Irish Examiner View: Bum note to start Jazz weekend

Transport works

The launch of the Cork Jazz Festival at the Maldron Hotel South Mall. Picture: Gerard McCarthy

For many years now the last weekend in October has been heavily underlined on calendars across the land with one event in mind. 

Since it was founded in 1978, the Cork Jazz Festival has held a lease on the imagination of the nation whether one is a committed bebop enthusiast or simply looking for an enjoyable weekend before knuckling down for the winter.

Last year, however, the festival suffered a blow when simply getting to Cork was a good deal more difficult than normal. Signaling works necessitated bus transfers between Mallow and Cork for train passengers, a disincentive to those travelling from the capital. 

To compound the problem, Cork Airport was closed due to work being carried out on the runways, while necessary maintenance in the Jack Lynch tunnel meant extending the closure zone on the N40.

In retrospect, this was disappointing for the Cork business community, for whom ‘the Jazz’ is always a significant date in the calendar. It could be argued that the combination of obstacles and closures was a once-off, an unusual set of circumstances unlikely to be repeated.

(It could also be argued that last October was an argument for more co-ordination between transport bodies in the area).

Now we learn that rail services are to be disrupted this weekend also. For the second year in a row works on the main rail line between Cork and Dublin mean that train passengers will need to transfer to buses at particular stops.

Tonight, there are bus transfers from Mallow to Cork. On Saturday there are bus transfers between Kildare and Thurles on the Dublin-Cork services, while trains going from Cork to Dublin on Sunday will also have bus transfers between Thurles and Kildare.

Upgrading the network is an obvious necessity for safe train transport, but the timing of these works is difficult to understand. It’s one of the busiest weekends of the year as thousands seek to enjoy a bank holiday weekend on Leeside — yet Irish Rail is making travel this weekend far more awkward and less appealing than is necessary. Again.

No doubt there are sound engineering reasons for the work being done at this particular point in time but having disruption two years in a row is enough to discourage people from travelling and to lose the habit of coming to Cork for the weekend.

A bum note on which to start a tuneful weekend.