Public to get first look inside the restored Beamish & Crawford Counting House in Cork

Exclusive new pictures give a glimpse of what awaits the public when the STAMP festival throws open the doors of the iconic 1792 building

Vintage and modern side by side in the beautifully restored Beamish & Crawford Counting House on Cork's South Main St. Picture: Janice O’Connell/F.22

Events, a whole series of them, will finally bring life to the iconic Counting House on Cork City’s South Main Street, where the Cork Event Centre remains a pipedream, more than seven years after the sod was turned.

For a weekend in May, the area will be a hive of activity as artists, designers, and craft organisations converge on the former Beamish & Crawford premises as part of the STAMP festival of creativity, designed to showcase how the arts can contribute to the cultural and economic life of the city.

The festival will also showcase the Counting House, to which the public will have access for the first time since the completion in 2021 of a €30m regeneration project.

The mixed-use 150,000 sq ft development which includes 70,000 sq ft of state-of-the-art office space, as well as room for retail, exhibitions, and a riverside restaurant, has remained unoccupied since contractors BAM completed its restoration and expansion.

Vintage and modern side by side in the beautifully restored Beamish & Crawford Counting House on Cork's South Main St. Picture: Janice O’Connell/F.22

BAM is also part of the consortium who won the tender to build the Event Centre, to which the Government has committed €57m in State aid, with operators Live Nation Gaiety and BAM due to invest €35m.

A spokesperson for Cork City Council said detailed design of the centre “is still being undertaken by BAM/Live Nation and is expected to be completed in the second quarter of this year”.

Sample Studios artistic director Aoibhie McCarthy: 'Art can play an important role in the life of a city and STAMP can be a test case to show what can be achieved when we have somewhere to come together.' File picture

While there are no signs of life vis-a-vis the Event Centre, the STAMP festival is set to ignite the exquisitely-restored Counting House and the 7,000 sq ft public plaza that fronts it, as four Cork art, design, and craft organisations team up to celebrate and support local creativity. 

Timber in this stairwell in the restored Beamish & Crawford Counting House was supplied by Tullamore-based Glenn Wood Joinery and the steelwork is by Plant & Engineering Services, Killeens, Co Cork. Picture: Janice O’Connell/F.22

They are Cork Docklands-based Benchspace, an open-access factory/creative incubator for professional makers and creative start-ups; Cork Craft & Design (CCD), which supports and promotes professional and semi-professional craft and design; Shandon Art Studio, run by a group of local artists and Sample-Studios, one of Ireland’s largest artist studios, based in Churchfield.

Sample-Studios artistic director Aoibhie McCarthy said they had reached out to BAM about staging the festival at the Counting House as the building was a triumph of creativity and innovation.

The original brewery board room in the Counting House on South Main Street following restoration works. Picture: Janice O’Connell/F.22

“Last year, STAMP was run across 11 venues and we wanted to find a way of coming together this year to showcase our work in one creative hub through workshops, demonstrations, exhibitions and a market,” Ms McCarthy said.
"The Counting House is a really unique venue that allows us to do that."

The idea of STAMP was to show how creatives are making their stamp on the city, but also to invite Corkonians to make their own stamp, Ms McCarthy said.

Hosting the festival at the Counting House would demonstrate how working out of one space was good for the local economy.

The newly-restored Beamish & Crawford Counting House will be open to the public during the STAMP festival. Picture: Janice O’Connell/F.22

“Art can play an important role in the life of a city and STAMP can be a test case to show what can be achieved when we have somewhere to come together,” Ms McCarthy said.

The STAMP festival promises fun for all the family and includes a market with 27 art and craft stalls, film screenings in the Counting House, and an intriguing site-specific installation by a Cork City-based artist collective, Inter-site, on the first floor of the Counting House.

The newly-restored Beamish & Crawford Counting House will be open to the public during the STAMP festival. Picture: Janice O’Connell/F.22

A mix of video projection, spoken word, installation, and sound, Ms McCarthy said it is designed for the particular space that it’s in, where some restored original Beamish & Crawford brewing equipment is still in place.

“It’s a really evocative space and people are advised to book, as it will not be performed again,” Ms McCarthy said. It is ticketed, but tickets are free.

STAMP runs from May 19-21. It’s supported by Cork City Council, BAM Ireland, the Arts Council of Ireland, and the Creative Ireland programme.

• Visit StampCork.ie for more details.