This is the parade day, but more on this later.

The “Queer as Political” Exhibition with its reinterpretation of Irish Queer figures continues in The Other Place, LGBT Resource Centre.

And the Other Place is one of the busier venues this morning as not only are breakfasts available from 10am, but that is also when the amazing body painters that came down from Dublin start to make the parade colourful by painting the birthday suits of the lucky chosen few. I don’t think that there are any places available, but if you really want to be painted, try sending a mail to info@theotherplacecork.com before 9am.

A little later at 12pm brunches are being served in a mixed event at LinC on White Street just off Douglas Street.

If the parade is not you thing, the Cork Gay Hill-walkers start their climb of Carrauntoohil, Ireland’s highest mountain to celebrate the Cork Pride Festival by raising the Rainbow Flag and the Cork Pride Flag on the Summit. If you haven’t already registered for this event, you’re probably too late.

At 3pm the big Parade starts from the Grand Parade Plaza at the Cork City Library, up South Mall, through Parnell Place, along Merchant’s Quay and down Patrick Street to finish back at the Grand Parade plaza and board-walk. This year the theme is “Evolution”. While marching groups and groups with floats should have registered in advance, all-comers are welcome to join in.

The post parade events are all scheduled for 4pm, but really won’t get in to the swing of things until the parade finishes and dissipates. At Loafers is the Loafers Annual Pride BBQ with DJs Sinead and Eddie K entertaining you throughout. At the Other Place their offer is a chance to chill out and relax with good food, good music and some craic. They also have free wi-fi for those of you who want to upload their photos of the event as quickly as possible. And finally there are the Chambers Post-Parade Pints. They are serving Hot food with special prices for a pint: With sausage and chips at €5. Other food deals also on offer.

Later on in the evening sees synth-pop band Eden make a big comeback tour of Ireland, and more importantly Chambers Cork, with host from Dublin the one and only April Showers at 10pm.

Staying in Chambers at 11pm the YouTube sensation Sean Rumsey also from Future Proof X-Factor 2007, brings his show to Cork for one night only.

An audio events listing guide to the Cork Pride Festival is available.

The “Queer as Political” Exhibition with its reinterpretation of Irish Queer figures continues in The Other Place, LGBT Resource Centre.

Family day with a kids friendly disco called the Munchkins’ Ball runs from 2pm until 6pm in The Other Place. The is a DJ, naturally and plenty activities for the kids.

You’ve danced, so take the glad rags off and get your kit on for the annual sports day. This year the packed schedule includes 5 a side football, high-heel dash, tops and bottoms race, lipstick relay to mention but a few. You are guaranteed a good laugh. In Mardyke Green opposite U.C.C from 2.30pm with special guests the Dublin Devils!

2nd Annual treasure hunt hosted by the MeetnGreet team starts at 6pm outside the Other Place. Run around the city trying to find the answers to questions and clues. Ranging from simple to fiendish, you’ll be kept on your toes. Just for fun. For more info see meetngreetcork.com

DJ Emer hosts a spot Prize Bonanza at 8pm in Loafers Bar. Meanwhile in Chambers, Diva Fever,late of X Factor, performs live on stage with hosts corks own Lady Marmalade and Little Miss DD & other Guest Appearances.

And at 11pm, Cork catches Fever, the new monthly gay night kicks off in style with DJ Broz and Guests, open first Saturday of every month in The Savoy!

An audio events listing guide to the Cork Pride Festival is available.

Cork City Library hosts a lecture by Dr Éibhear Walshe of UCC on at 1pm where she will talk about Irish gay and lesbian writing, to go with their book display.

Having had a lunch for the mind, come at 6pm and fill up with BBQ and music at a mixed event in LinC on White Street.

At the nearby Solidarity Books shop come 7pm you can hear a talk by the Belfast based gay-rights and civil rights activist and freelance writer Seán Óg Garland about the origins of Pride and Queer Liberation that was the Stonewall riots.

Today’s offering of the Pride Film Festival in Camden Palace at 8pm is the 2005 German drama “Fremde Haut”, where Fariba Tabrizi, persecuted in Iran due to her lesbian relationship with her beloved Shirin, flies from Teheran to Germany expecting to have asylum. However, her application is denied by the authorities and Fariba has to return to her home country.

The “Queer as Political” Exhibition with its reinterpretation of Irish Queer figures continues in The Other Place, LGBT Resource Centre.

At 9pm, imagine if two of the world’s most famous pop divas got together to put on a show in Chambers. Melissa Totten (Europe’s best Madonna tribute act), Rosie Howick & Dancers (Ireland’s Top Kylie Aphrodisiac Experience) and Sheila Duza Blige & Dancers (Corks most Fun Drag Star) present a show you wont forget!

And at 9.30pm styles clash for choice when Lady Grew performs explicit content warning labeled Hip Hop in The Other Place while in Loafers DJ John Broz does the poppier ABBA-FAB thing.

And later, well, Friday wouldn’t be Friday without Rubys and during Pride, and its no different this year. Arrive closer to 10.30pm to avoid queues.

An audio events listing guide to the Cork Pride Festival is available.

At 7pm you are invited to come and explore issues affecting people who identify as bisexual in a Bisexuality workshop hosted by Aoife Fitzgibbon-O’Riordan in The Other Place.

The “Queer as Political” Exhibition with its reinterpretation of Irish Queer figures continues in The Other Place, LGBT Resource Centre.

Also at 7pm (and not the 8pm as previously advertised) is the Pride Remembrance Service in St Anne’s of Shandon, better known as the Shandon Bells. This service will include performances from Mna Mna and Choral con fusion.

Today’s offering of the Pride Film Festival in Camden Palace at 8pm is the 2001 Israeli documentary “Trembling Before G-d”, a portrait of various gay Orthodox Jews who struggle to reconcile their faith and their sexual orientation.

At 8pm two different musical styles are on offer with DJ Kate Brennan-Harding in Loafers vying for attention against the LinC youth Lesbian Rap show in The Other Place.

And later in the night there is another differing clash of styles with the Pride Uv Party with DJ Dermo starting at 9pm in Chambers while a less electronic gig from “Witless” with Loretta Sweeney on lead vocals and guitar, and Donnacha Cunnane on Bass kicks off at The Other Place at 9:30pm.

An audio events listing guide to the Cork Pride Festival is available.

Cork Pride is a LGBT Festival, and at 3pm the T for Trans is focused on in the Other Place where we have a Trans issues talk an workshop with Darrin Mathews. This talk is open to anyone interested in what it is to be trans*. No topic will be off limits and all questions will be welcomed by people who have gone through a pretty big definition of personal evolution.

As the big parade day approaches, the Cork Community Artlink would like to get as many people as they can to call over to 107 Shandon Street at 6pm to help them make hats, flags or noise makers for the parade on Sunday. And LinC have asked for volunteers to call in to 11A White Street, just off Douglas Street, to help them with their float around the same time.

The “Queer as Political” Exhibition with its reinterpretation of Irish Queer figures continues in The Other Place, LGBT Resource Centre.

The Pride Film Festival continues at 8pm in Camden Palace with the 2004 American drama “Brother to Brother“. This drama looks at the Harlem Renaissance from the perspective of an elderly, black writer who meets a gay teenager in a New York homeless shelter.

Something a little different a 8pm when the Rashenkoti Bellydance group perform in the Other Palce. The group perform a modern revival of a tribal dance, with roots going back as far as ancient Babylon and beyond.

Another tribal dance can be found at 8pm in An Realt Dearg with the Pride festival Ceili

Dancing of a different kind is available again at 8pm in Chambers with “Sinners” and DJ Dave.

And if you aren’t that energetic, the Pride Pool and Darts Competition takes place in Loafers.

Moving on to 11.30pm is the Transformer Party in Freakscene. This theme night is is inspired by Lou Reed’s 1972 album ‘Transformer’, which has cross dressing as a sub-plot rather than 1984 disguised robot toy line with the seventies energy crisis at its core. For this theme night guys are encouraged to dress as girls and girls as guys. There will be bottles of Champagne for the best male and female transformers!

An audio events listing guide to the Cork Pride Festival is available.

The “Queer as Political” Exhibition with its reinterpretation of Irish Queer figures continues in The Other Place, LGBT Resource Centre.

And today’s Pride Film Festival movie at 8pm is the 2004 documentary “Saints and Sinners” about Edward and Vincent, a couple a of devout Catholics who want to get married, as in “The Holy Sacrament of Marriage”. “Saints and Sinners” is being shown in the Camden Palace Hotel.

Before hand, at 7.30pm in The Other Place, Veronica Foley, a Solicitor of Hannon Solicitors, will give a brief talk and answer questions on the general effects of the new Civil Partnership Act (or the Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act 2010 to give its full title). This complex Act brings in a complete new approach to how non-marital relationships are now governed by our laws, and bring many changes unforeseen by the law profession and public at large.

Staying in the same venue is “The Lonely Princess”. Glitter-na-gig brings a tale of being beautiful, intelligent and SINGLE!

But if you don’t feel like tales of gambling on your love-life, then take a different gamble at the Pride Annual Texas Hold’em Poker Trophy in Loafers at 8pm.

An audio events listing guide to the Cork Pride Festival is available.

This is the Cork Pride audio guide for Monday May 30th 2011

After a lengthy launch night, things get a little gentler on Monday 30th May 2011.

The “Queer as Political” Exhibition with its reinterpretation of Irish Queer figures continues in The Other Place, LGBT Resource Centre.

The LGBT Film Festival also continues at 8pm in the Camden Palace Hotel with the 1999 German documentary “Gendernauts” in which Monika Treut explores the worlds and thoughts of several female to male transgendered individuals.

If you perfer bio-pics over documentary then Loafers Bar on Douglas Street is showing the 2008 film “Milk” at 8.30pm. This is the story of Harvey Milk, and his struggles as an American gay activist who fought for gay rights and became California’s first openly gay elected official

An audio events listing guide to the Cork Pride Festival is available.

Sunday opens the official Cork Pride 2011 with a very traditional sounding LGBT Pride service at the Princes Street Unitarian Church at 11am. However this is a Queering Spirituality event led by Davey Shanahan, so maybe this free event is not that traditional at all.

Things go a little quiet until 8pm where a multitude of bookings arrive. The Film Festival continues in Camden Palace Hotel with the 2001 Danish film “Shake It”. It looks like it has all the traditional rom-com roots, but with a boy ask boy to marry him tale when a girl enters to form a love triangle.

In what looks like a double booking but makes sense, the Queer as Political Exhibition opens in the Other Place resource centre at 8pm, which is when and when the Official Pride Launch happens.

The exhibition launch features performances by DJ Terasa Jackson and the Lady Grew, as well as others unannounced so far.

With the launch done, its time to party. The Official Pride Opening Party starts at 10pm in Chambers. This Pride fund-raiser with a €5 fee gives you a show including Freaks’n Gleeks, Miss Bliss from Limerick and Darragh McGann winner of Chambers Got Extra Talent.

Official Pride Opening Party moves at 11.30pm to Ruby’s. This move means that if you paid in to Chambers, you get to dance the night away in Ruby’s. Which brings this day to a close.

An audio events listing guide to the Cork Pride Festival is available.

Tomorrow is the first day of the Cork Pride festival, but tonight is the first day of the LGBT Film Festival running in the Camden Palace Hotel on Camden Place.
By the way, no idea why its not Camden Quay.

The opening party is at 7pm with the film itself starting at 8pm.

The first film is the 1999 German drama “Aimée & Jaguar”. Set during the 1943/44 “Battle of Berlin”. We find Felice, an intelligent and courageous Jewish woman who lives under a false name, belongs to an underground organization and Lilly, a devoted mother of four, though an occasionally unfaithful wife, is desperate for love. An unusual and passionate love between them blossoms despite the danger of persecution and nightly bombing raids.

This is also the introduction of the audio events listing guide to the Cork Pride Festival. Let us know what you think about the movie and about the audio guide.

We’ve had a few questions as to why there is a “Join the Parade” form.

Well, if you still wish to join, either with a float, vehicle or as a marching group of 10 or more people, then its is important that you fill in the online “Join the Parade” form. See the update below.

If you’re a group and you do not fill in the form then you will not be able to join in the parade.

Why the form? Why all the questions?

We need to know roughly how many are in each group as well as the nature of the group and its appearance and props in order to determine the best mix of floats, groups and flags so we can get a order that maximises their impact and effect as well as for safety reasons. For example, we don’t want two marching bands in a row as the music will clash. Same applies for floats with music playing.

As well as that each group should provide their own steward or group leader to maintain the safety of the group. While we will have stewards for the crowds on the route, a group leader or steward will be required to be the point of contact, maintain the safety of the group and to lead the group (in particular if your group is involves lots of running around or dancing).

So if you want to join, please fill out the form.

UPDATE: Noon May 27 2011
When it comes to walking groups of more than 10 we mean those walking behind a banner or sign. If 12 mates meet up and decide that they want to join in together, then they are welcome.