A vision for West Cork: Plans progress on €20m arts and cultural hub

Irish Examiner

28-06-2025

How did you get a theorbo onto an airplane? You buy it a seat.
It might sound like a line from a bad cracker joke but it was a very real problem for West Cork Music, the organisers of the West Cork Chamber Festival, which got underway on Friday heralding a three-festival season worth €4.74m annually to the local economy.
'The theorbo is a kind of lute but it stands about seven or eight foot high. It's also known as a giraffe in the trade,' says West Cork Music founder and chief executive Francis Humphrys, who was busy doing his own final boarding pre-festival checks this week. 'Instruments can't go in the hold. The air pressure and the temperature in the hold is completely different. If you put them in the hold, the wood can crack, and these are instruments that can be worth millions.'
Francis recently turned 80 but is as busy as ever. Last year, the three festivals - the West Cork Chamber Festival, the West Cork Literary Festival, and Masters of Tradition - sold a combined 15,922 tickets, the highest combined total yet, worth €259,811. Ticket sales from the Chamber Festival brought in €125,294; the Literary Festival recouped €84,850 in ticket sales while Masters of Tradition brought in €49,667.
Irish fiddler and Masters of Tradition artistic director Martin Hayes outside St. Brendan's Church in Bantry. Picture: Karlis Dzjamko/Alamy Live News
But it wouldn't be a real festival without drama. In 2024, a strike by Aer Lingus pilots affected flights just as visiting performers were making their way to Ireland. Another hurdle to negotiate, for performers and for visitors. Getting musicians and their instruments to Cork is always a worry, like the theorbo dilemma, and also a practical financial consideration.
'A string quartet going on an airplane will work out as five seats because the cellist must have an extra seat. Some international airlines refuse to take a cello, even when the seat has been booked. Sometimes, it's at the pilot's discretion. Cellists worldwide worry, every time they get on a plane, because they don't know if they're going to be allowed fly with their instrument.'
Organising a chamber festival should be all about the music and tuning to a perfect fifth. Instead, someone must be looking after the purse strings. Yet in challenging times for the arts, West Cork Music has the data to show the monetary lift that festivals bring. An economic impact assessment carried out by Prof Eleanor Doyle at UCC's Dept of Economics estimates the three festivals brought in an estimated €4.74m to the region last year, including direct expenditure of €2.8m through local accommodation, catering, transport, and other local services, up 30% on 2023. 'Relative to the estimated aggregate impact, every euro invested by these agencies in West Cork Music generated €8.50 in economic activity,' said Prof Doyle.
This represents seriously good value for money for the €557,500 in State-derived funding from the Arts Council (€445,000), Fáilte Ireland (€65,000), and Cork County Council (€47,500).
Undertaking economic analysis of the three festivals puts their value in perspective, says Francis. 'We've been carrying these out since the economic crash 15 years ago. I realised that politicians were only going to listen to us if we had an economic presence. They used to just think of us as a drain on national resources.'
The Chamber Festival is celebrating its 30th anniversary, and has earned a reputation for world-class music in breathtaking surroundings. On Saturday night, the Ardeo Quartet and Barry Douglas perform the main evening concert at beautiful Bantry House, in a concert that will be broadcast live on Lyric FM and to millions more across Europe and beyond, via the European Broadcasting Union. Yet locals and visitors in Bantry can attend the concert for as little as €14. Other events are free.
The festival is headquartered in Bantry, but fringe and other festival events on the programme take in Cork Airport, Glengarriff, Skibbereen, Ahakista, Ballydehob, Schull, and islands like Sherkin, Heir, Bere, and Whiddy. Just a few weeks later, the West Cork Literary Festival directed by Eimear Herlihy will bring a different creative strand - not to mention a dabble of stardust from the likes of Graham Norton, Richard E Grant, and Neil Jordan - as Irish and world authors and guests come to Bantry and its environs. In August, Masters of Tradition, curated by Martin Hayes, will complete the eclectic summer season.
An architect design of the interior for the proposed cultural hub and music centre in Bantry.
The next step in the development of West Cork Music is to create a permanent music, education, and civic space in Bantry. This will include an auditorium, and an education centre, adjacent to Bantry Library, creating a new cultural hub for the town, and indeed for West Cork. The total cost is estimated at €20m.
The concert hall will be used for performances of chamber music, folk, jazz, and traditional music from Ireland and other cultures. It will be a purpose-built space: a warm acoustic, with modulations, particularly around the stage, helping to disperse sound and reduce the likelihood of echoes or resonances. Variable acoustics systems, such as trackable drapes on the side walls will reduce the reverberance of the venue. This will be key for spoken word events where speech clarity is of prime concern, and for amplified music where this will help control loudness and improve sound quality from loudspeakers.
Other uses for this space will include touring opera, theatre, and dance productions, and local community and school activities. The auditorium will host the festivals, and will also be suitable for conferences, lectures, informal talks, and masterclasses. The seating capacity is 270 seats.
Local businesses have been hugely supportive. Land has been earmarked near Bantry Library and the project is currently going through the planning process, says West Cork Music venue development manager Siobhan Burke.
'The potential to create stable facilities where you can make that economic impact count year-round is phenomenal," she said. "One of the great things about West Cork Music is it sits in an absolute sweet spot between the arts, tourism, and rural regeneration. All of these things that we would like to see flourish in rural Ireland are in some way enabled or supported by the different strands of this project.'
Designs for the new centre in Bantry have been created by award-winning Irish architects McCullough Mulvin. Fundraising is continuing, with around €750,000 of a €1m target achieved to get the project through the labyrinthine pre-planning process. A thriving Friends Scheme is helping provide support for ongoing costs, and West Cork Music is exploring the possibility of corporate sponsorship for its festivals.
An design for the interior for the proposed cultural hub and music centre in Bantry, which would be located near Bantry Library.
It is expected to go for planning by the end of this year. If that gets the green light, applications for grant funding can be made. All going to plan, the new hub will be complete in time for the 2029 festival.
'For Francis, it has genuinely always been part of the plan: to create a way for people to access the arts year-round in West Cork,' said Siobhan.
For a man who started a music festival 30 years ago from the kernel of an idea while playing classical music to his milking cows, Francis knows keeping economic realities in play are always key. He's looking to the future - "I've always wanted to put on a world music festival here" - but aware of the importance of the present.
'All of us in the arts, even West Cork Music which is quite a substantial organisation, are stretched to the limit,' he says. "If we break even, we're doing brilliantly. Last year, we more or less broke even. At this stage, it's difficult to know what the final figure for this year will be, with the best part of 20% of box office receipts coming in during the festival. I had a pacemaker fitted last year and I put it down to box office trauma!"
"The Literary Festival will reach its target before it starts and they'll sell another €10,000 or €15,000 worth of tickets during the festival. Masters of Tradition is the same, they will almost certainly reach their target before Martin arrives.
'That's the beauty with three festivals in one organisation, you spread your risk that way.'