Cork Community Pride Is Rearing To Go This Summer Here's How To Get Involved!

The Opinion Line on Corks 19/6 FM There will be a lot of joy this year in 20/26. It's a milestone year for pride on the Leesite community pride is organized by this passionate collective of volunteers from across the city and county united by this shared commitment to equality and inclusivity and a lot of stuff planned and need Kennedy from Corks 19/6 pride joins me and also to Dros Boo Boo Upsi, the famous drag queen. Good to have you both on the show. Good morning. Hi, how are you? Great all together. Tell me about this year's festival guys. So this year we have our pride parade happening on August 2nd and we have a pride family picnic happening on August 1st and both are just totally orientated on the Cork community promoting local Cork talent as well with the ad from the entertainment we're going to have and we're also going to have as vibrant of a parade as we possibly can with local community groups marketing and performers at all of the volunteers who are involved with Corks and the pride. Move yourself like it's lovely to see people stepping up and last year's one that was great celebration and lots of families though just just enjoy in the day. Yeah well I think with the community pride as well like the family and the community groups are the vital path of the entire weekend. Yeah why are they so important? Well I suppose it's just it's bringing people together from all facets not just LGBT people but all the entire LGBTQ close community getting to show their talent at all of their connections with all of Cork and for everybody just to come in and celebrate all the positive social movements we've had in the last few years. We're over 10 years on from our quality now and decades on from the legalisation of homosexual leaner and other forms of social. But that's why it's important to celebrate but also motivate us to keep going forward. Yeah I think everybody knows somebody now who's remember of the LGBTQ+ community everybody does and I think that's brilliant. Oh yeah we're everywhere. I can really see it with Cork community pride as well we have so many volunteers we're really really lucky. Yes Boo Boo you were saying that there and like it's it's it's also just a vibrant path of the cost that is Cork and the melting path of it to get people from all different backgrounds. Yes and they make for a big wide diverse audience as well. Absolutely I'm like diversity and inclusion and just having a community run event is fantastic to have you know. Like what can in the run-up to the weekend what what will it's I know it's a bit away now but everything else it'll be upon us before we know it's you have this the event across the weekend but in the in the build-up what will we see? Well actually if I don't know Boo Boo do you want to take this you have a fundraiser coming up with us? Yeah 30th of the day. Yeah on the 30th of April we're doing a quiz in the Liberty and it's it's going to be a nice little kind of community run event where we're fundraising for this is a ultimately a community led event so the funding is coming directly from the community and other like done profits as well so like it's all about kind of coming together and building this because this is a brand new project to know for a lot of the volunteers that just accredited them as well because I get to do the talky talky bit of others are answering the questions you know so it's nice to actually see the amount of work being put in and the committees have been fed up and the meetings it's just great to see the ownership of our weekend just be so prominent it's so great to see. Yeah when you put out the call for volunteers Nive there was a fantastic response. Massive massive response from all facets of the community all age group like really diverse and the full spectrum of the as the as the best LGBT community you know what I mean so we have a very diverse range of people feeding into the events we're doing like and obviously yeah we have the table please coming off in the Liberty on April 30th there's still tickets available for that by the way if anybody wants to come along and like the people were saying that we're complete volunteer led all of the work that we get goes into the event sharing our acts on the day of the parade and the fact and any other costs that we through because it's unfortunately not cheap to run these big events but it's worth it. We also have another event coming up on Wednesday 6th of May which is kind of like a community second we're going to be updating people the first community parish about like what activities we've been up to I'll hopefully run through around. Move a bit closer there Nive you're breaking up a little bit on me. Start again there about the 6th of May because that's important. Apologies now 6th of May in the South Hall community parish we will be having an update on what we've been doing so far and also having a bit of a raffle to raise some money for our activities. Okay the parade what's the root of the parade where will it start and where will it finish? I'm not privy to the planning side of things I'm just going to be the fabulous host of the parade. You're going to concentrate on being fabulous. That's all you got to do just do. I do like yourself to talky talky based and leave the others. I leave the fabulous to you as well because I'm not too sure about how I do fabulous but Nive the parade where does it start and where does it finish? So it's going to be starting on ground parade and then finishing on ground parade we're doing a circular ruse because we really want to promote accessibility this year so that if nobody feels like they're meeting out on the end of the parade or like when we finish everybody starts to stay in place, goes back to the same place and we will also have a kind of a short cut ruse as well if people don't want to do the full round. Is there music? There will definitely be so much payment. You're still working up with net together. There's so many fabulous performers in the queer community in court that's not going to be a difficult thing to do. Good. We have so many talented humans here. Good. If something coming up in the Pav as well don't you? Yes, yes and we'll be announcing that we have an event in May in the Pav. We'll be announcing that on our website which is for community pride.ie and also on our Instagram which is #CoreCommunityPride and our Facebook which is the same. Okay, go on, give me a taste of it. Go on, see you there. Like, if I had the day off the top of my head I would but I know it's towards the end of May now. My, the other volunteers are going to kill me now and they're listening to this. But we can get the date, we can start the date out but first we organize it. So again? We can, we can, we can start out the date. Someone will, someone will let us know the proper date. What's the plan that they have? We're going to have great local court performers and DJs up on the stage and just a great night of music and dancing and entertainment. Again, it's a fun grazer for the, for the festival. Exactly. If anybody wants to organize something for you like coffee morning or quizzes or anything like that, can they do that? Absolutely and we'd really, really appreciate it at this point. Obviously we only formed as a group in March 2026. So you know, all the help we can get is so appreciated. We actually are having a coffee morning in coming up in Link on White Street this Saturday on the 25th and anybody as welcome to that as well. But if anybody wants to organize anything, they can contact [email protected] or they can just DM the Instagram. To be fair, like it was, it was down to your group, Neve, getting together last year and we know with, with the possibility that there wouldn't be a pride last year. you got together and said no, we're not, that's not how we are going to have something. You got together and you volunteered the hell out of us. Exactly. Well, we had to, it would have been devastating to see the streets empty on the August Bank holiday weekend when we've all been used to such vibrance and with each other every single year. You know, we had to bounce back from it. Yeah. So what's the unity in community is the theme. And expand on that from the last lady, unity in community. Why is that so important? Well, it's, it's important that we all come together with a shared goal that even, even though there can be discrepancy in the community and everything that we still come together and realize that the support is meant to work together towards the goal of just liberation for all, you know, and I suppose we haven't actually decided on the theme yet, but that's just a part of our ethos, unity in community. Okay. But with our team for the parade and our Grand Marshal, very soon on our stage yet. Oh, so the Grand Marshal hasn't yet been announced. We're working on this. We're working. Sorry. Well, you can let us, let us know, let us know who's going to be and when you're announcing it. Thank you, Nev Kennedy from Clark, Munisie Pride and Boo Boo, see drag Queen Boo, who's just going to do that fabulous. Isn't that all you're going to do? I'm going to be the most fabulous person there on that quiz. And whoever the winner is might take the crown, but it's mine until they win. I love your, I love your sense of optimism. Thanks, Boo Boo, Boo Boo, see and Nev Kennedy of Clark, community pride. It's in August. I'm way away, but be upon us before you know it.