☕️The Friday View 21/08

Hello and welcome to the Friday View. Let’s get to it!

Breaking ground, rising rents: The Land Development Agency (LDA) announced this week that building is going to start in the coming weeks on the docks at Kennedy Quay in conjunction with O’Callaghan Properties. According to their timeline, the 103 homes, which include 45 one-bed, 42 two-bed and 16 three-bed apartments, could be occupied by the end of 2028.

While the press release didn’t detail the affordability of the apartments, they are part of the LDA’s Project Tosaigh, which was established to provide a fair deal to renters struggling to pay private sector rents.

According to the LDA’s model, their aim is for “tenants to pay about a third of their net disposable income on rent, a generally accepted level of housing cost affordability, and in practice likely to reflect a circa 25% discount on prevailing current market rents in Dublin. By delivering affordable rents at scale, the LDA will have a stabilising effect on the wider rental market.”

Project Tosaigh was launched in November 2021. A report from Daft.ie, a property website, earlier this year found that rental property prices in Cork increased by 13% in the first three months of 2026, significantly higher than the national average of 4.4%.

The average cost to rent a two-bedroom apartment in the city is €2,126 per month. The average cost of a three-bedroom house in Cork city had increased by 12.8% year-on-year to €2,516 per month. The average cost of a one-bedroom apartment was €1,806 per month.

Clearly Project Tosaigh’s stabilising effect has a long way to go. The clear-as-day answer is more affordable homes, and faster.

Details were cloudy (but sustainable!) at best for O’Callaghan’s plans for the former Odlum’s building. Per the press release: O’Callaghan Properties has further plans to transform the immediate Kennedy Quay area to create a dynamic and sustainable new waterfront neighbourhood in Cork’s Docklands.

This includes the provision of commercial and retail space, as well as further residential development. The company is also planning to restore and return the iconic Odlums mill building to use.

CUH vacancies pile up: The CEO of Cork University Hospital’s frustration over the slow pace of hiring and the effect that this will have on services and ultimately patient safety at the hospital was plain to see this week in media reports

Per The Echo: Jennifer Kearney has written a strongly worded letter to a HSE south west manager, saying that “increasingly bureaucratic processes” and “a prolonged suppression of recruitment” have left 348 whole time equivalent posts vacant despite having funding.

That letter continued:

My responsibility as chief executive is not simply to comply with a process. It is to speak clearly when I believe that process is creating a foreseeable risk to patients and staff. I would rather raise that concern now, when there is still an opportunity to act, than remain silent and explain afterwards why we did not.

Truth to power etc.

Healthy growth?: One area where CUH is outperforming the rest of the country’s hospitals is in the money it generates from its car parks. Since 2020 through to 2025 it has earned just under €12m in car park charges. For 2025, daily average spend at the hospital amounted to €7,300, which came to around €2.7m for the year.

But the HSE spends big on satellite car parks and bus transport for staff: over the five-year period to 2025 it spent €5m on coach hire for park-and-ride transport, as well as four new car-park leases: €400,775 for Cork City FC Bishopstown Stadium; €191,880 for Parking People (Lee Auto Centre); €40,590 to O’Flynn’s Group; and €15,121 to Solas Financial.

Existing car-park leases at Highfield Rugby Club and Bishopstown GAA Club also saw costs increase from 2023, with a total of €663,850 and €246,187 spent over the six-year period, respectively.

Would a Cork Luas help with access and transport to CUH? On paper yes, but it would need park-and-ride facilities in the mix as well.

Hidden heritage:This week Rob Cross, a man who knows his way around a derelict site, highlighted a piece of our built heritage that’s hidden in not-so-plain sight just off North Main Street. The stone arch, whichdates back to the late 1700s, was formerly the doorway to the office of John Daly & Co Mineral Water Manufacturers (the people behind Tanora), when it stood down river at Kyrl’s Quay.

After the premises were demolished, the archway was re-erected at North Main Street shopping centre, but it’s mostly hidden now behind Supermac’s. Could it be once more moved? Yes. Should it be? Also, yes.

M8 and M9 horror crashes: The reckless driving that led to the deaths of five teenagers over the weekend and the hospitalisation of a family with serious injuries who were struck by the car driven by the teenagers travelling in the wrong direction understandably feels like a watershed moment for road policing, the role of social media and why some young men and boys continue to engage in joyriding.

Three years ago, T+D contacted all five TDs at the time in Cork South Central following one of our cars being stolen and crashed by a teenage gang known to the Gardaí. The Gardaí said as much to us then, three years ago, as they have been saying all this week: we don’t have the resources or training to deal with these cases.

In our letter to all five TDs, we included this:

Cars were stolen for ‘joyriding’ long before TikTok came into existence, but it’s especially upsetting to see videos showing stolen cars on social media and a chorus of comments celebrating the fact. Gardaí told me that the gangs – there are two in Cork, one on the southside and one on the northside – are brazen enough to steal cars in broad daylight from outside their owner’s house.

Until the Gardaí are given the resources to properly tackle this problem, it will persist. The consequences could also be deadly.

Green light for new arts centre in West Cork: Cork County Council has given West Cork Music (the group behind the West Cork Chamber Music Festival, the West Cork Literary Festival, and Masters of Tradition) the go-ahead for its stand-alone arts and music venue in Bantry, subject to the normal small print.

The 250-seater venue, to be situated next to the library in the coastal town, is designed by Dublin-based McCullough Mulvin Architects. The arts venue would allow for year-round events to be held in the specially built venue, and if all goes to plan, then according to West Cork Music’s timeline it would be curtains up sometime in 2030. It all sounds like quite the event centre. (See what we did there!?)

The Sound of Non Music: Spare a thought for the sound techs in Cork Opera House, where the musical The Sound of Musici s ongoing. Barely 20 minutes into Wednesday’s performance of the summer blockbuster, Captain Von Trapp and company had to revert to a cappella performances as things went badly wrong, and the show was cancelled owing to “significant and insurmountable technical issues”

We Were Always Here: A new permanent exhibition documenting and exploring the history of Cork’s LGBTQ+ community has opened at Cork Public Museum. It comes on the 50th anniversary of the opening of the first gay centre in Cork at No. 4 MacCurtain Street in 1976.

Nearly 10 years in the making, the exhibition, titled We Were Always Here, is the high point of extensive collaboration between Cork Public Museum and Cork LGBT Archive.

Through original documents, objects and personal possessions, the exhibition traces LGBTQ history in Cork through the stories of the people and organisations that sought to support and defend the LGBTQ community, especially when it was illegal to be homosexual in Ireland until 1993.

Per the press release: The display is therefore a celebration of activists who created, and continue to create, social and cultural spaces, challenge prejudice and help bring about lasting social and political change.

The exhibition coincides with the Gilbert Baker Rainbow Flag, the “rainbow” flag and the global symbol of LGBTI+ pride, visibility, inclusion and equality, being flown in Fitzgerald’s Park from this week, where it will remain on public display for four months under the terms of a landmark loan agreement with the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco.

Full of Notions: You're a new restaurant owner, and you’re setting up shop in Douglas; what to call your establishment? Well, other than “Traffic Jam”, "Notion" is a close second. We wish the crew at Notion all the best.

World Champions: Congratulations to Carrigaline Pipe Band, which were crowned Grade 4A World Champions for 2026 in Glasgow last weekend. The winning pipers marched through Carrigaline’s Main Street this week, champions for two years in a row.

One Garden, Many Kitchens: Congrats as well to Togher Community Garden, which has published their second community cookbook. Illustrated by community member Luna Fox, the cookbook is the work of the many volunteers in Togher, each bringing a little piece of home to the garden by cooking and sharing a dish from their own country and culture. The community gardeners meet in the garden in Clashduv Park every Saturday morning

Sub headline of the week: Take a bow CorkBeo for this line - Donations pouring in to help Death Vomit, Deadsquad and JASAD.

The story, an unfortunate one, for stranded Indonesian Death Metal group, whose Cork and England gigs fell through following their Dublin gig. As CorkBeo reports, “after a smash-hit first night, however, they were forced to cancel shows in Cork city and London when their accommodation, venue arrangements and travel plans suddenly fell through.”

However, with the help of some good people, they got the show back on the road and on to Eindhoven.

In his lifetime Bishop Francis Moylan likely made friends and enemies a plenty. A friend to the poor, as the cliché goes, he bitterly opposed the United Irishmen and the French Revolution. Moylan was born and bred in Shandon in the 18th century. He went from parish priest to bishop and was the founder of North Monastery. For Heritage Week, Victoria Anne Pearson (Ulster University) will take a look back at his significant impact and contribution to the development of Cork. Free in, all welcome.

Time, date, place: 1:30pm - 2:30pm, Saturday August 22, Cork City Library.

Later the same day, and also in the City Library, Diarmuid Ó Drisceoil will officially launch his new book Blúirí Oileánda - Island Pieces: Cléire - Cape Clear, a bilingual exploration of Cape Clear’s social history. A long-time visitor to Cape Clear, where Ó Drisceoil’s father was born, the book covers much ground, from dressers, dry stone walls, emigration, headstones, birds, religion, shipwrecks, and the traditional Cape Clear gansey. Ó Drisceoil’s book and talk promise to be a great way to look back and engage with a West Cork island that’s a land apart in history, if not in places still. Free in, all welcome.

Time, date, place: 4pm, Saturday August 22, Cork City Library.

Tess O’Regan, Jennifer Horgan, Lani O’Hanlon and Annette Skade are some of the featured writers who will be in the EcoLab, the thatched building on the western side of the Tramore Valley Park. All four have been published in Dublin-based Channel magazine, and they’ll be reading poetry and prose as the world, cyclists, runners, kids and birds go by.

Time, date, place: 5pm - 6:30pm, Saturday August 22,,EcoLab, Tramore Valley Park

Block Party: Great William O’Brien Street is the place to be in Blackpool this coming Sunday, as the northsiders celebrate with their annual street fest. On stage you can expect Two Time Polka, Arundó, The Heppsters Jazz Trio, French folk indie singer Delta Plane, and the Spangle Hill Band. Also in the mix on the street will be acrobatics, flash fiction workshops from the crew at nearby Graffiti Theatre, and DIY bike repair workshops. It gets better: there’ll be free lunch cooked by the Tiger Balm Supper Club, with all the ingredients coming from community gardens across Cork City. And it gets even better: Health Action Zone and the Blackpool Men’s Shed will be giving away the best seasonal produce from local community gardens, as well as free planters, pots, compost and seeds, so you can grow your own at home.

Time, date, place: 1pm -5pm, Sunday August 23, Great William O’Brien Street, Blackpool

Write Club in the Cathedral: Writers from the Write Club, a teenage writing club run by the Graffiti Theatre in partnership with Fighting Words, will be reading their literary creations in St Fin Barre’s Cathedral as part of their ongoing Friday night series. Write Club members, open to 13–18 year olds, write short stories, long stories, poems, flash fiction, scripts and much else. Free in, no booking, all welcome.

Time, date, place: 6pm-7pm, Friday August 21, St Fin Barre’s Cathedral.

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!

🔔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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