Letters to the Editor: Cork cinema revamp is welcome
The Gate Cinema on North Main St in Cork will reopen in November as part of the Arc group after refurbishment. File picture: Eddie O'Hare
The news that the Arc Cinema group is taking over the Gate Cinema in Cork city centre is a very exciting development for the Southwest (Cork’s Gate cinema to shut for ‘major refurbishment’ for several months, Saturday, August 12).
Having last been to the iconic Gate in May, the inside (not to mention the bland outside) looked a little bit worse for wear and the planned refurbishment will work wonders for North Main St.
The Arc Cinema group, as your correspondent says, has three cinemas in Ireland: Drogheda, Navan, and Wexford.
It also has taken over the Empire seven-screen cinema in Ennis. Plus, it is one of the few operators investing in cinemas in the UK where it currently has five locations including two brand-new builds in Beeston and Daventry in the East Midlands area of England.
Its signage is very colourful and unique, and I can vouch for its customer experience and comfy recliner seating having been in all three of its Irish cinemas which are in prime locations in the centre of busy shopping areas.
SUSTAINABILITY & CLIMATE
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“For the love of film” is the Arc Cinema group’s tag line and I for one very much look forward to seeing what they will do for Cork when the upgrade is completed in November.
My son’s estimated driving test keeps moving from August to September and now to October.
He completed his lessons over 18 months ago. He will need to do new lessons when he actually gets a test date, to refresh his driving skills. This adds to the cost for young drivers.
Driving is essential to young people to have any level of independence in their lives as they cannot afford to move out from home.
The Department of Transport needs to fund more instructors to improve waiting times. Our young adults need to be allowed an independent life.
Last Sunday morning’s papers were brimming with pages devoted to the start-up of the Premier League, a competition substantially bankrolled by “absentee” billionaires, many with a “sports-washing” agenda.
That evening just after 5.30pm, Des Cahill, RTÉ Radio sport, “signed off” from Croke Park for the last time in 2023, the rising decibels of his voice betraying a degree of bafflement that the intercounty GAA season was finished.
A season underpinned by the commitment and excellence of amateur players and hereditary community support and identity.
It’s going to be a terrible long winter, with many more to follow unless the GAA wakes up from its slumber of denial.
Before the Dubs and the rest get too carried away with them winning the men’s and ladies football finals in Croke Park, maybe they should reflect on why, with the preponderance of clubs, facilities, and players in their reach, and all the other advantages, they have not actually won more than they have to date.
While they are doing that, I shall be studying the winners roll of honour for the hurling and camogie championships.
I so fondly recall childhood trips by train to the beautiful beaches of Youghal. Would it be so difficult, as part of our newfound green agenda, to restore the service from Cork to Youghal by extending the line that extra 30km from Middleton ?
To help the bees during the summer months there are fewer flowers and other food sources for the bees. Water is also scarce and so many bees drown as they try to drink from the pools. Grate an apple and add some water to a bowl. The bees will be able to get the sugars from the fruit and drink the water and not drown as they can stand on the pieces of fruit.
Our bee populations are threatened, let’s give them all the support we can.
John Fair, Castlebar, Co Mayo
John Gibbons’s advice to farmers to “consider going organic” is all very well, but the transition to sustainable farming has to take into account the welfare of our rural communities.
In Europe — and Ireland is no exception — rural communities have high levels of deprivation, increased risks of chronic disease, poor mental health, and higher suicide rates. The current system of agriculture is broken. It does not benefit the farming community — it simply enriches an agribusiness elite. Nor does it benefit Irish people: 80% of our vegetables and fruit are imported, and so are vulnerable to disruption by climate-related events and, of course, by war.
Irish agriculture needs to be radically changed so that it will raise living standards in rural Ireland and end social disadvantage, so that it will reverse the 80:20 dependence on imports and, of course, turn the lands of Ireland from a net polluter to a green lung.
More than just going organic, then.
The good people of Hillsborough County Public School, Florida, have lost the plot, or at least censored the plot with only fragments of Shakespeare’s plays being studied.
The updated quote could be “to read or not to read, that is the question” although that has been decided in this case so that students read a wide variety of books. Surely this should include books that have been considered amongst the best for over 400 years.
The other concern expressed was that the stories might contain pornography and yes, Shakespeare does have some colourful sections, but so does the internet.
Truly this is a case of “the lady doth protest too much” and more sensible approaches, even the ludicrous trigger warnings could be considered. Let’s hope that the policy is reviewed and “all’s well that ends well”.
