Pride of place in Cork for a festival of Pride
Mimi Lane of Spring Break at Cork Pride Festival after party at the docklands.
Longitude was largely played out in the sunshine but at Body and Soul in mid June the showers were so intense that at one stage they had to stop the music! The forecast wasn’t great for another great recent addition to our local festival calendar, Joy in the Park, but thankfully for most of the day it was sunny.
This was a well attended family friendly event and the weather remained fantastic until the last hour or so, when acts like Jinx Lennon and local heroes the Frank and Walters had to perform in the rain. In fact the rain got so intense that the Franks had to soon curtail their set for safety reasons, but it didn’t stop the large crowd from enjoying a few of their anthems in Fitzgerald’s Park. Earlier this summer Africa Day also took place in appropriately fantastic sunshine at the same venue.
Joy in the Park was well organised and it helped break up what was otherwise a fairly miserable July in Cork City. Meanwhile Body and Soul seems to have got back to its roots in recent years, and at this year’s festival there was a nice and friendly atmosphere as the largely Irish line-up delivered some big musical treats. This week I’m heading up to Meath again for Another Love Story, which is another popular more intimate festival among music fans.
Cork Pride was wonderful and their huge after party on the port helped round off what was another busy programme of events for their week long festival.
They were celebrating 30 years of Cork Pride this year, though some members of the LGBTI community will remember that even before that there were groups marching for Pride in the city. It’s come a long way and now Pride is as mainstream as any festival, with huge numbers from all sorts of different backgrounds coming out to celebrate at both the parade and the after party!
Cork Pride must have a deal with the gods because the sun not only came out for their family funday the previous day, but it turned their after party into a fantastic celebration of sun kissed colour on the grand parade and later at the port. The numbers were fantastic, and amid a tough few weeks for the LGBTI community, and our Lord Mayor Cllr Kieran McCarthy made a powerful speech about the city’s determination to make Cork “a safer and more inclusive place”.
The event, headlined by Wild Youth, again underlined how we can have incredible street parties with the right support, and it was beautiful seeing such a safe and well organised event taking place down by the water at the Port of Cork. I think there’s huge potential for the city to run a few more of these outdoor events in the summertime, they really help foster a sense of community and pride in our city and our people.
All Together Now had its fair share of sunshine too but unfortunately the heavy downpours on Friday night turned the festival into a mud bath.
It was the only real drawback on what was a superb festival and many attendees commented on the fact that the mud wasn’t later treated by either straw or sawdust, which made walking around pretty tricky. Overall, it was a fantastic weekend and as more than one person pointed out, it was like being back at one of the early editions of the Electric Picnic.
The Curraghmore Estate site is far superior to the Stradbally one though, and while the line-up may not have had the same international heavyweight strength of some of those Picnics, the music was just as good, and the vibes were pretty immaculate.
Irish music has definitely improved a lot in the last 20 years and this festival showcased it on many different stages, accompanying big hitters such as Lorde, Jamie XX, Jessie Ware, Iggy Pop and the rejuvenated Sugababes on what was a superb weekend in Waterford.
