The Cabinet will mark Cork's year as European City of Culture tomorrow by holding its weekly meeting there and announcing two important cultural initiatives for the city.
The meeting will be held at Cork City Hall tomorrow morning. Later the Taoiseach will hand over the papers of the composer, the late SeáÓ Riada, to University College Cork.
The Government will also announce the designation of the city's Crawford Gallery as a national cultural institution, ensuring it receives direct State funding from now on.
Members of the late Seán Ó Riada's family will join the Taoiseach at a function at UCC tomorrow afternoon to hand over the collection of the late composer's papers and other material. The collection includes documents, papers, film, correspondence, music scores and personal artefacts.
Minister for the Arts John O'Donoghue said yesterday that the value of this "unusual and eclectic collection" lies in the insight it gives into Seán Ó Riada's contribution to the revival of Irish music.
He said the family had wanted the collection to remain in the Cork area. The Government had provided €500, 000 to UCC towards the cost of purchasing the collection, and a further €100,000 towards the cost of exhibiting and curating it at UCC. Students, researchers and others would be given access to it.
The archive was bought from the Ó Riada family who preserved his collection at his home in Ballyvourney, a Gaeltacht area in west Cork, since his death in 1971 at the age of 40.
Ó Riada received a degree in music from UCC in the 1950s, and lectured there during the 1960s.
Mr O'Donoghue said yesterday that the Crawford Gallery would become the first designated national cultural institution in Munster. He said this was in "recognition of the amount it has contributed to cultural life". The gallery is currently under the direction of Cork Vocational Education Committee.
Mr O'Donoghue also praised the organisation of the Cork City of Culture programme, which, he said, had suffered "a lot of downright unfair negativity". He said some 350,000 people had attended events in the first three months of this year.
"Cork is fulfilling the designation it has in the true spirit of a cultural city," he said. "Visitor numbers to the city are way up, the city is looking fantastic, it feels like a dynamic and energetic European city. It may be a strange thing for a Kerryman to say but Cork is proving a worthy recipient of the designation European City of Culture."
The total spend on the City of Culture events would be some €15.5 million, with the Government paying €8 million. A further €5.6 million had come from sponsors.