Few could claim to have the needs of Cork closer to their heart than the city's newly elected first citizen, Lord Mayor of Cork Cllr Brian Bermingham.

A long serving member of Cork City Council, Cllr Bermingham was elected to the prestigious seat by his fellow councillors at Monday night's meeting of the council, 40 years after his father Cllr John Bermingham was bestowed with the same title.

First elected to Cork City Council in 1979 aside Councillors Donal Counihan, Denis Cregan and Maureen Quill, the Lord Mayor has enjoyed almost 30 years of political alliance and warfare in the council chambers and as such has devoted much of his life to driving forward the development of the city of Cork. During this time he has witnessed booms and busts, serious emmigration and large scale immigration, decline and regeneration as well as political dealbreakers and deal-makers. Now in his year in the Mayoral Office he hopes to use this experience to create a more unified metropolitan Cork, one which the people in Cork's city centre and suburbs can identify with. His notion of a metropolitan Cork is less based on ideas of boundaries and imaginary lines and more concerned with nurturing the idea of belonging to Cork City and creating a unified identity for people across Cork whether they are living in the city centre or Carrigaline, Ballincollig, Cobh, Glanmire or Midleton.

This idea of a unified metro-Cork has undoubtedly been influnced by the Cllr Bermingham's own experience of growing up in a city that was closely knitted together its people. He speaks fondly of his memories of his school days in Sullivan's Quay and later in Pres, where there was a great camaraderie, a great loyalty and a great sense of togetherness among all his classmates who all had this strong tie to Cork. "Cork was a great place to grow up, it was safe , very safe, and there was a great sense of camaraderie among its people," he explained. The Lord Mayor witnessed this same sense of unity both on the running tracks, in the rugby club, in the dancehalls, during his days at UCC and in later years, in Cork's political circles.

No stranger to politics, Cllr Bermingham almost seemed to grow into political life. "I was canvassing with my father from a very young age and at about 14 decided to join Young Fine Gael," he said. He claims that he can't remember actually ever making a conscious decision to enter politics and thinks he might have simply grown into political life and all it had to offer. In 1979, Cllr Bermingham was first elected to Cork City Council as a representative for the Fine Gale party. In 1988, he decided to take a leap of faith and joined the Progressive Democrats party to satisfy his desire for fresh, creative and new politics. " At the time the PDs were a very creative party and there was lots of debate like the old college days. I was very attracted to the spirit of exciting politics and so spent almost 10 years with the party," he explained. After 10 years though, the Lord mayor decided that it was time to fly from the PD nest which had now began to crack following a series of resignations. Rejoining the Fine Gael party was an easy decision for Cllr Bermingham who said that while he was very attrcated to the PDS, his heart remained with Fine Gael. "I had never actually mentally left Fine Gael, as Dino (Cllr Deins Creegan) would point out, I would always vote for him even when I was in the PDs," he said.

Now firmly positioned at the centre of Cork's politics for the next twelve months, the newly elected Lord Mayor has major plans for the year ahead. One of his major political goals is to raise the profile of the party and try to encourage a high voting turnout at next year's local elections. In a bid to create a truly metro-Cork, he hopes to involve the people of Cork in more and more consultation processes to influence the future developments in the city. The Lord Mayor also has plans to organise "Bus Friday" a campaign in which people across Cork will be encouraged to use public transport on Fridays, in a bid to reduce congestion and emissions. He also hopes to organise celebrations in Cork to mark the thirtieth anniversary of Christy Ring's passing, 125 years of the GAA and the 100 anniversary of the Cork College of Commerce as well as remembrances to mark 50 years of peacekeeping with the UN and a special night of nostalgia to mark the ending of World War One in 1918. "This year is set to be a year of remembrance, celebration and also some self-criticism. As we draw to the end of this council we have to ask what we did right and wrong and what we can do for Cork," he concluded.