Wrap Up in Culture this Friday at Cork Culture Night!
Explore the city and soak up the many free events on offer across more than 100 artistic and cultural venues
Find full details here: www.culturenightcork.ie
Category Archives: Arts
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 12 September 2019
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,
Cork Independent, 12 September 2019
Launch of Discover Cork: Schools’ Heritage Project 2019-20
The advent of the new school year coincides with the seventeenth year of the Discover Cork: Schools’ Heritage Project. Brochures have been sent to all Cork City schools including the schools within the newly extended city areas. Launched again for the 2019/20 school term, the Project is open to schools in Cork City at primary level to the pupils of fourth, fifth and sixth class and at post-primary from first to sixth years. There are two sub categories within the post primary section, Junior Certificate and Leaving Certificate. The project is free to enter. A student may enter as an individual or as part of a group or a part of a class entry. The County edition unfortunately has been discontinued temporarily.
Co-ordinated by myself, one of the key aims of the Project is to encourage students to explore, investigate and debate their local heritage (built, archaeological, cultural and natural) in a constructive, active and fun way. Projects on any aspect of Cork’s rich heritage can be submitted to an adjudication panel. Prizes are awarded for best projects and certificates are given to each participant. A cross-section of projects submitted from the last school season can be gleamed from this link on my website, www.corkheritage.ie where there are other resources, former titles and winners and entry information as well.
Students produce a project on their local area using primary and secondary sources. Each participating student within their class receives a visit and free workshop in October 2019. The workshop comprises a guide to how to put a project together. Project material must be gathered in an A4/ A3 size Project book. The project may be as large as the student wishes but minimum 20 pages (text + pictures + sketches). Projects must also meet five elements. Projects must be colourful, creative, have personal opinion, imagination and gain publicity before submission. These elements form the basis of a student friendly narrative analysis approach where the student explores their project topic in an interactive and task-oriented way. In particular, students are encouraged to attain material through visiting local libraries, engaging with fieldwork, interviews with local people, making models, photographing, cartoon creating, making DVDs of their area. Re-enacting can also be a feature of several projects.
For over seventeen years, the project has evolved in exploring how students pursue local history and how to make it relevant in society. The project attempts to provide the student with a hands-on and interactive activity that is all about learning not only about heritage in your local area (in all its forms) but also about the process of learning by participating students. The project is about thinking about, understanding, appreciating and making relevant in today’s society the role of our heritage, our landmarks, our oral histories, our environment in our modern world for upcoming citizens. So, the project is about splicing together activity on issues of local history and heritage such as thinking, exploring, observing, discovering, researching, uncovering, revealing, interpreting and resolving. This year as well there is a focus on the theme, The Past and its Legacy, which ties into the centenary commemoration of the Irish War of Independence in Cork.
The importance of doing a project in local history is reflected in the educational aims of the history curricula of primary and post-primary schools. Local heritage is a tool, which helps the student to become familiar with their local environment and to learn the value of it in their lives. Learning to appreciate the elements of a locality, can also give students a sense of place in their locality or a sense of identity. Hence the Project can also become a youth forum for students to do research and offer their opinions on important decisions being made on their heritage in their locality and how they affect the lives of people locally. I know a number of students who have been involved in the project in schools over the years who have took their interest further and have gone on to become professional tour guides, and into other related college work.
The project is open to many directions of delivery. Students are encouraged to engage with their topic in order to make sense of it, understand and work with it. Students continue to experiment with the overall design and plan of their work. For example, and in general, students who have entered before might engage with the attaining of primary information through oral histories. The methodologies that the students create provide interesting ways to approach the study of local heritage. Students are asked to choose one of two extra methods (apart from a booklet) to represent their work. The first option is making a model whilst the second option is making a short film. It is great to see students using modern up todate technology to present their findings. This works in broadening their view of approaching their project.
This project in the City is free to enter and is kindly funded by Cork City Council (viz the help of Niamh Twomey, Heritage Officer) Prizes are also provided by the Old Cork Waterworks Experience, Lee Road, Learnit Lego Education, and Sean Kelly of Lucky Meadows Equestrian Centre, Watergrasshill (www.seankellyhorse.com). Overall, the Schools’ Heritage Project for the last sixteen years has attempted to build a new concerned generation of Cork people, pushing them forward, growing their self-development empowering them to connect to their world and their local heritage. Spread the word please with local schools. Details can be found on my website, www.corkheritage.ie.
Captions:
1014a. Project page on the local history of St Patrick’s Bridge from Our Lady of the Lourdes NS student 2019.
1014b. Model on the Shaky Bridge from Our Lady of the Lourdes NS student 2019.
Discover Cork: Schools’ Heritage Project 2020 Launched for New School Term
The Discover Cork: Schools’ Heritage Project is entering its seventeenth year and is open to all schools in Cork City. The new areas of the City are especially welcome (including Douglas, Rochestown and Frankfield and beyond). The project encourages students to compile a project on any aspect of Cork history. It is about exploring and investigating local heritage in a constructive, active and fun way. Interested students can pick any topic on Cork’s local history to research and can participate as individuals, groups or as a class. Students produce a project using primary material such as fieldwork, interviews, making models and short films of their area.
Project books may be submitted on any aspect of Cork’s rich past. The theme for this year’s project is “The Past and its Legacy”.
FREE and important project support in the form of funded workshops led by Cllr Kieran McCarthy in participating schools will be held in October 2019. This is an hour workshop to give participating students ideas for compilation and resources.
FREE Workshop support is also available to schools who have never entered before and wish to have a workshop to see how the project works.
The fourth-class level is open to fourth class students. The primary senior level is open to students of fifth and sixth class. Post primary entrant/s will be placed in Junior Certificate or Leaving Certificate levels. The post primary level is open to any year from first to sixth year. A student may enter as an individual or as part of a group or as part of a class project.
Co-ordinator and founder of the Schools’ Heritage Project, Cllr Kieran McCarthy noted that “The project is about thinking through, understanding, appreciating and making relevant in today’s society the role of our local heritage – our local history, our oral histories, our landmarks in our modern world for upcoming citizens. The annual workshops involve visiting circa 20 schools in Cork City with hours of workshops given overall to over 800 students. The workshops comprise showing students projects from previous years and providing a framework to work to and to encourage colour and creativity”.
The City Edition of the Project is funded by Cork City Council. It is also sponsored by the Old Waterworks Experience, Lee Road, Learnit Lego Education, Sean Kelly of Lucky Meadows Equestrian Centre, Watergrasshill and Cllr Kieran McCarthy. Application forms to express interest and participation have been sent to all principals and history teachers in Cork. Unfortunately, due to back surgery for Kieran last year, the County Cork edition of the project has been discontinued. Contact Kieran at kieran_mccarthy@corkcity.ie for details or log onto Kieran’s heritage website www.corkheritage.ie under the Discover Cork Schools’ Heritage Project section to learn more and download the brochure.
Kieran’s Question and Motions, Cork City Council Meeting, 9 September 2019
Kieran’s Question to CE:
To ask the CE for an update on the progress of Marina Park? (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)
Motions:
That the City Council place traffic calming measures through Ballintemple in particular exiting from Lower Beaumont Drive onto Blackrock Road as it has become a dangerous junction for local residents (Cllr Kieran McCarthy).
That the one per cent art scheme connected with the Douglas Flood Defence Scheme be initiated and the funding put aside to attain proposals from interested artists for a work within Douglas Community Park (Cllr Kieran McCarthy).
That the Lee to Sea Greenway as proposed by the Cork Cycling Campaign and Cork City Council be progressed to its early planning stages (Cllr Kieran McCarthy).
That the City Council’s 1920-2020 Commemorative programme be put together as a matter of urgency (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)
Pictures, Blackrock Village Festival, 7 September 2019
Always a great annual festival; well done to the organisers and volunteers.
Discover Cork: Schools’ Heritage Project 2020 launched for new school term
The Discover Cork: Schools’ Heritage Project is entering its seventeenth year and is open to all schools in Cork City. The new areas of the City are especially welcome. The project encourages students to compile a project on any aspect of Cork history. It is about exploring and investigating local heritage in a constructive, active and fun way. Interested students can pick any topic on Cork’s local history to research and can participate as individuals, groups or as a class. Students produce a project using primary material such as fieldwork, interviews, making models and short films of their area.
Project books may be submitted on any aspect of Cork’s rich past. The theme for this year’s project is “The Past and its Legacy”.
FREE and important project support in the form of funded workshops led by Cllr Kieran McCarthy in participating schools will be held in October 2019. This is an hour workshop to give participating students ideas for compilation and resources.
FREE Workshop support is also available to schools who have never entered before and wish to have a workshop to see how the project works.
The fourth-class level is open to fourth class students. The primary senior level is open to students of fifth and sixth class. Post primary entrant/s will be placed in Junior
Certificate or Leaving Certificate levels. The post primary level is open to any year from first to sixth year. A student may enter as an individual or as part of a group or as part of a class project.
Co-ordinator and founder of the Schools’ Heritage Project, Cllr Kieran McCarthy noted that “The project is about thinking through, understanding, appreciating and making relevant in today’s society the role of our local heritage – our local history, our oral histories, our landmarks in our modern world for upcoming citizens. The annual workshops involve visiting circa 20 schools in Cork City with hours of workshops given overall to over 800 students. The workshops comprise showing students projects from previous years and providing a framework to work to and to encourage colour and creativity”.
The City Edition of the Project is funded by Cork City Council. It is also sponsored by the Old Waterworks Experience, Lee Road, Learnit Lego Education, Sean Kelly of Lucky Meadows Equestrian Centre, Watergrasshill and Cllr Kieran McCarthy. Application forms to express interest and participation have been sent to all principals and history teachers in Cork. Unfortunately, due to back surgery for Kieran last year, the County Cork edition of the project has been discontinued. Contact Kieran at kieran_mccarthy@corkcity.ie for details or click on the brochure here:
2020 Brochure Discover Cork Schools’ Heritage Project
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town, 8 August 2019
Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,
Cork Independent, 8 August 2019
Cork Heritage Open Day, Saturday 17 August 2019
Cork Heritage Open Day and Heritage Week are looming – a kind of Christmas week – for a heritage fanatic like me. It is great to see the city’s local history and natural heritage being focussed on. Indeed as a city we need to celebrate it more publicly and more regularly.
For one day only, nearly 40 buildings open their doors free of charge for this special event. On Saturday 17 August, Members of the public are allowed a glimpse of some of Cork’s most fascinating buildings ranging from the medieval to the military, the civic to the commercial and the educational to the ecclesiastical. This event was greeted with great enthusiasm by building owners and members of the public alike in 2018 with an estimated c.24,000 people participating in the day.
The event showcases the many elements of Cork City’s rich heritage in a fun, family friendly way. The event is organised by Cork City Council as part of Heritage Week in partnership with the Heritage Council. This event is organised almost entirely on a voluntary basis with building owners, local historians and communities giving their time free of charge. The success of the event lies with the people behind the buildings who open their doors willingly every year to allow the public a glimpse of the amazing and unique built heritage of Cork City. Without the generosity of the building owners, this event would not happen.
It is always a great opportunity to explore behind some of Cork’s grandest buildings. With the past of a port city, Cork architecture is varied and much is hidden amongst the city’s narrow streets and laneways. Much of its architecture is also inspired by international styles – the British style of artwork pervading in most cases– but it’s always pays to look up in Cork and marvel at the Amsterdamesque-style of our eighteenth century structures on streets such as Oliver Plunkett Street or at the gorgeous tall spires of the city’s nineteenth-century churches.
Cork Heritage Open Day(.ie) is fifteen years in the making and with 40 buildings it is almost impossible to visit them all in one day. It takes a few goes to get to them all and spend time appreciating their physical presence in our city but also the often-hidden context of why such buildings and their communities came together and their contribution to the modern day picture of the city. The team behind the Open Day do group the buildings into general themes, Steps and Steeples, Customs and Commerce, Medieval to Modern, Saints and Scholars and Life and Learning – one can walk the five trails to discover a number of buildings within these general themes. These themes remind the participant to remember how our city spreads from the marsh to the undulating hills surrounding it, how layered the city’s past is, how the city has been blessed to have many scholars contributing to its development and ambition in a variety of ways and how the way of life in Cork is intertwined with a strong sense of place.
The trail Life and Learning is a very apt way to describe an important aspect of the city’s built architecture. The trail encompasses not only some of the amazing buildings on the western of the city, but also some of the most spectacular views. Admire the quadrangle of University College Cork, re-examine the Glucksman Gallery, gorge on the multitude of objects in Cork City Museum, and re-imagine life within the old Cork waterworks on the Lee Road.
The origins of University College, Cork (UCC) dates to the early half of the 1800s. UCC was founded under the provisions made by Queen Victoria to endow new Colleges in Ireland for the advancement of learning in Ireland. Under the powers given by this act the three Colleges of Belfast, Cork and Galway were incorporated on the 30 December 1845. Architects, Bengamin Woodward and Sir Thomas Deane adopted a perpendicular Gothic style. The main buildings were arranged around three sides of a quadrangle, with the lecture rooms on the west while the towered entrance, examination hall – Aula Maxima, and library were located in the north-east range. The college opened on 7 November 1849.
Sir Robert Kane became the first president of the college (1845-1873). His open-minded attitude took a stand against the traditionalist view that a university should be solely dedicated to the pursuit of liberal arts. He also had strong contacts with and beliefs in the importance of the social, industrial and economic life in the city.
One of the buildings on the campus open on Heritage Open Day is the Crawford Observatory dates from 1880. The University attained the Observatory through the donations of several benefactors. One of them, William Crawford, contributed £1,000 towards its construction and the acquisition of astronomical instruments. William Crawford was also to donate to the buildings of Berkeley Hall, known as the Honan Hostel. He also gave a large sum towards the building of the entrance on Western Road. The Observatory houses an equatorial telescope, one for which Howard Grubb, who created it, obtained a Gold Medal at the Paris Exhibition of 1900. The Observatory also hosts a Ciderostatic telescope and Spectroscope.
See www.corkheritageopenday.ie for more details.
Kieran’s Upcoming Heritage Week Tours:
Saturday 17 August 2019 – Historical Walking Tour of Cork City Hall, 11am, ticketed (free, part of Cork Heritage Open Day; details at www.corkheritageopenday.ie)
Sunday 18 August 2019, Cork Through the Ages; meet at the National Monument, Grand Parade, 6.45pm (free, two hours).
Monday 19 August 2019, Shandon Historical Walking Tour; meet at North Gate Bridge, Shandon Street, 6.45pm (free, two hours).
Tuesday 20 August 2019, The Victorian Quarter; meet on the Green at Audley Place, top of St Patrick’s Hill, 6.45pm (free, two hours)
Thursday 22 August 2019, The Lough and its Curiosities; meet at green area at northern green of The Lough, entrance of Lough Road to The Lough; 6.45pm (free, two hours)
Friday 23 August 2019, Douglas and its History, in association with Douglas Tidy Towns; meet in the carpark of Douglas Community Centre, 6.45pm (free, two hours).
Saturday 24 August 2019, Park Stories, explore the history of Cork’s Mardyke; meet at band stand in park, opposite Cork City Museum in Fitzgerald’s Park, 11am (free, two hours).
Captions:
1009a. Queen’s College Cork, by Robert Lowe Stopford, c.1850-1870 (source: University College Cork)
1009b. Crawford Observatory, UCC, present day (picture: Kieran McCarthy)
Lennox Robinson Award 100 Word Flash Fiction Award 2019
LENNOX ROBINSON AWARD
FREE ENTRY TO 31 AUGUST
The closing date for the Cllr Kieran McCarthy Lennox Robinson 100 Word flash fiction Award 2019 has been extended to 31 August due to the interest from writers all over Ireland.
The award aims to remember the Douglas born playwright and Abbey Theatre director Lennox Robinson who spent his formative years living in Ballymoney House near Ballineen in County Cork.
The 100 word short story has to be linked in some way to the work of Lennox Robinson who was one of Ireland’s leading cultural figures.
The Award is open to writers both nationally and internationally. Submissions remain open until 31st August 2019 There is no entry fee and submissions, not more than 100 words must be emailed to douglaswriters1@gmail.com.
Ronnie McGinn, chairman of the Douglas Writers the event organisors said today that a short list will be published at the end of September.
The 100 euro prize will be presented to the winner by Cllr MacCarthy at a special event in the Douglas Library on Thursday 17th October 2019.
Pictures, Shandon Street Festival, June 2019
Thanks to Linda, James and all the team for another great Shandon Street Festival 🙂
Cork Carnival of Science, Fitzgerald’s Park, 22-23 June 2019
The excitement is building for Cork Carnival of Science in Fitzgerald’s Park on Saturday 22 & Sunday 23 June. There is a jam packed line-up of live demonstrations, big top shows, hands on workshops and entertainment.
