28 March at 8.30p.m.
Entrance Fee €5

Across the globe on 28 March, up to 1 billion people are expected to take part in Earth Hour, and Cork will have a special opportunity to celebrate the event with music and stargazing at Cork Institute of Technology Blackrock Castle Observatory. Earth Hour started in 2007 in Sydney, Australia, with 2.2 million homes and businesses turning their lights off for one hour. A year later the event had become a global sustainability movement with up to 100 million people across 35 countries participating.

For Earth Hour 2009 Blackrock Castle Observatory in association with Cork Food Web is holding an event of music and stargazing, making very special use of the dark conditions. Domestic, business and street lights in the area will be turned off between 8.30-9.30pm and, weather permitting, visitors can look at a much darker sky through the observatory’s telescopes. Entertainment will begin at 8.30pm and run though ‘til late, with a line-up of positive music that includes reggae from The Italics, a rare acoustic set from Green Monitor with starsounds by Annette Buckley, soul and funk from Brian Deady at the Castle Bar and Trattoria, with inspiring visuals from VJ Present of Wiggle. Earth Hour will also be the final celebration of the Globe at Night star count in the constellation Orion at the Observatory and is an event billed as A Dark Skies Awareness cornerstone for the International Year of Astronomy 2009 events at Blackrock Castle Observatory.

Global actions from cities around the world during Earth Hour will be streamed onto the screens at Blackrock Castle Observatory’s award winning exhibition Cosmos at the Castle.

An entrance cover charge of €5 will be used to support Cork Food Web, a grassroots initiative bringing people together to create a network of community gardens, allotments, urban and rural farms and food parks all over Cork city and county. Proceeds will be used to help fund the Earth Garden at Blackrock Castle Observatory, a small community garden which will act as an educational tool and living workshop for visiting school and community groups and which will also produce food for the Trattoria, using biodynamic methods of planting which take account of the astronomical calendar.