Mick Hannigan, Cork Film Festival and Kino Cinema

"To my mind this extends beyond the arts community. It shouldn't be just an opportunity for spectacles, it should be an opportunity for the city to reinvent itself.

"Culture is much wider than just the arts, and it'd be a regret if all the funding went to arts organisations. It's crucial that the wider community is accessed; it's a question of civil rights. I really think this has the potential to be an exercise in democracy.

"It should be seen as a chance to re-evaluate the concept of being citizens in a 21st century city. We have an opportunity over the next few years to have hugely important debates about the future of Cork."

Beth Gali, Catalan architect behind the redesign of Patrick Street and the Grand Parade

"It's wonderful for the city to have a focus like this. It is similar to when we won the Olympics for Barcelona, it gave a great impetus for us to make the changes that needed to be made. And obviously, Cork being the City of Culture will add greatly to our own project for the city centre. It makes it very timely.

"In particular I think this is really good news because usually it's the capital cities that get all the money, all the funds. The second cities always suffer; we know this from our experience in Spain. So it is possible now that this is being put right."

Ursula Rani Sarma, writer

"We should see it as an opportunity to really involve and inspire young people in Cork, to push them to explore their perception of cultural identities. This should involve looking outwards. I'd like to see a lot of collaborations on projects with people and groups right across Europe."

Conor Lovett, actor

"It's been a long time coming for Cork, and it's terrific because I think the city always manages to rise to the occasion for things like this. I'm sure it'll pull it off with aplomb.

"Cork could probably do with a major new arts centre, the kind of place that would be an umbrella for all the arts, with facilities for each of the disciplines.

I played in a place in Germany the other week that had five or six different elements, there was a concert hall, a theatre, studio spaces, rehearsal spaces, everything. We could probably use something like that.

"I think as well that, whatever goes on, the educational programmes are going to be a really important element. You have to get kids involved in the arts from primary school level, because if you get them then the chances are you'll hold them."

Skully, musician with Cork-based electronic act Metisse

"When you're talking about a small city and its culture, it's probably easier to say what a place is lacking rather than what it has going for it. But I think the place really deserves this status because, from our experience setting things up, it's an incredibly supportive part of the world to be based. The support we've had from organisations like the Cork Partnership Scheme, and from the banks, too, has been absolutely invaluable to us.

"I think one issue that could and should be looked at over the next while is the way that, when an artist or a band, or whatever, becomes successful, an awful lot of the revenue they generate goes abroad and stays abroad. We should try and look at ways in which money could be ploughed back into things locally, to keep the growth going."

Fiona Shaw, actress

"I've been musing about this and thinking about Cork physically. I think what it might need are more public spaces where all the people in the city, who are of immense diversity, can interact with each other. It should be about opening things up. As an example, Cork has a wonderful art gallery [THE CRAWFORD], and the recent extension to it has opened up people's ideas of what a gallery can be.

"I was in San Sebastian recently, and what's becoming very obvious in a number of European cities is the influence of Bilbao. You've got all these cinemas and so on that are being designed to a funny slant, not at all on the American model. I'd love to see a load of Bilbao architects let loose on Cork, and lots of modernist buildings. The Georgian and early Victorian elements of the city would be set off beautifully by that. Cork is a sort of hard-roofed city against a slate sky, it really has the feel of a northern city and it could use that light and modernism."