Well Red

When the sun is shining like it is today you couldn’t come across a nicer place in the world than Cork. I’ve just come back from the English Market – what an amazing place! The original building goes back to 1786. There was a fire there in the 1980s and it was gutted, but they restored it back to its former glory. Apparently it’s called the English market because the Irish natives weren’t allowed in there in the early days.

It’s an amazing market and very cosmopolitan, yet still has a strong Cork feel. I saw a French guy queuing at a cheese stall and an old woman queuing up to buy tripe. So you have the old and the new side-by-side. That’s another great thing about Cork – we’ve embraced the multi-cultural and yet still maintain that distinctive Leeside identity.
The food in Cork is unbelievable. My favourite thing to do is to shop at the Alternative Bread Company, get some olives and go off and have a picnic somewhere.
Probably the best thing about Cork, compared to Dublin, is that it’s not so small that you feel claustrophobic but not so big that you don’t meet anyone when you walk around. And Kinsale’s just half an hour from the city centre. For me, Kinsale is the Irish Riviera with great sailing, fantastic restaurants and lively pubs (one of the good things about the smoking ban is that all the pubs have chairs outside now).
I think Cork people are genuinely proud of Cork, much more so than people in Dublin who tend to slag off their home city.
Music has always been a strong point with Cork, going back to bands like Microdisney and the Frank and Walters. One of the great things about Cork right now is that there is such an unbelievable amount of talent around, with so many great bands – like Joedavino and Fred. At the moment we have Fred’s single on high rotation at Red FM. At first I wasn’t sure how radio-friendly they’d be, but once I heard it I was knocked out. It’s almost like something Mica or Scissors Sisters might do.
And then there’s the Jazz Festival every October, which makes jazz accessible to everyone with all the pubs putting on live music. There are always music festivals going on around Cork – the Mitchelstown Festival, Bandon Festival, Cork Mid-summer Festival and, of course, the Live at the Marquee festival – which has a fantastic line-up this year
One of the brilliant things about living here, from my point of view, is that we don’t have the major traffic problems Dublin has. I live in Rochestown and it takes me on average no more than 15 minutes to get to work. Even during the worst rush-hour traffic jams, the most it would take would be 30 minutes. The fact is that most places are within easy reach of the city centre.
My parents are from Cork and I’ve been living here for the last seven years, so I suppose I’m an honorary citizen. I know the place really well as I would have spent every year down here during the summer when I was younger. Either way, at this stage it feels much more like home to me than Dublin.