Festival to be a celebration of positivity for Cork city

There was a celebratory mood in Cork City Hall council chambers as the Cork Lifelong Learning Festival 2022 was launched yesterday, with several participants commenting that the festival programme’s sky-blue colour scheme made a welcome change after two long years of Covid-yellow.

Launching the festival, Deputy Lord Mayor of Cork Cllr Tony Fitzgerald said that after a forced break of two years in which people had to learn to do things in new ways and work remotely, everyone involved in the festival was looking forward to this year’s programme.

“Since it was first held in 2004, the Cork Lifelong Learning Festival is a key event in the calendar of our city, and is a great focus for positivity and celebration in the Spring,” Cllr Fitzgerald said.

“The festival’s motto of ‘Investigate, Participate and Celebrate’ is particularly appropriate this year as we emerge from two years of the pandemic and reconnect in a true festival of the people, an Féile Foghlama.”

This year’s festival, which will run from Monday 4 to Sunday 10 April, will feature almost 350 individual lifelong learning events taking place all over Cork City, with organisers saying one of its key aspects is the opportunity for members of the public regardless of age, interest, or abilities to ‘give it a go’, and learn something new through workshops, demonstrations, classes, walks, talks and lectures.

Festival chair Willie McAuliffe said the Lifelong Learning Festival was an excellent example of how agencies and educational bodies could come together and create something wonderful for the city of Cork.

“The Festival makes our city a Learning City [with] Cork recognised globally as an exceptional example of a UNESCO Learning City and the Cork Lifelong Learning Festival is the foundation for this,” Mr McAuliffe said.

“There is a real appetite in Cork for lifelong learning, and we owe a debt of gratitude to our event hosts who haven’t forgotten the festival, and are back to join us in celebrating lifelong learning the way Cork does best.”

All of the events in Corks Lifelong Learning Festival are free to attend and open to all, with this year’s programme including performances, poetry, workshops, walks and demonstrations.

Copies of the festival programme are available from Cork City Hall, in all Cork City libraries, and at host venues, and the programme is online at corklearningfestival.ie.