☕️The Friday View 27/06
The new quay walls are going up, there's a new Lord Mayor and Deputy Lord Mayor and Kinsale says no to mussels. Plus, our round-up of what's on for the week ahead.
Hello, and welcome to the Friday View! Let’s get to it.
Quay walls: Work has begun on the new quay walls at Fr. Matthew Quay as part of the Morrison’s Island Public Realm and Flood Defence Project, jointly funded by the Office of Public Works (OPW) and Cork City Council.
With a 20-month construction timeframe, the project should now be entering its final stages. Despite opposition from some quarters, the walls, not without their objectors, are now being erected.
According to the OPW (Office of Public Works), the improvements will include "integrated flood defences designed to protect approximately 400 city centre properties against 1-in-100-year tidal flooding events." While time, floods and climate change will ultimately test these measures, the completed project will also deliver a positive legacy: a new 3-metre-wide riverside promenade along the entire length of Morrison’s Quay and Fr. Mathew Quay.
A sell out: Will it be a sea of red in Croke Park on July 5 when the Cork hurlers take on Dublin? It certainly looks that way. Tickets went on sale at midday on Monday this week and sold out on the same day. All trains up to 3pm leaving from Kent Station on July 5 sold out not long after Rebel’s dispatched Limerick in the Munster final win in the Gaelic Grounds last month. The Treaty county finally came undone against an incredible Dublin team. So the double is still on, but only for Dublin and please god for not much longer.
Picture this: 110 of the best images captured throughout 2024 by press photographers across the country have gone on display in Cork City Hall as part of the Press Photographer of the Year Awards 2025.
Photographer James Crosbie attended the opening of the Cork leg of the touring exhibition. While best known for his sports photography during COVID, he has since pivoted to photographing birds—specifically starlings and their incredible airborne theatrical performances, known as murmurations.
Back on the field, however, one image of sheer joy that he captured last summer broke over a hundred thousand Cork hearts: when the final whistle blew at the 2024 All-Ireland Hurling Final and Clare emerged victorious. Yet the Cork men live to fight another day. The exhibition is open to the public in City Hall until 5 July
Discontent: The Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) is balloting senior academic staff at Munster Technological University (MTU) for industrial action, following what it calls the unilateral reassignment of long-serving Heads of School to new Vice Dean roles. A broader ballot of all MTU members is also planned, amid rising frustration with the top leadership according to some staff of the University who contacted T+D.
Also at issue is a newly established executive management team which staff at MTU said lacks gender balance: of the six members of the new executive announced to date, only one is a woman.
Changing of the guard: At the annual meeting of Cork City Council on 20 June, Fianna Fáil took a clean sweep of the ceremonial roles of Lord Mayor and Deputy Lord Mayor, with Togher native Fergal Dennehy elected as Lord Mayor and Glasheen-born Cllr Margaret McDonnell elected as his deputy. An Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, and his wife, Mary, were in attendance on the evening to witness Councillor Dennehybeing elected as Ardmhéara Chorcaí.
Fergal follows in the footsteps of his father, John Dennehy, who held the role in 1984. The Fianna Fáilpair take over from the Green Party’s Dan Boyle and Honore Kamegni, the latter having been Cork’s first Black Deputy Lord Mayor.
Cllr McDonnell was elected to Cork City Council in 2024 for the Cork North-East Ward and currently serves as chair of the Glanmire Area Community Association and secretary of the local Fianna Fáil cumann in Riverstown/Glanmire. Cllr Dennehy was co-opted onto the City Council in 2003 and has been a mainstay of the chamber ever since. He is a founding member and current secretary of Togher Boxing Club and also sits on the board of Leisureworld.
People power: Kinsale residents are standing firm in their opposition to a proposed 23-hectare mussel farm in Kinsale Harbour, situated opposite the popular Dock Beach in the tourist town. To date, more than 6,700 people have signed an online petition, and locals gathered on the beach this week to protest against the licence granted to Waterford-based Woodstown Bay Shellfish Ltd for a bottom-culture mussel farm.
Campaigners are urging the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon, to revoke the licence, citing legal, ecological, economic, and procedural concerns
Queen of Paraguay?: Eliza Lynch, Charleville’s most famous daughter, is back in the news after Paraguay’s Senate voted to grant her posthumous Paraguayan nationality – and to inter her remains in the National Pantheon of Heroes in the capital, Asunción, according to The Guardian.
A controversial figure, Lynch and Francisco Solano López – the president and grand marshal of Paraguay – had six children, and she was the de facto First Lady of the South American country, although the two were never married. Lopez led Paraguay into distarsous military campaign in which half of Paraguay’s population was wiped out. He was eventually cornered and shot on a jungle battlefield called Cerro Corá, along with their 15-year-old son.
Born to a father who was a doctor and a mother whose family were Royal Navy officers, Lynch left Charleville at the age of 10 with her family for Paris, where she would later meet López. Since her death, Lynch’s remains were moved from Paris to Asunción. If Parliament approves, she will be reinterred in the neoclassical National Pantheon of Heroes. However, doubts remain as to whether the remains transferred from Paris are even Lynch’s Full story here.
Out + About
📚Lunchtime reading: It’s a week out, but one to put in your calendar. Readings from Focal Archive, a digital literary archive of writing by the UCC MA Creative Writing Class of 2025 taking place in the lovely surrounding of Mercier Books in St Luke’s. There will be readings of original fiction and poetry from Focal Archive's writers at the lunchtime event along with a chat about all things writing. Attendees will receive a complimentary copy of Focal Archive's booklet. Tickets (free) and more info here.
Time, date, place: 1-2pm, Friday July 4, Mercier Books, 82 Ballyhooley Road St Luke's Cork
🖼️ Force of Nature is the guiding theme for the new exhibition at Market Gallery in Douglas which opened last night and runs into July. The environment-themed exhibition features work from artists Gemma Best, Cora Collins, Denise Cronin, Inge Van Doorslaer, Natalie Dwyer, Ava Hayes, Tom Herdman, Niamh Horgan, Serge le Belge, Rashika Milani, Subhrata Patel, and Niamh Rigby.
Time, date, place: From June 26, daily,
🎶 Singer/songwriter Andy Irvine makes a stopover in The White Horse in Ballincollig this weekend for an evening of song and stories. Having travelled the world with bands such as Sweeney’s Men, Patrick Street, Planxty, and more recently Mozaik, Irvine brings his mandolin, mandola and bouzouki to Ballincollig for an evening of traditional Irish song and Balkan tunes. Ticket and more info here.
Time, date, place: 8:30pm, Saturday June 29, The White Horse, Ballincollig
🎬The Michael Haneke retrospective continues this weekend and into next week at the Triskel with several of the French director’s masterpieces including Funny Games, Code Unknown and The Piano Teacher and Time of the Wolf. A master of tension, Hanneke is an auteur of French cinema who has shown he is not at all afraid to turn his hand to jarring and tender subject matter. Screening times and info here.
Time date place: June 29 until July 2, Triskel Arts Centre, Tobin Street.
📚 The Irish Lumieres: Director and producer Darina Clancy’s will launch her new book on Youghal Photographers and filmmakers the Horgan Brothers in Waterstone’s this coming Tuesday. The Horgan Brothers captured Ireland during its transformation from British rule to an Independent Republic from their base in Youghal. The pioneering photographers documented people at work and play, courting kings and exotic travellers, farmers and fishermen along the Blackwater River. Free in. More info here.
Time date place: 6:30pm, Tuesday July 1, Waterstones, St. Patrick’s Street.
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.