Floods Try and Fail to Disrupt Cork Jazz Celebrations
By News Editor Cormac McCarthy
Cork city, once again, geared up for a week-long celebration of jazz music and all of its various derivations. This year’s 45th iteration of the Guinness Cork Jazz festival was brought back in full flight.
It was estimated that over 100,000 people took to the streets of Cork over the weekend to enjoy the merriment contributing an estimated €45 million to the local economy. Every joe-soap with a trumpet seemed to be employed for the weekend with over 100 venues displaying various forms of jazz music.
Tánaiste Micheál Martin remarked how the festival had brought the city to life and complimented the efforts of drinks distributor Diageo for their efforts in supporting the festival. The tourism boost also had a significant knock-on effect on the rest of Cork with other local businesses seeing increased footfall.
Particular highlights included Corinne Bailey Rae’s presentation of her Black Rainbows project, a collection of works of black feminist culture and ancestry; 5 times Grammy nominated singer/songwriter Macy Grey’s electrifying opening performance on Friday night showcasing her breathtaking talent and artistry; and Los Angeles based rap quartet The Pharcyde bringing the needed contrast to the soul inspired numbers around Cork city.
Throughout the week the many flood and rain warnings in the lead up threatened to hamper festival goers’ fun. Saturday saw heavy flooding all along the quays with Sullivan’s quay in particular finding itself under a foot of water and many cars unable to be retrieved. Many ground floor and basement dwellings, shops and pubs saw severe damage. Shops such as Bunker Vinyl on Camden Place and Franciscan Well were inaccessible for a few hours.
While many punters threw caution to the wind and braved the conditions, Sunday saw the worst of incidents, with Cork City Council issuing flood warnings to over 20 streets in and around the Morrison’s Island area. Many businesses took to deploying sandbags by main entrances, with some music venues being forced to close early. Many venues were forced to cancel music acts with the risk of flood water damaging the electrical equipment.
Flooding has often been a significant problem in Cork city, but this particular bout of flooding has highlighted a urgent need for action by the city council. While a plan is in place, the council’s highly criticized current proposals for over 15km of flood defence walls along the river itself have been called into question. The plan would see the installation of flood barriers along the city area. While a flood defense protection system has been proposed for many years, those at SaveCorkCity.org have used these past weeks to highlight the inadequacy of such a plan in protecting the entirety of Cork City.
The organisation has shown how much of the flooding during the festival has arisen due to the nature of Cork city being built on a bog, with most of the water coming up through drains and spilling out onto the streets of Cork. Furthermore, the plans in place would only lead to water being diverted and flooding other areas such as Mahon, Blackrock, and Douglas.
