Bantry edges towards planning approval for new cultural hub
A design for the the proposed cultural hub and music centre in Bantry, which would be located near Bantry Library.
Francis Humphrys, the CEO of West Cork Music (WCM), says the proposed cultural hub and music centre for Bantry would be a fantastic legacy for the town, acknowledging his work and that of other like-minded people in bringing top-class cultural festivals to Bantry.
The hub plans are with the planners, with a site close to Bantry Library earmarked for the building.
“We could have planning permission granted by the time of the West Cork Literary Festival (WCLF),” says Humphrys. “Once planning permission is there, you have something to take to the funders and donors.
"To get this far, with private development money, is a huge achievement. Local businesses are very supportive and have put serious money into it. It will transform Bantry, bringing people to a different part of town. There is an awful lot of blank shop spaces at the moment, so one would hope to see all that filled.”
The idea of the centre having an educational offering is that people would come to it all year round for music lessons. Humphrys cites the MTU Cork School of Music’s “wonderful sound-insulated studios. We’re trying to do something similar, although obviously on a much smaller scale. (A 250-seat auditorium is envisaged.) The centre is designed for music, but it would be for all the performing arts. It would welcome the five-year-old coming for his or her first piano lesson to international artists giving classes.”
While a figure of €20m has been mooted as the price tag of the cultural centre, Humphrys says he doesn’t know what it would cost. “I wouldn’t dare to put a figure on it. I would hope to get most of it from public money. We’ll have to fundraise for the rest of it, and hopefully billionaires will give some of their small change to the project.”
There are nine consultants involved in putting together plans for the centre “with all the hoops that have to be jumped through”. A graduate of Oxford University and the London School of Economics, Humphrys moved to West Cork from the UK in the 1970s to take up farming.
“I got half-way through a PhD before I got sense and upped sticks and moved to Ireland. My stock answer as to why I came here is that I read too much Yeats and romantic Ireland and all that. Back in the 70s, the landscape wasn’t orderly in the way the English countryside is. So I appreciate that. Look at the UK now. Would you prefer to be in England or Ireland? Brexit is complete nonsense.”
In the mid-1990s, Humphrys established the West Cork Chamber Music Festival (WCCMF). It was born of a need for this enterprising man who loves classical music.
“Being down here, you had to travel a long way to get to a concert. In those days, the West Cork roads were even worse than they are now. And being an impoverished mountainy farmer, my vehicle was not exactly designed for comfortable travel. So we thought we’d have the music come here.
"The Vanbrugh Quartet was part of it, as well as Egerton Shelswell-White of Bantry House, who loved the idea of having concerts in the house and master classes. I had no idea what I was doing. We just made it up as we went along and it kept growing. The kick-off funding came from RTÉ.”
At the time, the Vanbrugh Quartet was an RTÉ collective. “It was fabulous for the quartet to have a festival to perform in and someone in West Cork to organise it for them.”
Masters of Tradition was established, making for three festivals in Bantry that are a boon to the local economy. There are 100 events in both the WCLF and the WCCMF.
“Masters of Tradition is a shorter festival with fewer concerts. I think traditional music players get up later in the day!” Humphrys says the literary audience is very different to the chamber music audience.
“They’re younger and not as well-heeled. Their purses are smaller than those of the chamber music people. But we do a huge amount of free events in both festivals. We do two free events in Bantry Library every day of the literary festival and there are other free events. As the man who manages the purse strings at this end, I hate free events. But they bring in people who wouldn’t otherwise come.”
Asked if this graduate of politics, philosophy and economics is ambitious, Humphrys says: “I don’t see the festivals as something for myself. It’s just wonderful to have them. I love music. I’m not a musician myself but I love hearing it and bringing musicians together. Chamber musicians are wonderful people, playing in small groups without a conductor telling them what to do. It’s a wonderful art form,” says Humphrys who has parlayed his passion into much-lauded cultural events for Bantry.
