Cork 2005: If Taoiseach Bertie Ahern had any doubts about Cork's City of Culture status, they should have been quietened, if not entirely banished, by the hectic schedule he was subjected to last Wednesday.
Presiding first at a meeting of the Cabinet at City Hall, he moved on to visit the Vision Centre. Here, each month, a different European Union accession state contributes to a cultural self-portrait, with Poland the tenant for June in the successful "Enlargement" project. Then it was the formal opening of the Jack Lynch House under Shandon Steeple as accommodation for visiting artists, and after that another iconic legacy was marked with the presentation at UCC of the massive and invaluable Seán Ó Riada archive.
While the Taoiseach's day included laying a foundation stone for the new school of pharmacy at UCC and ended with a ceremony to signal the completion of Cork's main drainage scheme, Minister for Arts John O'Donoghue was at the City Museum to open the Liam McCarthy exhibition, on loan from Croke Park.
The Minister had also found time to make the formal announcement designating Cork's Crawford Gallery as a national cultural institution, the first outside Dublin. This long-anticipated development frees the gallery from the constraints of its administration by the local vocational education committee, and indicates at last a national recognition of the innovative and conservationist work carried on in what has been one of the city's leading cultural institutions for the past 20 years.
Among the regular commitments for the Crawford is its role as Irish national co-ordinator of the Association Pépinière. This Paris-based cultural agency organises residencies for young artists throughout Europe, and last week an international jury of experts in theatre, visual arts, film and new media held its two-day selection process at the gallery to coincide with Cork 2005.
