A Visit to the Cork Lifelong Learning Festival
In the second week of April, I was honoured to be invited to attend the Cork Lifelong Learning Festival with my wife Margaret (or, in Ireland, Maggie, a name over which the country exercises some ownership). I had met the city’s deputy mayor and Tina Neylon at the launch of the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities in Beijing and was well aware that Cork had a specialness that some other cities lack. The by-line for the Festival was ’Investigate, Participate, Celebrate’ and so, for a whole week, the city heaved with opportunities for its citizens to engage themselves in those 3 challenges. In the previous year, thanks to the eloquence and vision of Peter Kearns, Cork declared itself to be an ECCOWELL city combining economics, sustainability, health and wellbeing and lifelong learning., much in the same way that UNESCO combines those attributes in its embryo global network of learning cities. In this, Cork receives the political support and commitment that cities need in order to move forward. So my own raison d’etre in the week was to investigate, participate, celebrate and perhaps, as one of the architects of the Beijing Declaration, add a wider insight into the UNESCO vision of learning cities so that Cork might take the next step forward.
This we both did with pleasure, though it would have been impossible to attend all the many debates, exhibitions, events, tours and learning sessions outlined in the colourful and attractive Festival booklet. So much was happening to entice the citizen to get involved in lifelong learning, whether it be for a certificate at the city’s learning establishments or for the sheer pleasure of learning something new, formally or non-formally. There were sessions, on family health, cookery, photography, digital media, languages, dance, singing, sustainability, parenting, history, travel – and a cornucopia of other topics to salivate the mind. The preparations alone must have cost the festival committee many hours of persuading, supporting, convincing, prevailing upon, inveigling, wheedling, coaxing and finding venues..
In the event Maggie and I spent the first evening in impromptu singing, responding to an invitation to the plea for anyone who had a voice. (We both warble enthusiastically in our village choir in the South of France – in Catalan.) The theme song ‘Happy’ seemed to encapsulate the whole essence of the week.
After that we went our separate ways, so much was there to do and see. I attended, as scheduled, an ECCOWELL open networking session. This was principally to deliver the UNESCO Learning City Network message, though in these sessions there is an element of competition in that various speakers offer a 2 minute resume of what they wish to discuss and it is then up to members of the audience to choose which subsequent session they want to attend. Happily, enough people were interested in the UNESCO project to stimulate a lively and fruitful debate. The next challenge, in another session in the afternoon, was to convince the politicians to see the UNESCO project as a way forward for the city. Although sparsely attended by councillors from both city and county, those who did come were uniformly positive. However, council elections loom ominously in May and there is no certainty that such harmonious positivity will survive them. Of such uncertainties is our democracy made.
After that our time was our own, We toured the impressive university, listened to the difficulties of community workers in modern day Ireland, and attended a pub evening called ‘scribes’ in which poets and authors from North and South read extracts from their work (not the type of event likely to be detected in British public houses). We found time to drive 10 miles up the road to see Blarney castle, an impressive sight. Here I kissed the Blarney Stone, not realizing at the time that it is situated in the old castle latrine - this piece is the result.
The whole impression is of a vibrant, happy, and informative celebration in a city that wants to go places and to create a viable future for itself. Like so many Cork citizens, we investigated, participated and celebrated. Congratulations to the festival organizer, Tina Neylon, on making such a successful week happen and to those others on the organizing committee, who provided expertise, encouragement and funding for an event that may, should, help define the city’s tomorrow.