Thomil's Random Ramblings

It’s weird how things turn out sometimes. A few months ago, I wrote a blog post about the state of public libraries here in Cork , Ireland’s second city. Whilst this state wasn’t necessarily bad per se, it was clear that some of the libraries are very much sub-par for a city of nearly a quarter of a million people. In the closing paragraph of that post, I briefly touched on the plans to create a brand new state-of-the-art library in the city centre of Cork to replace the old 1970s era library, although I also lamented on these plans progressing at the sub-glacial speeds typical for public projects in Cork. Seriously, I’ve seen tectonic plates move faster than some of Cork City Council’s processes! Well, it seems that the council has finally figured out how to release the handbrake! On Monday, May 11th, 2026, Cork City Council announced that they’d acquired the Counting House, an office building that forms part of the redevelopment of the old Beamish & Crawford brewery site, situat...