The Friday View 25/03
Cork City Council's tree-felling bill, yet another supermarket for Douglas Village, and a great night of music in Cork City Hall for Ukraine.
News in brief
€562,000 spend on tree-felling by Cork City Council
Cork City Council spent over half a million on tree-felling services in the past three years, a Tripe + Drisheen Freedom of Information request has revealed.
Payments to seven arborist contractors since 2019 have totalled €562,000, according to the FOI return.
2019: €206,000
2020: €178,000
2021: €178,000
“The City Council has a framework in place whereby arborists are invited to submit for a pre-approved Tender List. There are 7 contractors on the list at present. The amount of works and number of contractors used in any one year will vary depending on weather conditions such as storms etc,” a representative of the Parks department confirmed via email.
Further details of spends on tree-felling can be found on the council’s spending and revenue page, where they detail all purchase orders above €20,000.
In Quarter 1 of 2019, for example, Dermot Casey Tree Care were paid €45,353.70 for emergency tree-felling services, while TreePro were paid sums of €20,997.50 and €39,044.00 later the same year. Purchase orders of under €20,000 are not listed individually.
You can read other Tripe + Drisheen coverage relating to trees here and here.
€6,000 for young filmmakers to make music videos
It’s final call over the weekend on a fantastic opportunity for young filmmakers: submissions for Youghal-based First Cut Film Festival’s annual Youth Music Video Competition (YMVC) close on Monday.
The YMVC has been held annually since 2016, pairing budding young filmmakers of 18-23 with a staggering array of talent including CMAT, Ye Vagabonds and The Academic; Daragh Goan, who made a video for rising stars Pillow Queens, below, was one of the 2020 finalists.
On top of €1,000 expenses and a €5,000 bursary to kickstart their career in film, finalists will get the chance to be mentored by two of Ireland’s top music video directors: Brendan Canty, who made Hozier’s famous Take Me To Church video, and Bob Gallagher, who has worked with post punk legends Gilla Band (formerly Girl Band) amongst others.
Young people can apply on their own or as a pair, and will need to submit an example of previous work as well as a 200 word brief on why they want to work in film. All information and submission link here.
Also this week
Clean sweep for Douglas Village: Tesco, Marks & Spencers, Aldi, Dunnes Stores and now a Lidl. In planning news this week, An Bord Pleanála overturned a decision by Cork City Council and granted Lidl permission to build a supermarket and apartments in the village. The four-storey building will be constructed near the new Aldi store on the Douglas Relief Road. As the Echo reports, Cork City Council “had refused planning permission on grounds of incompatibility with a development plan objective for the land and injury to visual amenity.” An Bord Pleanála took a different view.
Photo of the week
It’s been a bleak week in many ways….let’s have a little heart-warming loveliness, shall we? Cork-based photographer Darragh Kane, whose work can be seen in most local and national news outlets, captured a moment between Cork Olympian Rob Heffernan and Joey Corbett on the Marina this week at the launch of the Challenge 21 fundraiser for the Down Syndrome Centre.
The Challenge 21 fundraiser will see participants walk, jog or run the 21km half-marathon distance from Haulbowline to Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Sunday, June 19 to raise funds to support vital services for children with Down syndrome in Cork.
Register for Challenge 21, or donate, here.
Out + About
🖼 Breadth becomes air: You’ll have to take to the air to see it, but renowned Cork abstract sculptor Eilís O’Connell, who lives in a sculpture park of her own making high above the Lee Valley, opens a new exhibition bringing her trademark weightless grace to a variety of materials including bronze, marble and steel to sculpture gallery Pangolin London at the end of this month.
Leesiders headed Thames-side this spring, take note.
Time, date, place: Monday to Saturday, 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. from March 29 to May 21 in Pangolin London, King’s Place, N1 9AG.
🎪 Mamas run away with the circus: Backbone by Linda Cullen and Etaoin Melville is a performance that fuses stop-motion animation, projection mapping and aerial dance inspired by the changing dynamics of motherhood in modern society; they’ll be staging this work in progress in the Circus Factory this weekend.
Time, date, place: 8 p.m. on Saturday, March 26 in Cork Circus Factory, Centre Park Road. Free event, but you need to register for tickets here.
🗣Walk this way: Cork Traveller Women's Network are giving a guided walk and talk on growing up in The Black Ash and the significance of the former campsite for the Traveller Community in Cork and around Ireland. The talk will cover the legacy of Traveller traditions.
Time, date, place: 11 a.m. - 12 p.m. Sunday, March 27 at Tramore Valley Park. Meet at the weighbridge in the park. More information here.
🇺🇦Oíche Don Úcráin: Cork City Council and AURI will hold a stellar night of music and poetry with a mix of local musicians drawn from Ireland and Ukraine. The line-up features John Spillane, Karan Casey, Jimmy Crowley, Olena Lesya Iglody, Oksana Dobronos, Nadiya Yalova as well as students Ghaelscoil Uí Riada agus Faelscoil Ghort Álainn and the he Céillí Allstars.
All proceeds will go to AURI ( Association of Ukrainians in the Republic of Ireland).
Time, date, place: 7:30 .m. Thursday, March 31 in the Concert Hall, City Hall, Cork. Tickets €26.25 (includes booking fee). More information here.
This week on T +D
A Tripe + Drisheen update for you: we’ve launched a new Reviews tab, which we will post under on an as-and-when basis.
As we always do when we launch a new tab, we just want to remind you that you can tailor which tabs land in your email and which don’t: we have a short guide on how to manage your tabs here.
NEWS: JJ reported the latest on dereliction levies, parking fines and other business covered by Cork City Council in their monthly meeting, while Ellie reported on tree felling in nesting season in Glen River Park.
Thursday’s Long Read came from JJ this week; he caught up with the unnamed Cork man who runs Facebook and Instagram accounts under the name of Old Photos of Cork for a Q&A:
Look out for a fascinating Arts + Culture piece tomorrow, on a West Cork/New York documentary you may not have heard of and a massively overlooked female figure in Irish history….
That’s it for this week’s round-up. Also 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.