100 years on, Fitzgerald Park adds to extravagant history

Fitzgerald Park on Cork’s Mardyke is once again open fully to the public in all its floral and artistic glory, flanked by Diarmuid Gavin’s controversial Sky Garden and the restored Fr Mathew Fountain.

It is all part of the Mardyke Gardens project, a €2.3m regeneration of the park that represents the single largest investment in more than a century.

Once described by Worker’s Party councillor Ted Tynan as looking “like the axle of an old tractor”, the futuristic flying pod that won gold at the Chelsea Flower Show in 2011 is set to be a scene stealer. It has been refurbished, painted pink, and installed on elevated stilts to provide a spectacular viewing platform over the River Lee.