Cork's Quay Co-op hosting a market

One of Cork’s most important social enterprises will this weekend host a two-day market in its premises, celebrating all that is best in the city during what looks to be a wet jazz festival.

For over four decades, the Quay Co-op at Sullivan’s Quay has been at the heart of social justice advocacy in the city, campaigning from its earliest days for women’s rights, LGBT rights, and environmental justice.

Beginning as a community co-operative during the dark days of the early 1980s, it soon became home to Cork’s first vegetarian and vegan cafe and restaurant, a food co-op, a women’s centre, a creche, and a bookshop.

In recent times the Quay Co-op has expanded its bookshop and opened a new gallery space on the ground floor.

This weekend, the co-op will hold a two-day market in the building, hosting a dozen stalls, among them To Have and Have Knot, which specialises in fibre art home décor featuring work in macrame and crochet; Mercury’s Rising Vintage, which sells handpicked vintage clothing; and Sabaya, a collective of Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian women making practical items using traditional Mediterranean and Arabic culture and traditional skills, including crochet, knitting and cross-stitching.

Also offering their wares at the Rebel Market will be Aoife King, an artist and composer who sells original watercolour paintings; Molly Delahunty, whose Shadowbugs Art features entomology art pieces; Lanna Ariel, Witch of Paintings; and RetroFern Midcentury, which specialises in restoring mid-century furniture and homeware.

The Quay Co-Op Rebel Market is open on Saturday and Sunday.