Cork's success in emerging as the choice for European Capital of Culture in 2005 was a major achievement when set against the range of cities that usually compete for the honour - many of them with far greater resources in both funding and cultural infrastructure. It joins a distinguished list of locations that includes Thessalonika, Madrid, Avignon, Helsinki, Prague, Salamanca and, this year, Lille.
The programme announced this week, though it represents only around 40 of the estimated 130 events due for Cork next year, is already rich in promise. Cork may be the smallest city to hold the title and have the smallest budget, but the snapshot of events revealed suggests a dynamic and wide-ranging blueprint. John Kennedy and his team are to be congratulated.
Among the highlights are the Daniel Libeskind pavilion, the visit of the Kronos quartet, a residency by the eminent art critic and writer John Berger and a kind of homecoming for the Cork artist James Berry, whose paintings will be the focus of a major exhibition.
Those who, at the beginning of the millennium, set out on the mission to win this title for Cork are entitled to feel a great sense of satisfaction and validation of their vision and efforts. Capital of Culture is a designation that can act as a catalyst for a city to imaginatively transform, and even come to a renewed understanding of its own sense of itself.
That process of renewal is well under way as a corollary to the ambitions of those devising the Cork 2005 programme. Along with the civic regeneration projects around the city, its cultural identity has been greatly enhanced by the addition of new venues and the development of others: along with the National Sculpture Factory, the Opera House, the Crawford, the Firkin Crane Institute of Choreography and Dance, the new Lewis Glucksman Gallery in UCC is a major Lee-side initiative.
Perhaps the greatest challenge Cork faces is delivering its programme on a budget that is a fraction of the funding available elsewhere. Cork has received €13.5 million in Government, local authority and EU support - the amount of private sponsorship has not been revealed. The 2004 Capital of Culture, Lille, has €73.7 million available to it, including €10 million from the business sector.
If there is one dark cloud over the mood of celebration it is the failure to advance the building of the new Cork School of Music. It has been a shameful debacle; a new conservatory was a strategic part of the city's campaign and should have been one of the lasting legacies of Cork 2005. Another instance of politics failing the arts.