The Friday View 4/10
The Friday View 4/10
🎻Little murals, long queues, badly-needed new houses and the sound of trad takes over Cork this weekend. It's the Friday View on Tripe+Drisheen. Dig in.
Artist Kevin O’Brien is no stranger to the streets of Cork, as he’s been painting street art and murals since 2016, the same year he co-founded guerrilla gardening group Mad About Cork.
Lately, he’s been on a tear painting murals on the streets around MacCurtain Street and also out in Ballincollig Regional Park.
The city centre paintings reflect the areas history and heritage and includes a homage to Hadji Bey's, the famous sweet shop formerly on MacCurtain, who introduced Turkish Delight to Corkonians.
In another which features two characters on the phone, the Roy Lichtenstein references are biggest on this one, the Cork vernacular is on full display. Kevin said the inspiration was drawn from talking to a couple of friends in particular on the phone. “They spend more time saying 'g'luck' or 'bye-bye bubba bye' than they do talking!”
In Rory G, the legendary guitarist is painted as a young boy with his guitar. Kevin says he deliberately chose a photo of him as a young boy to hammer home the fact that his roots are here.
Separately, tickets for Joe Bonamassa plays Rory Gallagher at the Marquee next summer go on sale this morning. The blues guitarist and his band will play two nights at the Marquee, July 1 and 2, as a special celebration of Rory’s singular artistic talent.
Lennox-less: ICYMI this coming Sunday is the last day for Lennox’s, a fast food takeaway that has lived on Bannon Road for what seems forever. It was opened in 1951 by wife and husband Jackie and Eileen Lennox. Older than KCs by seven years, Lennox’s never went down the catholic route of its more famous Douglas neighbour opting to keep the menu pure and simple with lots of battering.
Brother and sister Brian and Frances announced this week they are bowing out on top, writing: "This may seem strange to make this decision when we are at our busiest, but time has creeped up on us and we are unable to cope with the burden of our success.”
Local and national politicians were straight out the bat declaring they were heartbroken by the news. Indeed, Brian and Frances Lennox said closing the chip shop was like a “death in the family”. Earlier this summer, the pair incorporated Jackie Lennox Food Company. Besides running Lennox’s, Brian also took on a much bigger non-food operation with Cork City FC Investment Ltd of which he was one of the directors. The chipper was a safer play.
In a post announcing the news on closure on Facebook the siblings concluded by saying, "Please remember us fondly and we hope that we have made in a small way a contribution to the culture of Cork."
If you’re planning on one last takeaway be warned, the queues last night, Thursday October 3, were hundreds long. As one hack put it, they started at Limerick Junction.
Casting call: TagLive is a company we had never heard of until we were contacted by Jason Ward from Ballydehob who dropped us a line to say that later this month he’ll be TagLive’s man on the ground when they hold casting calls in the MTU School of Music for the entertainment giant. Jason is heading TagLive’s EU operation from their office in Skibereen.
The two-day casting on October 22 and 23 is looking to recruit performers at one of the Holiday Village resorts in either Greece, Cyprus or Spain from February to October 2025. Jason said they’re committed to “supporting Irish singers, dancers and creatives over the long term.” Further information at casting@TAG.live
Separately, Jason also reviews West Cork’s theatre offerings on his Substack.
10 years at €200k: Cork City Council officially has a new Chief Executive, but the route to the helm wasn’t all plain sailing for Valerie O’Sullivan (see FV’s past). The Cork woman is well known around City Hall having previously worked there before taking the short trip across town to County Hall where she was interim chief exec before jumping horse.
Green Party Cllr Oliver Morgan, to our knowledge, was the only who seemed invested in wanting to get answers as to the new chief exec’s X hack, and in comments released via a press release after Ms O’Sullivan was voted, in he criticised the City Council for their "hire first, ask questions later".
He went on.
"The position of chief executive is effectively for 10 years. Taking a more careful approach to the appointment, especially where there is controversy, would have given the city more certainty. Unfortunately, we're now left asking questions after the appointment is made, rather than asking these up front.
"My feeling is that the decision has put us one step closer to a directly-elected Lord Mayor in Cork. I think most people would think it's incredible that someone could be appointed to a position like this with such a reluctance from the elected council to even meet the nominee before appointing.”
Collision tracker in Cork: Earlier in the year we reported on Collision Tracker, a user generated real time tracker launched earlier this year for cyclists to report incidents of misses, near misses and collisions.
We haven’t been back to check in on the reports as much as we should have, and it seems that the pace of reporting has fallen off somewhat in Cork city compared to Dublin, but while perusing this week one area in the city that does throw up dots (outlining where an incident occurred) is South Mall which has had cycle lanes for the last few years. There is, as they say, still a fair bit of embedding going on for those cycle lanes as it’s part of the city that mixes vehicles, traffic, cyclists and pedestrians. Cars exiting and entering Fr Matthew St and Morrison’s St also cut across the cycle lanes adding to the complexity for all.
You can track collision and near misses and reports an incident on Collision Tracker here.
LDA: As the Irish Examiner reported this week, the Land Development Agency (LDA) currently has two big housing projects ongoing in the city, “the former St Kevin’s hospital site in Shanakiel, where it's on target to deliver the first 100 of 266 homes by next summer, and in the North Docks at Horgan’s Quay, where BAM and Clarendon are 12 weeks into a 24-month project to deliver 302 apartments.”
The BAM and Clarendon-owned site where the city’s first train station was built was languishing for years, before a burst of welcome building activity started earlier this summer.
This week the LDA, which seems to be living up to its billing, announced that they’re ponying up with another big developer to get cracking on building down at the Marina. That five-acre site off Centre Park Road has planning permission for more than 1,000 apartments including a mixture of affordable purchase, cost-rental and an element of social units.
Out + About
Cork Folk Fest is underway for its 45th edition, having begun on Wednesday with the an exhibition launch of Aidan Coffey’s oil paintings, which runs until November at The Pig’s Back in Douglas. Having continued in a number of venue’s across town last night, it takes the Triskel at 8pm tonight, as Iarla Ó Lionaird, Cormac McCarthy, Matthew Berrill plus Rosie McCarthy play the venue. Tickets and information for that are available here. Saturday morning sees a crossroads dance with Sean Nós and a food market on Emmett Place at 11am.
That evening, the festival headliner Paul Brady plays a sold out show at the Cork Opera House at 8pm, but if you don’t have tickets for that you can check out Simple Things at the Crane Lane Theatre at 8pm or Charlie Harris, Geraldine Cotter, Maeve Donnolly, Eamonn Cotter plus Johnny McCarthy Eoin Ó Riabhaigh. at An Spailpín Fánach at 9pm. Tickets and information for that here. On Sunday, Cork legend Jimmy Crowley and Eve Telford play a daytime gig in the Long Valley, at 3pm. Tickets and info for that here.
Time, date, place: Wednesday October 2-Friday November 22, The Pigs Back, Douglas; 8pm, Friday October 4, Triskel Arts Centre, Tobin Street; 11am, Saturday October 5, Emmett Place; 8pm, Saturday October 5, Crane Lane Theatre, Phoenix Street; 9pm, Saturday October 5, An Spailpín Fánach, South Main Street; 3pm, Sunday October 6, The Long Valley, Winthrop Street.
If folk isn’t your thing, Bitter Pill are a hardcore band from Dublin. Known for their crazy live performances, they play in Fred Zeppelins this evening, with support from ENIF, Fuath and Opal. Tickets are available here.
Time, date, place: 8:30pm, Friday October 4, Fred Zeppelin’s, Parliament Street, Cork.
This weekend is the last time you can see Joseph Heffernan’s exhibition made through the Triskel/Sample project space. The Dolls House is an exhibition at the Triskel that explores how child’s play can correspond with sacred ritual. It explored how there is no difference between the two, following the words of Johan Hunzinga’s seminal text, Homo Ludens.
Time, date, place: Saturday September 28-Sunday October 3, Triskel Arts Centre, Tobin Street, Cork.
Soulful Threads is an exhibition of works by two North Cork visual artists, Sarah Buckley and Claire O’Reilly. Both artists use embroidery, stitch and installation, and interweave themes of nature and childhood. The opening night for the exhibition is this evening, and it runs until the 20th of October.
Time, date, place: Friday October 4-Sunday October 20, West End Art Studios, West End, Mallow.
The Words by Water Kinsale Literary Festival is underway, with various interesting workshops and talks taking place. Many of the events are sold out, but tickets remain for Northern Irish authors Jan Carson and Michelle Gallon in conversation with Shane Coleman this evening, while an event with local writers takes place on Sunday. Tickets and information here.
Time, date, place: Wednesday October 3-Sunday October 6, Kinsale.
Cork Clothes Swap returns this weekend to St Peter’s on North Main Street. As always you’re invited to bring five items of clothes you no longer wear and in return you can browse what’s on offer and take up to five items. A €2 donation helps keep the show on the road. More info here.
Time, date, place: 11am - 1pm, Saturday October 5, St Peter’s North Main Street.
That’s it for this week’s Friday View.
Any tips, comments, 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.
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