalom Park retained their two green flags while two new green flags were awarded for the Regional Park Ballincollig and Douglas Community Park. The parks were independently judged during the summer months and Stephen Scully of the Parks Department said they will be raising green flags in the four parks shortly. Of the four, only two (Fitzgerald’s Park and Ballincollig) have public toilets.
And finally, Mayor of County Cork Danny Collins, will lead a group of more than 20 county councillors and council staff on a three-day junket to Bratislava next week. CorkBeo reports that the sizeable group will look at objectives such as "becoming a greener, more carbon free, Europe" among other things. However, CorkBeo also reported that Mayor Collins did not have time to go into full details about the fact-finding mission when pressed for further details. Perhaps, on return he will have more time for a full debriefing? Interestingly, no Green Party or Sinn Féin councillors are included in the list of councillors on their way to Slovakia.
Photo of the week
Out + About
👩🎨Return of the wall painters. Ardú Street Art Project returns for its third iteration and the artists and locations have been announced, so have a look for them and their cherry pickers over the next two weeks if you’re around the city. Claire Prouvost will be at Pope’s Quay / Shandon Street; Kitsune Jolene at Sullivan’s Quay and Vents137 at South Terrace. More information here.
Time, date, place: various locations around the city from September 21 until October 2.
🖼System Interference opens this weekend at Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre with a conversation between artist Micheál O’Connell and writer and researcher Caroline Bassett. The title of that gallery discussion sounds promising: Stupidity, Dissent and the Machine. Micheál, who goes by the moniker Mockism, was awarded one of The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon’s Commissions Awards to produce new work for this exhibition and that work covers a lot of ground, including the road system with”its traffic flows which have crept up over a century, as well as observations on golf and the unusual sport of road bowling”. More information here.
Time, date, place: Monday to Saturday, 10am to 4:30pm until October 26, Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre, Skibbereen.
📚An original man. Mayfield library will be holding a morning of readings, chat, poetry and song led by Seán P. Cotter to celebrate the birthday of Frank O’Connor, one of Ireland’s most well-known short story writers. In the words of Harold MacMillian, the former British PM, “Frank O’Connor had two names and lived a life of many facets. Yet everything he did, however unexpected or even contradictory it might seem, was informed by the same single-minded and passionate integrity. The young Irish rebel and the mature war-time friend of Britain, the eccentric librarian, the enthusiastic man of the theatre and the meticulous self-taught scholar, the sonorous translator of Irish poetry and the superlative short-story writer, the inspiring public lecturer and the dogged master of the seminar – all were unquestionably the same unique and original man.”
Time, date, place: 11am, Saturday September 17, Mayfield library
🎸Hand me down the Moon. Sticking with libraries, multi instrumentalist Eoin Jordan will play the City Library this Saturday. Eoin, hailing from East Cork, will be in the Rory Gallagher room, playing from his 2022 album 'Hand me down the Moon'.
Time, date, place: 4pm, Saturday September 17, City library, Grand Parade
🤡Street antics: It’s another busy weekend for Pitch’d Festival which brings together an array of street performers and circus acts to the city, with outdoor and indoor shows as well as a symposium all going down this weekend. In the city centre on Lapp’s Quay you can catch different streets shows (2-5pm, September 17) while over at Marina Market, Squarehead Production will be taking centre stage. The festival gala takes place at The Everyman on September 18 at 4 pm. Full line-up of events for this weekend and into next week can be found here.
Time, date, place: Various venues across the city until September 25
😹LOL. Canadian comedian Mike Wilmot takes to the stage at City Limits tonight (September 16). Wilmot will be known to fans of Rich Hall’s TV shows, and he’s also made several appearances on Never Mind the Buzzcocks. He’s followed by Cork comedian Laura O’Mahony on Saturday night (September 17). Laura will be well known to many as part of the CCCahoots troupe and from Bridget and Eamon. Tickets and more information here.
Time, date, place: Doors from 8pm, shows start at 9pm, City Limits, 16 Coburg Street
💶The Cost of Living Campaign group will lead a protest this Saturday, September 17 meeting at Grand Parade in the city centre at 2pm. The protest is designed to highlight the ever increasing cost of living as interest rates and energy bills are hiked up. The protest is being organised by the Cork chapter of the Cost of Living Campaign.
Time, date, place: 2pm, Saturday September 17, Grand Parade, Cork city
🎶Looney’s Field. John Spillane is just one of a number of musicians and performers in a great line-up taking to Colmcille Park in Mayfield this Sunday for Music in Mayfield, a one-day music fest. Also on the ticket are Eve Clague & the Valentines and Tony Baloney and Leroy the Talking Dog.
Time, date, place: From 12pm, Sunday September 18, Colmcille Park, Mayfield
🎼Richmond rising: The Michael Cummins Trio will take to Richmond House in Fermoy as part of the Richmond Revival festival. The “Trio” specialise in Gypsy Jazz improvisation and they’ll be playing in Richmond House, which is making great strides to establish itself as a cultural hub in Fermoy. Tickets and more information here.
Time, date, place: 2pm-4pm, Sunday September 18, Richmond House, Fermoy
This week on T+D
On Monday, Ellie wrote about the news that Cork City Council voted for improvements for Marina promenade as one of a number of proposals for active travel measures, including a cycleway for Glanmire and upgrades to the route to the airport. Full story here.
On Thursday, JJ’s long read was from one of Cork’s newest community gardens which sprouted up in the pandemic in a former quarry. Full story here.
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That’s it for this week’s Friday View. Stay tuned for Saturday’s Arts+Culture newsletter. Any tips, news or events you’d like to share with Tripe+Drisheen, you can contact either of us at jj.odonoghue@gmail.com or emailellieobyrne@gmail.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.
