Sound, thanks

There’s a new jukebox in town but there’s a twist to it.

It won’t be playing your favourite song or guilty pleasure, but instead listeners will hear some poetry.

The Lord Mayor of Cork Cllr Deirdre Forde recently unveil the commemorative sound installation, called the Poetry Jukebox.

The jukebox is located outside Cork City Library on Grand Parade and contains recordings of 20 poems relating to the complex history of Ireland during the War of Independence and Civil War.

It includes work by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Leanne O'Sullivan, Gabriel Fitzmaurice, Michael D Higgins and more.

Members of the public will be able to listen to any poem at the press of a button and the jukebox will be in place until November 2022.

At the launch, Munster poets Eibhlis Carcione, Gabriel Fitzmaurice, Victoria Kennefick, and Deborah Oniah read their work.

The installation is part of the Poetry as Commemoration project led by the Irish Poetry Reading Archive at UCD Library and supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media under the Decade of Centenaries Programme.

The project, which also includes new poetry commissions and an island-wide series of writing workshops, invites communities to turn to poetry as a way of understanding the challenges of the past and the possibilities of the future.

Project partners include Quotidian - Word on the Street, Poetry Ireland and Arts Council Northern Ireland.