For 30 years, West Cork Music has carved out spaces for extraordinary artists and wonderful audiences, with the help of neighbours, from Bantry House to Marino Church, and St. Brendan’s to the town’s bookshop. But it has never had a home of its own.
Now, working with award-winning McCullough Mulvin Architects, West Cork Music has applied for planning permission for a landmark 271-seat concert hall and education hub in the heart of Bantry. A permanent purpose-built space for the arts – sitting alongside Bantry’s iconic Library – the multipurpose venue will create a hub for our festivals, and bring world-class performances to West Cork year-round.
For thirty years, West Cork Music has nurtured emerging talent through its festival workshops, concerts for schools, and Young Musicians Programme. But without a permanent home, our efforts have always been constrained.
An accessible Education Hub, connected to the venue, will create purpose-built rehearsal and teaching spaces to support musicians, writers, and performers of all ages and abilities, from grassroots to elite levels. The hub will transform access to opportunities in music, singing, creative writing, and performing arts for communities across West Cork. It will also become a year-round engine for creativity, arts participation, and the well-being those activities bring.
The West Cork Music Capital Endowment Fund has been supported by a generous gift from Armen Vartian, Candice Foss and Eliot Vartian-Foss.
The new venue and education hub are designed from the outset to be fully accessible,with step-free access, a hearing loop, and facilities that provide a welcome – and access to the arts – for all.
Alongside Bantry Library, as part of the town’s emerging cultural quarter with its own café and an attractive public plaza, West Cork Music’s venue and education hub will become a year-round focal point for arts and culture across Bantry and West Cork.
Gifts to the West Cork Music Capital Project now will help us build spaces to support generations of musicians and writers. Your generosity will help us delight audiences from West Cork and across the world.
Stunning local venues – from Bantry House and Whiddy Island to the tip of the Sheep’s Head peninsula – have formed a rich backdrop to immersive and memorable experiences for visitors, musicians, writers, and other creative people. However, local audiences lack opportunities to see great performances outside our festival periods. And our venues were not designed to deliver arts experiences that provide a welcome for all.
A modern, state-of-the art venue, designed to the highest acoustic standards, will enable us to deliver an exceptional festival experience and year-round programming for locals and visitors alike.
We are carefully balancing our need for stability with our commitment to safeguarding what has made our festivals so special to so many people. We will still make use of the wonderful venues that have hosted us so generously for so many years. But our accessible venue, with a world-class acoustic, and our education hub, will form a stable base for a wonderful year-round programme, a hub for creativity in West Cork, and a national beacon of artistic excellence.
Yes – you can opt to dedicate your gift eithrr to the education hub or the arts venue. Or you can give us permission to use your generous donation where it is most needed.
West Cork Music has always understood education as a vital part of its mission. Masterclasses have always been at the heart of our programmes, and, over the years, we have contributed to developing the skills of many young musicians to world-class standards.
But we have not had the facilities to support music education from the grassroots up and develop the potential of musicians here in West Cork. Our venue plans represent an important investment in the future of the arts in rural Ireland, and in local and national talent!
Over the years, we considered over 15 sites in our West Cork coastal heritage town for the arts venue and education hub. Cork County Council kindly assisted us in carrying out an expert-led asssessment of the options. The site we selected is adjacent to Bantry Library in the heart of the town (currently Biggs Catering Supply and car park). Here, West Cork Music’s facilities will put arts at the heart of our community, and help form a new cultural quarter, helping to drive the economic and cultural vibrancy of Bantry town and the wider region.
Award-winning, Dublin-based architects, McCullough Mulvin, beat international competition with a flagship outline design that matched our vision of a world-class venue and music education facility. After careful work with our expert design team to refine the concept, a planning application was lodged in April 2026. A decision is expected in mid-June 2026.
You can make payments to West Cork Music for the Capital Project online via our Donation Form, by cheque, or by bank transfer.
You will find answers to more questions about how donations are made and processed on our donation page.
A legacy gift is a wonderful way for you to invest in the future of the arts in West Cork and Ireland as a whole. It will be hugely appreciated, not just by West Cork Music, but by the learners, musicians, and audiences who enjoy our new facilities in years to come.
Any legacy gifts which are received by West Cork Music after the project’s completion will be invested in sustaining our auditorium and education spaces as vibrant spaces for cultural expression into the future. We will be happy to help in any way we can, but we would also advise you to seek legal advice before making any legacy commitments. To discuss a legacy gift, contact Siobhán Burke, our Venue Development Manager at siobhan@westcorkmusic.ie
You can sign up for our capital project newsletter, to receive regular updates. You are also very welcome to contact Siobhán – our venue development manager – to arrange a meeting, online or in person.
Email: siobhan@westcorkmusic.ie | Phone: +353 (0)86 303 0991 | Book an online meeting.
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Join us, across six glorious weeks each summer, as West Cork Music celebrates the best of chamber music, literature, and traditional Irish music through its world-class festivals at the edge of Europe.
