Cork's Ukrainian Kalyna Choir helps bring some festive cheer to City Hall

Members of the Ukrainian community on Leeside ensured there was plenty of festive cheer in the air on the plaza outside City Hall last Friday night.

‘From Kalyna With Love’, featured a heartwarming mixture of Ukrainian Christmas carols, traditional and more modern songs performed by the Kalyna Choir and other Ukrainian singers and musicians.

Organised by the Kalyna Hub Ukrainian community group, the festive event also featured some traditional games for younger attendees.

Family friendly

Speaking to The Echo, Victoria Tymoshchuk, a facilitator for the Ukrainian community in Cork and one of the women mainly responsible for organising the Ukrainian Christmas concert, said: “This was a very nice event and very family friendly. Our conductor Svitlana Deikun arranged all of this scenario for this evening.

“This event is very important for us as we integrate. We have a chance to represent our culture and say thank you to the Irish community and the people of Cork.

“We feel almost like at home,” she said. 

“We feel welcome and we feel support.”

Connections

The colourful and convivial event underscored the strong bond that exists between Ireland and Ukraine, a point made by the Lord Mayor of Cork, councillor Dan Boyle, in his address to the gathering, in which he highlighted the connections between the Ukrainian and Irish communities.

“I want to thank the Kalyna choir for what they have done and what they do through their constant joyous performances,” he said.

“I want to encourage them to continue to make us think better of ourselves and to be a better collective city as a result of that.”

Olesia Zhytkova, a postdoctoral researcher at University College Cork, said the event had an important key message.

“It is very important for us that Cork takes care of our kids,” she said. 

"We also want to encourage Cork people to support Ukrainian kids in Ukraine because it is very important for us to have this social role and especially at Christmas on this family holiday.”