Oh, what a Culture Night! And a great few days for bikes too

ANOTHER Friday night, another social media video of night-time antics on the streets of Ireland goes viral.

Instead of a disturbing video of drunk young fellas trying to hit each other, it was a put-a-smile-on-your-face video of a street disco outside the GPO on Oliver Plunkett Street on Culture Night.

A clip of Cork’s deep house/techno brass brand Boolaboom performing to a delighted crowd clocked up well over 100,000 views at the weekend because it captured a wonderful moment of fun. It was a street disco for everyone. Older people got their groove on as much as the small kids and wheelchair users.

All nationalities were united in love for a reworked version of a dance classic, and Cork crowds like to go nuts when the kick drum comes in.

Disclaimer: I am married to a band member so I’m a long-time fan, but the one-minute video took off because people recognised the joyful celebration that it was.

Music brings people together. If you serve quality music to people on the streets of our city, you get feelings of joy and togetherness. Valuable and important emotions these days.

It was affirming to see a crowd clog a Cork thoroughfare cheering for a particularly funky solo, to counter the negative discourses about street violence or the dangerous demonstrations that we witnessed last week.

Cork was rocking for Culture Night, and thankfully the rain stayed away to allow for a magical evening of creativity and inclusivity.

The evening sun was shining warmly on the plaza of City Hall for the Kalyna Choir, who sang traditional Ukrainian songs and demonstrated a funny grab-a-sunflower game that tested the leg strength of unsuspecting male audience members.

Via a translator, the choir conductor, Svetlana Deikun, spoke of the Ukrainian refugee community’s gratitude to Ireland, how they hoped the pointless war would end soon, but how, for now, Ireland would be home until they could return to their homeland.

I wasn’t expecting to shed a tear at half-five in the evening on a sunny Friday, but the combination of the choir’s fierce pride and beautiful singing of Jeff Buckley’s Hallelujah tipped me over. Music can move you.

French flair

Music also moved 30,000 Irish fans in the Stade de France on Saturday night.

There has been plenty to relish in the opening three games of Ireland’s World Cup campaign, but the crowd singing Zombie was another lump in the throat moment.

However, for me, one of the images of the tournament so far was not the joyous faces of Irish fans and players, but a photo of Peter O’Mahony giving Keith Earls a backer (it’s a technical term) on a bike around the streets of Tours, the team’s base city. We need this image printed on t-shirts promoting the positives of cycling.

The real hero of the photo was, in fact, the bike, which managed to cart 200 kilos of prime Irish rugby beef around on just two wheels.

Cycling has become the means of transport du jour in lots of French cities.

You have got to love the French flair for building a beautiful city. The recognition, spurred by the pandemic, that they are for people, not cars, has brought about radical, rapid change.

Photos of Irish fans bedecked in green jerseys cycling in convoy along Paris streets show the ‘if we build it, they will come’ approach works.

It was heartening to learn recently that two-thirds of people living in Cork city strongly agree that Cork must transform into a more sustainable place to live and work, and that more cycling and better public transport are means to achieve that change.

So, apart from bringing the World Cup trophy home (please do not let this be a premature peaking of potential in the pool stages!), I hope Irish fans bring home an appreciation of bike infrastructure and a desire to keep cycling while demanding safer cycling conditions.

Instead of resisting every bike lane and new traffic arrangement like it is an assault on their granny, perhaps people can start to see that big, positive changes are necessary to create a non-polluting planet for everyone.

Less vans, more bikes

Festivities for the rest of the weekend did not fare as well as Culture Night.

The Douglas Street Festival was cancelled because of a weather warning and the rain washed away our family plans to roam the city centre and enjoy the car-free day.

My daughter had been looking forward to walking down the middle of Patrick Street. “Can I sit down in the middle of the road, and no-one will stop me?” she asked.

“Well, no, actually a bus or taxi could still drive over you so that’s inadvisable” I replied.

But the principle of showing that a city is for people, not for cars, was the point of the exercise.

Electric cargo bikes are one valuable tool that will help make the switch to two wheels and more car- free days.

The e-bike has already transformed food delivery. When was the last time you had a takeaway delivered by someone driving a car? But the electric cargo is on track to transform other delivery services.

Across European cities, cargo e-bikes are used to replace traditional delivery vans to complete ‘last mile delivery’.

Vans will always be required for hefty items, but so many small parcels are delivered in half-filled, unnecessarily large vans that emit lots of pollution, take up lots of room and, in big cities like London, are responsible for a considerable chunk of pedestrian and cyclist injuries and fatalities.

Cargo ebikes produce zero tailpipe emissions, can navigate through traffic jams, access tight spaces, park easily, and take up less room on the road.

Companies are beginning to understand that cargo bikes might be good for the planet, the bottom line, and their green credentials.

As Ireland continues to prioritise sustainability, these pedal-powered delivery bikes are likely to become a common sight on our streets.

Peter O’Mahony might even consider one for delivering world class wingers. Pardon my French, but ‘Allez vélos’.