Youghal to open artists’ quarter

Plans to establish an arts quarter in Youghal have taken a step forward.

The east Cork seaside town has been boosted by the reopening of a pottery and the installation of a craft and design centre.

Jack O’Patsy Pottery, which closed in 2012, is to share a premises in Friar St with eight other craft and design practitioners.

The building was originally a 600-seat cinema opened in 1917 by the Horgan Brothers and closed in the 1980s.

Jack O’Patsy proprietor Pat Collins purchased the property in 1995. The pottery twice closed since then, but Mr Collins believes signs of economic recovery and “goodwill towards locally-made products” merits re-opening.

Once thriving with shops, bars, and two cinemas, Friar St and adjoining South Main St are now decimated with vacant and derelict properties.

Last November, Youghal Chamber of Tourism and Development proposed reinstating the area as an arts quarter and urged property owners and interested parties to discuss the options.

Mr Collins, from Dunmanway, Co Cork, is the first owner to commit to the venture. The two-storey building has 570 sq m, of which 60% is developed. The ground floor will house pottery manufacture and retail space and a small café.

The centre will be officially opened on Friday at 7.30pm.

The shop will sell Mr Collins’s Badger Hill and Mountain View labels.

Upstairs, eight artists will each lease open-plan space on yearly contracts for “a modest fee” to create, exhibit, or sell their products ranging from painting and photography to web design and graphics.

Textile designer Sam Garvey described the community-based initiative as “fantastic” and says it will enable the group to bring their work “directly to a totally new audience, including the tourist market”.

See www.youghalcraftanddesign.com and Facebook.

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