TELEVISION star Graham Norton will be taking a break this summer from his role as MC for the popular Ahakista Festival quiz.
Speaking to The Southern Star in Bandon last Wednesday, where he officially unveiled a Covid memorial plaque outside the Allin Institute, the Bandon native said the popular quiz was taking a year off.
It usually takes place over the August bank holiday weekend and is said to be the ‘hottest ticket in West Cork’ and always sells out in advance.
‘We are having a year off from holding it and while I didn’t ask for it, I was offered it and I took it,’ he said.
‘I won’t have the drive to Bandon each weekend during the summer, either, since I finished up with Virgin Radio, so it will be a nice free summer for me.’
He commended Creative Bandon for the project, which is part of a pioneering intergenerational initiative between older adults of the HSE Bandon Day Care Centre and TY students in Bandon.
The aim of the project was to make sense of the devastation of the pandemic and people’s tentative emergence to normality.
‘It’s lovely to see that time of our lives remembered in a creative way and it doesn’t feel like a depressing event. What they have done here with the plaque is lovely,’ said the BBC presenter.
He added that it is important to remember that time during the pandemic and he said the beautiful artwork reflects this, and he was delighted to unveil the plaque.
He also spoke of his fond memories as a child at the Allin Institute, a place he hadn’t been to in over 50 years.
‘It was a big part of my childhood with whist drives and bring-and-buy sales and in the room at the back my father tried and failed to teach me to play snooker,’ he said.
Marguerite McQuaid of Creative Bandon said it was wonderful to have Graham as a Bandonian and artist performing the unveiling.
Local rapper Burkie performed his song on suicide entitled We Ain’t Mad at Ya while Martin Leahy and Aine O’ Gorman performed an original composition, Remembering.
