City of Culture, City of Commerce

In a few weeks time, the Real Capital of Ireland, the fair city by the banks of the Lee, where we sported and played will become the European City of Culture.
Getting to host events like this was one of the reasons that we Corkonians threw those awful British out of most our country. The Event comes round to each EU country every 25 years at the moment, and with further expansion it might only come around every 40 years. So if Cork was still in the UK, we'd probably have to wait for around 1000 years to get to host this festival, though at least there's a prospect that they might have the drainage system sorted out by then.
Though Cork's roots are as a trading city and it can hardly claim to be an Athens of a Weimar, the city does have a rich cultural heritage. Writers like Frank O' Connor and Canon Sheehan, and Musicians like Rory Gallagher all hailed from our fair city. In the Crawford we have a world class Art Gallery, the Vanburgh String Quartet, artists in residence to UCC, are the finest in the country, the city has 2 Arthouse cinemas and a host of fringe theatre companies, writers like Tom Creed and Trevor Joyce, and a host of up-and-coming musicians like Fred, Niall Connolly, Wondrland, Boa Morte, Cartoon, and Queen Kong. We've got artists like June Fitzgerald and Angela Morrisey. Cillian Murphy and Jonathon Rhys Myers, two of the finest young actors of their generation, hail from Cork.
Yet, though the city hosts one of the best Jazz and Film festivals around, the preparations for being city of culture don't inspire me with all that much confidence.
I'm reminded of the time Homer Simpson got a job as a teacher and spent all his time preparing for the job by focusing on externals, getting it arseways by sewing tweed Patches on a leather jacket.
Likewise, the city fathers have spent all their time preparing the city for all those rich Eurotrash types they expect to be enriching our city and precious little on actually bringing any culture here. In fact, the budget for infrastructure was around €200m whereas that for cultural events was only €13, a small fraction of what the likes of Lille spent. When you consider that one of the property firms in the city is said to be worth over €1 billion, this sum seems fairly paltry.
The irony is that in restructuring the city, they've destroyed a lot of what made it unique. It's really sad to see Patrick Street turned into a Parisien-Style boulevard when at heart Cork is a prolitarian city of red-brick terraces and faded Victorian buildings.
It's even more ironic that in the city's rush to enrich itself, many of the places where some of the most important events in Cork's cultural history, at least over the last 50 years, have been or are being destroyed. The Arcadia ballroom, where U2 were first appreciated and which also hosted The Clash, is being converted into yuppie apartments. Sir Henry's, a nightclub where Nirvana and Sonic Youth played, has also been bulldozed. The CAT club, one of the best places for alternative music and theatre, faces the same fate. The Examiner is moving out of it's old, art-deco building and down to a new commercial behemoth where the docks used to be.
It's not quite all doom and gloom, though. Neil LaBute, a dramatist and Film-maker misantrhopic enough to make Roy Keane look like Gandhi, is coming over here, and Daniel Libeskind (His name means Love-Child, of whom their might be one or two in Cork), the trippy German architect who's designing the replacement for the twin towers will be installing a pavilion here, though I'm sure there's a few people out there who think his work might be enhanced by spray-painting the words "Stanners luvs Stella" on its side. There were rumours that some of Rembrant's paintings were going to come here, but I think the Rijksmuseum owners may have thought better of it, realising how easily they might end up in a car boot in Knocknaheeny.
It seems, though, that the majority of Corkonians find all this fairly underwhelming. One Examiner interviewee said he thought the whole thing was for the "Glitterati", though if you've ever seen the organising comittee sitting round in one of the cafes in the English market in their tweed jackets this might seem a bit ironic.
It's a pity that people feel alienated from "Culture", because unlike "The Arts" Culture is an inclusive term that includes what everyone does in their spare time. Cork used to have a thriving popular culture represented by places like the Father Matthew Hall but the dawn of Television put an end to much of this. Now, the term "Culture" is an off-putting one for many people and this might be why the business community might be unwilling to invest much money in the event.
It's a pity, because there is a desire for high culture among Cork people. When Corcadorca put on a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream in Fitzgeralds Park two years ago, it was sold out every night for a fortnight, as is the case with many theatrical productions in the City.
In fairness, I think the organsising comittee are doing a reasonably good job with their limited resources, but I think the fact that these resources are so limited says a lot about the Celtic Tiger. In our rush to become the fourth richest country in the World, we may have lost our soul.