Cities in India, Scotland and Poland suggested for Cork twinning 

Councillors debated the merits of twinning with cities in India, Scotland, and Poland at the most recent council meeting, with councillors asked to consider which cities would make the best partners.

Fine Gael’s councillor Shane O’Callaghan proposed twinning Cork with the city of Bangalore, the capital of the southern Indian State of Karnataka to build upon links in technology, culture, research, and education.

Green Party councillor Dan Boyle suggested the council investigate the possibility of establishing a friendly city relationship with Aberdeen in Scotland, while fellow Green councillor suggested city to city relationships be developed with Gdynia, Poland, a port city of similar size to Cork and the name of which has the same meaning as “Corcaigh”.

At the most recent international relations and tourism strategic policy committee (SPC) meeting, a spokesperson for the council’s corporate, community and cultural affairs directorate stated: “Cork City is currently twinned with Cologne, Coventry, Rennes, San Francisco, Shanghai, and Swansea.

“Formally lower levels of city partnership exist, and there are opportunities to consider city-to-city agreements, eg partner or friendship city agreements. Cork currently has such a partner agreement with Shenzhen, Wuxi, and Hangzhou.

“The current approach of council is to develop timebound programmes of mutual benefit with prospective city partners before entering into formal twinning arrangements, and subject to the views of the SPC, it is considered that more information on what co-operation is known to exist, what thematic areas of co-operation are proposed and how a formal partnership would serve to strengthen this co-operation.”

The directorate “would be happy to work with members on this in view of bringing a detailed business case on a prospective partnership to the SPC for consideration,” they said, asking SPC members to consider which cities should be considered for developing a business case.

The motions were debated at the most recent council meeting, with some councillors expressing a concern about “twinning for the sake of it”, and asking what value these partnerships actually bring.

Independent councillor and former Lord Mayor Kieran McCarthy told The Echo that twinning was “very important to the essence of the City’s international image”.

He explained: “An international relations strategy is very important for any city, especially a city with many connections to the outside world such as Cork... twinned city relationships with our six cities are certainly delivering across a whole series of joint ventures from education, heritage, and history to health to commerce to community life. It is important that we keep investing in our twinned cities strategy and its programme of works.”