With The Guinness Cork Jazz Festival “back in full swing” for another busy bank holiday weekend, The Metropole Hotel welcomes guests from all over the world.

The Echo caught up with some of the most stalwart fans of the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival.

Susie Fry has been coming to the Metropole, for almost two decades.

The Mayo native travels from Castlebar each year to experience the special atmosphere that Jazz creates.

“It’s a real tradition for us, we look forward to this weekend.” She told: “We come every year to the Jazz. This should be our 19th year coming but as you know with covid, we missed out on that one year.” 

This year, sees the Jazz Festival fully back following its covid hiatus.

“I don’t know what we did on that Halloween weekend when it wasn’t on, but we certainly missed it. We came down last year as things were just kind of slowly coming back after the pandemic. It just wasn’t as good though, it seemed so stiff compared to how free Jazz usually is. It just wasn’t quite back to itself but this year it really seems back into the swing of it.

“We really enjoy finding a good spot and listening to the Jazz, we found a great one now here,” Susie said as she sat in the cosy Tea Rooms at The Metropole Hotel.

Fry stresses that as well as the music itself, the social aspect of the festival is what makes it so special; “We met a friend from Dublin here a number of years ago and we’ve stayed in touch and each year we have a catch-up, its lovely.” 

As the original home of the festival, The Metropole first began hosting this special weekend on the calendar 44 years ago in 1978.

Eamonn Cassidy, the hotel concierge was keen to share the hotel's significant role in the festival over the decades; “The Metropole is the home of the Jazz, this is where it started.” 

“Originally there was a Jazz scene in Cork back in the 70’s. The extra bank holiday was added into the calendar and they thought why not start up a festival for the Jazz scene. That’s how the festival was born, and it’s really been going from strength to strength ever since.” 

The Metropole Hotel hosts approximately 45 to 50 bands playing across the weekend.

Inviting Jazz lovers from near and far, the October bank holiday weekend creates a boost for the local Cork economy.

“Jazz is always a very positive time of the year. Roughly it brings in about 40 to 50 thousand people to the city from around the world from the Friday all the way through to the Monday.”

“MacCurtain Street especially is always very busy, there’s a lot of restaurants, bars and theatres that are full wit people for Jazz,” Cassidy said.

Mr Cassidy also said the atmosphere on Jazz weekend is made of magic.

“There’s a totally different atmosphere in the city during the Jazz weekend. People really let their hair down and are ready to enjoy themselves in a different kind of music. 

"There’s a bit of magic in it.” “We get a huge number of international visitors to the hotel. There are lots of people over from the UK this weekend, a big crowd from Norway especially. People have even travelled from as far as Sydney and the States. It has such a brilliant draw to the hotel from both home and away every year.”