<\/p>\n
West Cork Music has submitted a planning application for a new venue and education hub in\u00a0Bantry.<\/span><\/p>\n West Cork Music currently runs three festivals in the town \u2013 West Cork Chamber Music Festival, West Cork Literary Festival and Masters of Tradition \u2013 and the new building would provide concerts, lessons, workshops and masterclasses across disciplines for musicians, writers and performers of all ages and abilities. It has been designed by McCullough Mulvin Architects of\u00a0Dublin.<\/span><\/p>\n The building would be located on Bridge Street in Bantry, adjacent to Bantry Library, on the site currently occupied by Biggs\u2019\u00a0Wholesalers.<\/span><\/p>\n The proposed concert hall and education hub will have a total area of 1,970 sq m, comprising a 250-seat auditorium and dedicated education and rehearsal spaces, along with a caf\u00e9 and public\u00a0plaza.<\/span><\/p>\n West Cork Music says it has already raised almost \u20ac1m towards the construction of the\u00a0venue.<\/span><\/p>\n Commenting on the application, Francis Humphrys, founder, CEO<\/span> and artistic director of West Cork Music,\u00a0said:<\/span><\/p>\n West Cork is an extraordinarily creative region, but it has been under-served in terms of permanent arts infrastructure. Our venue and education hub \u2013 thirty years in the making \u2013 will bring world-class performances to West Cork year round, develop local talent, and make Bantry an even better place to live and visit. We are hugely grateful to everyone who has helped us reach this\u00a0point.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n A decision on the plans is expected from Cork County Council on 11\u00a0June.<\/span><\/p>\n A recent study of the economic impact of the festivals, carried out by Professor Eleanor Doyle of Cork University Business School at UCC<\/span>, found that the events generated \u20ac7.67 million for Bantry local economy last year. According to the study, 15,888 tickets were sold and more than 5,570 people attended. It found that 17% of visitors were from overseas and 53% were from outside the Bantry region.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Exterior of the West Cork Music building. (Image: McCullough Mulvin\u00a0Architects)<\/em><\/p>\n The upcoming West Cork Chamber Music Festival takes place from 26 June to 5 July and features Calidore Quartet, Attacca Quartet, NOVO<\/span> Quartet, Sonoro Quartet, Diana Tischenko, Mair\u00e9ad Hickey, Gerard Spronk, Mona Verhas, Lotte Betts-Dean and more. The West Cork Literary Festival follows from 10 to 17 July and Masters of Tradition takes place from 19 to 23\u00a0August.<\/span><\/p>\n For further details, visit www.westcorkmusic.ie<\/a> and www.bantrymusiccentre.ie<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source journalofmusic.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" West Cork Music has submitted a planning application for a new venue and education hub in\u00a0Bantry. West Cork Music currently runs three festivals in the town \u2013 West Cork Chamber Music Festival, West Cork Literary Festival and Masters of Tradition \u2013 and the new building would provide concerts, lessons, workshops and masterclasses across disciplines for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2403260,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2403259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/West-Cork-Music-Submits-Planning-Application-for-New-Venue-and.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2403259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2403259"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2403259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2403262,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2403259\/revisions\/2403262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2403260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2403259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2403259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2403259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n