Hello and welcome to the Friday View. Let’s get to it!
It’s complex: Cork City Council paid close to €4 million to extricate itself from what it described as “a complex contractual dispute” with a developer on the northside of the city.
Per The Echo, records released to Cork North Central Sinn Féin TD Thomas Gould under Freedom of Information legislation show that, between May 2021 and May 2024, Cork City Council paid €3.78 million for mediation and dispute resolution, among other items.
As The Journal reported last year, a settlement of €2.5 million was paid to the initial contractor in 2024, although that is understood to be significantly lower than what the contractor had been seeking.
Construction work began on the site at Kilmore Road in Knocknaheeny as part of the Cork City Northwest Quarter Regeneration (CNWQR) Masterplan, which was launched in 2011.
A tender was reissued in July 2024 to complete the development.
Bicycle sheds (No, not that one): The good news for people planning to erect a bike shed on the grounds of their home is that the Department of Housing is expected to sign regulations exempting bicycle and bin storage at the front of houses from planning permission. However, the less good news is, as IrishCycle.com reports, that the exemption would only be for structures up to a maximum of 3.5 square metres and a height of only 1.4 metre.
Given that many families have more than one bike, and cargo bikes, if you can afford one, are about the same size as a small tank, the plans might need to be looked at again.
High court action: Cork City Council’s head of finance was this week granted a chancery interim injunction in his ex parte case in the High Court against Cork City Council.
The case will be back before the High Court for a decision in September, and it stems from a move that Mr Hallahan did not sign up for.
According to The Examiner, it is understood that Mr Hallahan was told in May by the council’s chief executive, Valerie O’Sullivan, that he was being replaced as head of finance and was being moved to a newly created Cost Transformation Office.
What exactly a Cost Transformation Office does is up in the air, but it does fit the mould of corporate-sounding jargon, and it certainly did not sit well with Hallahan, who took emergency action to prevent the move.
Hallahan is still listed as head of finance on the 12-person executive management team at Cork City Council, and that will not change, at least until 15 September, when the case returns for judgment at the High Court. One of the many areas under his direct control is procurement.
To be a fly on the wall at the next Executive Management team meeting.
RTÉ in Cork: The national broadcaster has long had a base in Cork at Fr Matthew Quay, but the building is about as outdated as Aertel is. However, finding a suitable city centre location is proving to be a difficult task.
This week, The Examiner reported that discussions have taken place with Cork City Council about leasing a portion of the Counting House for €35 million, which the local authority bought for the City Library. However, that move is not going to happen. Several other city centre sites RTÉ have looked at are also not on the cards.
This leaves the Cork operation in a tricky spot, as it looks to increase staff levels and output as part of its A New Direction five-year plan. Currently, the signposts keep sending RTÉ scouts back to Fr Matthew Quay.
Swimming the length of the Lee: How do you swim the full length of the Lee from Gougane Barra near the border with Kerry all the way to Cork Harbour?
Well, the short answer is: you scramble over stones and ditches at the beginning, and swim where you can.
This week, four friends set off on a nine-day, 80km adventure that will see them finish their journey in Cork Harbour. The lads, brothers Seán, Eoin and Ryan Underwood, along with their buddy Peter, have been documenting some of the sights and finds along the ancient riverway, including freshwater pearl mussels.
They are also hoping to raise funds for the Cork River Alliance Group, a volunteer group set up in 2023 to protect, restore and regenerate rivers and their catchment areas across Cork. You can follow the lads on their swim-ramble journey from source to sea here.
Gem of the week: “Cork isn’t a place, it’s a personality”. So says The Fifth Quarter, also not a place, or a personality, but if if it had one, you might say it was fatuous.
Save the trees: Cllr Paudie Dineen, who calls himself a "digital creator" on his Facebook page, took time out from promoting the Save Europe Act ("Enough is Enough. Are you sick and tired of our Government and their Open Border Policy?") to comment on the trees of Knockafree on the northside.
Signalling his solidarity with the trees, he commented: “We need compromise. We really need to save these trees from been (sic) felled it's an injustice to the residents and to nature itself at a time when climate change is a hot topic.”
Cue, the comments under his comment: “climate change is a myth”.
Fine times: Both Cork City Council and Cork County Council have significantly stepped up handing out fines for littering and dumping in the first quarter of the year. In the city, the number of litter and illegal dumping fines amounted to 337, or €50,550. Meanwhile, the county council issued 32 fines, up from 22 for the same period in 2025, amounting to €4,800. (Is it less of an issue in the much bigger area, less reported, or less acted upon?)
The Echo reports that more than half, 204, of the fines issued in the city have been paid, while just under half, 15, have been paid in the county.
Cllr Aileen Browne is campaigning for offenders to be sent out to the high roads and byroads with litter pickers and given community service instead of fines. That, she thinks, will teach them a lesson. Likely, though, any such move would require legislative change.
Sporting Ireland campus, Cork: Given the haul of Olympic medals won by athletes from Cork in the Olympics going back nearly 100 years, from Pat O’Callaghan’s gold in the hammer in Amsterdam to the heroics of Sonia O’Sullivan, Rob Heffernan and, especially, the rowers of West Cork, you might wonder if there is something in the water.
Not really. It is just blood, sweat, talent and tears. But would a sports campus in Munster, specifically in Cork, help improve our medal standing? Perhaps, but having a facility on a par with the one in Abbotstown could only be a good thing. There is cross-party support in the city and county councils for such a campus, with politicians and council bosses both promising to write letters and back such a plan. Maybe one day we will have a 50m pool in Cork…
Skibereen Arts Festival. July 24-August 2. Across Skibereen
Cork Craft Month: August. Across the city and county
Cork on a Fork: August 12-16. Various locations across the city.
National Heritage Week: August 15-23. Various locations across the city and county.
Open Walls Visual Arts Festival. August 15-16. Wandesford Quay Courtyard.
The Island Drift. September 4-6. Garnish Island.
🎶 Beginning tomorrow, 1 August, St Fin Barre's Cathedral will be hosting a month-long celebration of music, literature, heritage – and staying open late to do so. First up is renowned Italian pianist and composer Giuseppina Torre, who will be performing from her new album, The Choice. Beginning next Friday, there will also be a series of evening readings (free entry) and lunchtime organ recitals, and the cathedral will remain open late on Thursdays and Fridays. Full programme here.
Time, date, place: 7pm, Saturday August 1, St Fin Barre’s Cathedral, Bishop St, The Lough
🎶 Beginning today, musician Laura Hyland will perform the first of three performances as part of her jazz residency at Triskel. Hyland has been busy reflecting on the history of Triskel and its inside and outside spaces in the city centre. At 11am this morning, she will be accompanied by fellow improvisers Dan Walsh and Eimear Reidy, during which they will play freely on the portico of the church, organising themselves around each other: "thriving, floundering, celebrating, supporting and challenging each other through sound."
Time, date, place: 11am, Friday June 31, The Triskel, Tobin Street
📽️Tim Burton season kicks off at Triskel this weekend and into August, and what better way to start than with his ode to Pee-wee Herman in the original, and best, of the trilogy. Pee-wee's Big Adventure was also Burton's debut feature film in a career that would see him create some of the most interesting cinematic characters, including Beetlejuice, Batman and Edward Scissorhands. Pee-wee and his bike have a worthy place in that canon. Tickets and more info here.
Time, date, place: 7pm, Saturday August 1, The Triskel, Tobin Street
🎻Trad on the Quay: Who says trad only happens in pubs? Button box trad player Hughie Kennedy will be joined by trad-playing friends for a session outside on Pope's Quay, across from Myo café, this Sunday. Expect reels, jigs, hornpipes, as well as chai lattes, for a new Sunday tradition from the café that is not afraid to put on everything and anything on the left bank of the Lee. Free.
Time, date, place: 1:30pm-3pm, Sunday August 2, Myo Cafe, Popes Quay
🏉AFL is coming to Musgrave Park this weekend as the Irish Banshees take on a visiting European-based AFL side. The match coincides with Ireland taking on Australia on the same day in Sydney in an AFL Professional International fixture. The Banshees have a rake of silverware under their belt, and entry is free for under-16s who are with a parent or guardian. Tickets and more info here.
Time, date, place: 1pm, Saturday August 1, Virgin Media Park, Ballyphehane, Cork
🖼️Art collecting: Lavit Gallery director Brian Mac Domhnaill will be spilling the beans on starting your own art collection. As with everything collectible, money is a prerequisite, but then so too is a good eye and taste. Can such things be taught? Well, the art world is one place you can stick your neck out and fake it until you make it. Mac Domhnaill will also be expounding on some of the art and artists that comprise the summer exhibition now on at the Lavit, in a tour of the riverside gallery. Free in
Time, date, place: 3pm, Saturday August 1, Lavit Gallery, Wandesford Quay
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 looooooooong weekend!
🔔If you know about something to do in Cork that you’d like us to share in the Out+About sections of our Friday View newsletter (published every Friday morning), please fill in the form below. It could be an art exhibition, a film, music to go see, theatre, comedy, something delicious to go eat, a clothes swap, public lecture, a community clean-up, community gardening - anything readers could get out and do.
We’d be delighted if you could share your listings of events with us via this form and we’ll include them in the Out +About section of the Friday View.
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