Chance to tour Cork's historic Civic Trust House on Culture Night this Friday

As part of Cork City Culture Night 2025, taking place this Friday, September 19, Civic Trust House on Pope’s Quay will open its doors to examine stories from its past as part of a Heritage Council funded project.

In collaboration with Victoria Kingston, the director of the West Cork History Festival, there will be an exploration of the 300-year history of the riverside Georgian building, which is now home to a number of arts organisations.

Civic Trust House was once a fine merchant’s home, then a hospital and also a boarding house in the late 19th century and through most of the 20th century.

SAVED

By the 1980s it was derelict before being saved in the 1990s by the newly-formed Cork Civic Trust.

Working with Strive Theatre Company, 14 short and first person monologues will be created. 

These will be inspired by real people who lived or worked there, or in the locality, each rooted in documented history and brought to life by professional actors.

Culture Night will be one of the only opportunities for the general public to see the monologues performed live and in an open rehearsal.

The pieces will be recorded and released later this year as an interactive online resource, with each voice linked to a window of the house, inviting visitors to step into its stories. Among the characters to feature is Abbé Louis Bertrand, a French priest who boarded there in the late 19th century who produced his own medicines and left behind an extensive collection of papers.

Also featured is Frances Ryan, a daughter of an Royal Irish Constabulary constable.