The freedom of Cork city will be conferred on entertainer Michael Flatley at a special ceremony in City Hall at 3pm today.
At its meeting on April 10th last, Cork City Council approved a resolution submitted by Lord Mayor Cllr Michael Ahern to confer the freedom of the city on Flatley.
The resolution recommended granting the honour in recognition of his achievements as a dancer, musician and performer.
A decision was also made to honour the Irish dancer because of what the council deemed his "exceptional vision" in raising the profile of Irish music and dance to a worldwide audience.
Mr Ahern, a former Irish dancer, said yesterday that Flatley had taken a traditional Irish cultural and artistic form and reinvented it without losing any of the skill, tradition or heritage of the form. "He has brought Ireland and Irishness centre stage and no doubt inspired many others to do likewise.
"He has proven in his body of work that his vision of combining the theatrical with the traditional is a marriage that has proved artistically and commercially successful." The event will get under way at 2.15pm today when the Band of the First Southern Command starts playing on MacSwiney Quay.
Members of the council will then assemble in the council chamber for robing. Flatley and his wife Niamh are scheduled to arrive at City Hall at 2.30pm. They will be greeted by the Lord Mayor and city manager and will proceed to sign the visitors book in the Lord Mayor's office.
The ceremony will officially get under way at 3.05pm with a speech by the Lord Mayor, the recital of a poem by Tom McCarthy and the playing of traditional music.
The Lord Mayor will then invite Flatley to sign the roll of freedom and he will be presented with a certificate of freedom and a casket. Flatley worked closely with Cork City Council during Cork 2005 when the city was European City of Culture.