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LAST UPDATE | 9 Apr 2024
IF I WAS the vindictive sort, I might respond to Dublin City Council Chief Executive Richard Shakespeare’s comment that Dublin’s reopened Victorian fruit and vegetable market would be far better than Cork’s English Market by saying: well, at least Cork city centre has a long-running covered market.
I might point out that there’s a second covered market in the capital city lying derelict, and so why try to one-up Cork at all? I mean, wouldn’t you be a bit mortified knowing that there are two potential covered markets in Dublin with only pigeons making their home there?
But I won’t, mainly because I think Shakespeare was trying to be positive, and to show us that the English Market is something to not just aim for, but shoot beyond. So to help him and Dublin City Council (DCC) make the most of this opportunity, here’s a Dublin-dwelling Corkonian’s take on what the English Market can teach the capital.
The English Market opened because it was needed. Markets were, of course, the main way to buy and sell produce in the late 18th century. But a bit of forward thinking (inspired by Britain’s approach) showed that a covered market serving the city would make sense, and gradually what we know as the English Market today started to take shape.
Dublin does need a new covered food market, not least because it’s a crying shame to leave the Victorian fruit and veg market, and the Iveagh Markets, lie empty. However, for a good market to stand the test of time, it has to be supported.
Since its opening in 1788, the English Market has weathered many difficult situations — and by ‘difficult’, I mean literal wars, the Famine, recessions, and fires. It’s seen a lot of history take place around it. But we can’t forget that the market wasn’t always held in such high esteem.
In the 1980s, it survived being knocked and replaced by a multi-storey car park and shopping complex — a familiar scenario for anyone who’s been keeping an eye on plans for Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre.
Then came the nineties and a renewed interest in Irish produce and places to buy it. Today, with cities awash with brand names and retail giants, it’s unthinkable that a treasure like the English Market would ever have been at risk.
Dublin can learn from this near-miss. But it can also learn that it’s important not to have short-term thinking — to realise that investing in a market is a long-term game.
Another lesson is that it’s not enough to open a covered food market — you need to have quality control inside.
The English Market businesses are often family owned. Inside, you can find traders selling meat, chicken, fish, vegan produce, vegetables, spices, organic produce, cheese, cakes, bread, sushi, juices and more, all from local and international suppliers. And if you’re an old-school sort, you can even buy Cork’s famous tripe or drisheen for dinner too.
What adds to its appeal are places like the Sandwich Stall. Tucked behind the Real Olive Company stall (which sells incredible halloumi and hummus) it opened due to customer demand and serves up hearty, well-priced lunches.
Meanwhile, the Farmgate Café upstairs in the market is a stalwart part of the Cork café scene, and downstairs there are coffee stalls where you’ll find people nattering. The heartbreaking poem MND by Mary Noonan sums up the personal connection to the stalls at the English market. It’s more than just a place to buy things. It’s part of the community.
Anyone who remembers the markets at Dublin’s Newmarket Square (before they were evicted in 2017 to make way for new plans which still haven’t fully come to fruition) will remember the lovely atmosphere there at weekends. You’d head there knowing you’d bump into pals, and leave with a bag of Irish-grown veg or vintage bric-a-brac, feeling good knowing where your money went.
A market isn’t just a fun place for tourists to tick off their ‘must-see’ list. It’s a place for locals and tourists alike to find delicious produce, meet friends for coffee, buy lunch or provisions for dinner, and soak up some atmosphere.
The Victorian market could be a place to attract city visitors, but it could also be a place to give small business owners a chance. Cork Rooftop Farm is one of the newest additions to the English Market, and there’s even one unit in the market reserved for start-ups. These two things show how the English Market is always open to evolving, good news for locals and tourists alike.
Corkonians are fiercely proud of the English Market. We know it’s special.
Businesses can become more than just places to spend money when they’re given the chance to build a solid relationship with their customers. And shoppers will put their money towards local businesses when it’s easy to access them and their prices are affordable because of fair rents and rates.
A bit of pride helps everyone imagine a better future, and helps businesses and customers invest in each other. Fear that closure is around the corner helps no one. When the Victorian fruit and vegetable market is reopened, there has to be pride from DCC in it and its longterm prospects.
The Victorian market won’t open its doors until at least 2026 in Dublin, so we can hope DCC is soaking up all it can about how to make it a long-lasting and special place.
I’m crossing my fingers that it will only take two years for it to open — and if it takes a few leaves out of the English Market’s book, it could be here for centuries to come.
Aoife Barry is a writer and journalist.
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Ukrainian nightmare candidate. Another oligarch. Not what the people of Ukraine want or deserve.
She got the rough end of the stick by the deposed gangster, but that doesn’t mean she can run a country. Especially one that is on the edge now.
Oligarch yes! But I would, would you?
Recently been quoted as saying “going to kill all Russians”.
If her legacy as prime minister is anything to go by (ie. IMF bail-out due to governmental incompetence and corruption) she would make a dreadful president.
Heard a recording of a phone conversation she had recently where she said she would go nuclear on 8 million ethnic Russians living in the east and annihilate them. Lovely woman..
Yeah but the Americans and EU love her, not that there’s anything new about the USA supporting tyrants
The EU and the USA don’t love her as they know she’s divisive and inflammatory.
Apologies for introducing a fact into a discussion about Ukraine!
I get the point but how could she go nuclear. Ukraine gave up the bomb
They gave up their weapons but they still have the capacity to make them again, simple.
What was the point of the protests that toppled Yanukovych if he’s just going to be replaced by yet another corrupt oligarch?
She has to be elected first.
Interesting that you think she would be elected. I personally don’t think so. Someone pro European yes but it won’t be her
She does look good, but she is one evil heartless cow.
She is on record saying that if she ever became president of Ukraine, she would wipe out all Russian-Ukraians.
She wants to ban the Russian language and i am not sure what her plans are for ‘the wipeout’ entail.
Really, she is a lovely lady ….
Article headline: In latest wiretapping leak, Yulia Tymoshenko appears to say ‘nuclear weapons’ should be used to kill Russians
Cal she’s only with you for the money!
Cal Mooney
Tymoshenko is one of the group of NATO/EU/US supporters who said they would gladly break ever treaty with Russia. And I thought the so-called democracy parties wanted law and treaties respected. It seems only some laws and treaties, namely those that bring the IMF/EU and US into her country. She is a Quisling and we have our share in this country.
CMac, if the Russians won’t respect their treaties with the Ukraine then why should they bother honouring anything the Russians signed?
Jason Culligan
Russia reacted to the crisis created by Kiev. Only then did it react. The US is active in destabilizing the democratically elected leader, as it has in so many places around the world.
The US regime change is all about subverting law and order so their candidates can be imposed with the covert aid and assistance of the US and its allies like Europe who give a veneer of respectability to the proceedings.
I don’t see Russia subverting regimes like the US and Europe. Russia since 1001 has done what the West demanded and it has got it nowhere. Putin as a man and Russian rights should not be confused.
For “1001″ read “1991″.
“Russia reacted to the crisis created by Kiev. Only then did it react.”
And who gave them that right? The Ukraine is a sovereign state, Russia has no place to get involved in internal political disputes.
“The US is active in destabilizing the democratically elected leader, as it has in so many places around the world.”
Proof?
“Russia since 1001 has done what the West demanded and it has got it nowhere.”
So i’m guessing how Russia has behaved towards Moldova, Georgia and Chechnya and now the Ukraine has just not happened at all in your eyes?
Jason,
when upi have Coup leaders talking about exterminating Ukranian Russians, i don’t think the Russians had any choice but to go in and deal with the crises … God knows the US/EU couldn’t give a damn about the citiznes of Ukraine, they just want to pillage the country’s resources
Russia has done what it wanted in this region since the days of Catherine the Great
The Americans have financed “color revolutions” in Georgia and Ukraine and hope to do so in the Russian Federation itself. The Americans support the terrorists in Chechnya. The Americans trained and equipped the Georgian military and gave it the green light to attack Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia. The Americans have financed the overthrow of the elected government in Ukraine and blame Russia for the anxiety this caused among Crimeans who on their own volition fled Ukraine and returned to Russia from whence they came. Even Gorbachev said that Khrushchev should never have put Crimea into Ukraine. Solzhenitsyn said that Lenin should not have put Russian provinces into eastern and southern Ukraine.
American media elites awash in an orgy of feel-good condemnation in particular love to mock Russian media, especially the government-funded English-language outlet RT, as being a source of shameless pro-Putin propaganda, where free expression is strictly barred (in contrast to the Free American Media). That that network has a strong pro-Russian bias is unquestionably true. But one of its leading hosts, Abby Martin, remarkably demonstrated last night what “journalistic independence” means by ending her Breaking the Set program with a clear and unapologetic denunciation of the Russian action in Ukraine.
For all the self-celebrating American journalists and political commentators: was there even a single US television host who said anything comparable to this in the lead-up to, or the early stages of, the US invasion of Iraq?
Source: http://zcomm.org/znetarticle/rt-host-abby-martin-condemns-russian-incursion-into-crimea-on-rt/
Link to info
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles5/DVNS_Iraq-WMD-Lies.htm
List of major print media outlets during the timeframe requested
Transcript of Newsnight interview Jeremy Paxman interviews Blair . Not an opinion piece a la RT , but a politician being grilled on the legitimacy of the Iraq war.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/2732979.stmI admire Abbey Martin would that interview Putin in the same manner .
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/2732979.stm
Meanwhile
On the eve of the Olympics, Mr Kiselev’s masters launched a campaign against Dozhd, a private cable and internet TV channel. The brainchild of Natalia Sindeeva, a 42-year-old media entrepreneur, it is financed by her husband, Alexander Vinokurov. “I wanted to create a channel for people like us,” says Ms Sindeeva. Its young journalists rejected everything Mr Kiselev stands for. It came on air in 2010, during the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev (now prime minister), who endorsed it by his own appearances. Marginal in size, it captured the spirit of the young, creative Moscow types who protested against the Kremlin in December 2011. But its reach grew fast to 18m homes, including many outside Moscow.
Recently Kremlin propagandists have unleashed a hate-campaign against Dozhd. Cable-TV operators have been instructed to drop it from their packages, depriving the channel of advertising revenues. The trigger for the crackdown was probably Dozhd’s reports of a luxury country estate belonging to Vyacheslav Volodin, deputy head of the Kremlin administration, as well as of protests in Ukraine. But, as Ms Sindeeva says, what irritated the Kremlin most was Dozhd’s independence.
To conclude above
Although the state formally controls only two main broadcasters, many private ones come directly or indirectly under a media empire of Yury Kovalchuk, a friend of Mr Putin. Besides National Media Group, which has stakes in three TV channels, including 25% of Channel One, Mr Kovalchuk also has a large indirect stake in Gazprom Media, Russia’s largest media group, which owns five television channels, several radio stations and a publishing company. Gazprom Media’s structure is complex: it is 100%-owned by Gazprom bank, almost half of which belongs to Gazprom’s pension fund. Most of this is managed by a firm linked to Mr Kovalchuk.
RT should fire Abbey Martin. Her show is cheesy and she is a liberal liability. She does not fit in with the other high standard shows like crosstalk and worlds apart.
@ Cmac well said !
Western puppet
She doesn’t look 53.she’d have my vote
So you wouldn’t vote for Lucinda Creighton then!
She’s 34 going on 57.
This woman is corrupt and part of the problem in Ukraine not part of the solution
If Lucinda looked like that yeah id vote for her
I’d give her one..
On the the voting card
will she even get the chance before russian invade on way to moldovia. Big statement from russians coming they see signs in belarus so they will try to crush it all very soon. Is europe and states willing to go to war if they attack them?? no but if they move to romanias doorstep we will see sparks fly
What a load of crap … Russia has zero intentions of touching Belarus.
Tom you sound like Jim Corr!
I agree tom. Belarus is in the sphere of influence with a dictator propped up by Russia. They risk losing Belarus to Europe if they don’t attack Ukraine.
Russia will invade eastern Ukraine they will land in Moldova. Unless strong messages are sent that way. Hurt their economy the only thing keeping Vlad in power.
Also of Ukraine requests military hardware then it should and will be supplied. Russians still have nightmares about Afghanistan. Make sure they get reminded. They don’t have the ability to fight insurgents
eye_c_u …
You are advocating terrorism … i will remind you of that on other threads.
Cal. Would you have called the resistance groups across Nazi occupied Europe and the former Soviet Union and those that were under Japanese control Terrorists?
Btw Cal when you said “Russia has zero intentions of touching Belarus” I noticed you never mentioned Moldova. Was that just a slip on your part?
So you are saying a Russian invasion would be a good thing?
Nice from afar….
She has a head like a bag of hammers
As expected. Not good for Ukraine
“Washington’s intervention in Ukraine has unleashed dark forces. Yulia Tymoshenko, the criminal Ukrainian oligarch, who braids her hair or hair piece over her head like a crown, was released from prison by Washington’s stooges and has not stopped putting her foot, or both feet, in her mouth.
Her latest in her intercepted and leaked telephone conversation is her declaration that “it’s about time we grab our guns and go kill those damn Russians together with their leader.” She declared that not even scorched earth should be left where Russia stands. ”
Source: http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/26/how-much-war-does-washington-want/
“Tymoshenko was sentenced to prison by Ukrainians, not by Russians.
Contrast her extreme language and Russophobia with the calm measured tones of Putin, who reaffirms Russia’s interest to continue good relations with Ukraine.”
Source: http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/26/how-much-war-does-washington-want/
“calm measured tones of Putin, who reaffirms Russia’s interest to continue good relations with Ukraine.”
You forgot to add the part about invading a sovereign nation and annexing part of it while making it illegal for anyone in Russia to criticise said annexation.
The Finna Gael of Ukraine takes over from Fianna Fail. A lesson from the film “a fist full of dynamite” about poor people dying for revolutions: http://youtu.be/9ebftIo_qu4
If she was voted in she would have the Ukraine engulfed in war.
What Ukraine needs is NEW leadership, not what has failed before
cmac59go out once in a while and get a life you spend your life waffling on the journal.go for a pint and mix with people.
She’s gonna win it, 13 out of every 10 ukranians will vote for her..
Ha! Not if the Eurasian Komitee for demokratik reform have anything to do with it :-)
Not sure there will be an election for her to win given the intelligence coming out of this region over the last 24 hours. An invasion by Russia seems imminent with estimated troops between 35-80 thousand.
Can ye link to that please?
As the piece above stated she only commands 8.3% of the vote. Where as Petro Poroshenko is so far the clear favorite with nearly 25%. So I wouldn’t be getting to over excited about her winning anything.
have your say