County Cork
We’ve compiled the best of the best in County Cork - browse our top choices for the top things to see or do during your stay.
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1. Blarney Castle
In the center of Blarney, the ruined central keep is all that's left of this mid-15th-century stronghold. The castle contains the famed (or infamous) Blarney Stone. Kissing the stone, it's said, endows the kisser with the fabled "gift of the gab"---which is probably just a load of "Blarney." It's 127 steep steps to the battlements. If you're determined to kiss the stone, (who are we to judge?) you must lie down on the battlements, hold on to a guardrail, and lean your head way back. Expect a line from mid-June to early September; while you wait---or change your mind---you can admire the views of the wooded River Lee valley and chuckle over how that word "blarney" came to mean what it does. As the story goes, Queen Elizabeth I wanted Cormac MacCarthy, Lord of Blarney, to will his castle to the Crown, but he refused her requests with eloquent excuses and soothing compliments. Exhausted by his comments, the queen reportedly exclaimed, "This is all Blarney. What he says he rarely means." Despite all that Blarney nonsense, the castle is very impressive as are the gardens. You can take pleasant walks around to discover the Rock Close which contains oddly shaped limestone rocks landscaped in the 18th century and a grove of ancient yew trees that is said to have been a site of Druid worship. In early March, there's a wonderful display of daffodils.
View Tours and ActivitiesVillage Green, Blarney, Co. Cork, Ireland021-438–5252Sight Details
Rate Includes: €18, Discounted rates online -
2. Crawford Art Gallery
City Center SouthThe large redbrick building was built in 1724 as the customs house and is now home to Ireland's leading provincial art gallery. An imaginative expansion has added gallery space for visiting exhibitions and adventurous shows of modern Irish artists. The permanent collection comprises more than 2,000 works and includes landscape paintings depicting Cork in the 18th and 19th centuries as well as contemporary video installations. Take special note of works by Irish painters William Leech (1881–1968), Daniel Maclise (1806–70), James Barry (1741–1806), and Nathaniel Grogan (1740–1807). The café is a good place for a light lunch or a house-made sweet.
Emmet Pl., Cork City, Co. Cork, Ireland021-480–5042Sight Details
Rate Includes: Free -
3. Elizabeth Fort
The tapestry of Cork's volatile past half millennium unfolds during a visit to this large star-shaped fort, starting from the point when it was constructed as a stronghold after the Siege of Kinsale in 1601. It played a key role in history when it was fortified during Oliver Cromwell's invasion and later it was a prison depot for infamous Australia-bound convict ships. In the middle of the 19th century, it stored maize for the poor to buy and inflated prices before being shipped abroad as the great famine decimated the population. In the 20th century, it was occupied by British forces, and during World War II it was an air-raid shelter. It's worth a visit just to take in the commanding views over Cork City from its walls.
Barrack St., Cork City, Co. Cork, Ireland021-497--5947Sight Details
Rate Includes: Free; tour €3, Closed Oct.--Apr., Sun. mornings., Disability access is restricted -
4. English Market
City Center SouthFetchingly housed in an elaborate, brick-and-cast-iron Victorian building with a decorative light-infused dome-shaped ceiling, such is the fame of this foodie mecca that England's Queen Elizabeth II insisted on an impromptu walkabout here on her historic first visit to Ireland in 2011. Among the 140 stalls, keep an eye out for the Alternative Bread Company, which produces more than 40 varieties of handmade bread every day. Tom Durcan's Meats Limited sells vacuum-packed local specialties including spiced beef and dry-aged beef. The Olive Stall sells olive oil, olive-oil soap, and olives from Greece, Spain, France, and Italy. Kay O'Connell's Fish Stall, in the legendary fresh-fish alley, purveys local smoked salmon. O'Reilly's Tripe and Drisheen is the last existing retailer of tripe, a Cork specialty, and drisheen (blood sausage). Upstairs is the Farmgate, an excellent café.
Entrances on Grand Parade and Princes St., Cork City, Co. Cork, Ireland021-492--4182Sight Details
Rate Includes: Closed Sun. -
5. Blackrock Castle and Observatory
To the east of the city center, the past and present are fused together in this ornate riverfront castle that was constructed in 1829, when the original buildings were destroyed by a series of fires---the last happened when a boozy banquet hosted by the local council in 1827 got out of control. Today, the castle sits perched on a rock (hence its name), and visitors can explore its dungeons and murky past with smugglers and pirates---or take in one of the interplanetary shows hosted throughout the day. If all else fails, skip to the top of the tower and battlements for a rewarding view of the city. There is a café on-site.
Castle Rd., Blackrock, Cork City, Co. Cork, Ireland021-432--6120Sight Details
Rate Includes: Adults €6.50 -
Recommended Fodor’s Video
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6. Cork City Gaol
Sunday's WellThe austere Georgian Gothic mansion in the center of the complex, with its castellated-style, three-story tower, was once the governor's residence. The two enormous gray wings that span symmetrically to the left and right detained prisoners for a century. Life-size wax figures occupy the cells, and they illustrate the wretched backstories of those incarcerated and those who held them captive, with suitably somber sound effects. Take note of the weighing chair near the governor’s office---beneath its bright, timber surface lurks a dark secret—it was used to weigh prisoners before a suitable rope strength could be selected for their upcoming rendezvous with the gallows. Rebel leader Constance Markievicz and writer Frank O'Connor were former inmates. The Radio Museum Experience exhibits genuine artifacts from a 1923 radio station, 6CK, and tells the story of radio broadcasting in Cork.
Sunday's Well Rd., Cork City, Co. Cork, Ireland021-430–5022Sight Details
Rate Includes: €10 (includes a guidebook) -
7. Cork Public Museum and Fitzgerald's Park
Western RoadThis picture-perfect riverside park a short walk west of the city center is accessed along the Mardyke, a tree-lined walkway overlooking a pitch where cricket is still played. Like the cricket pitch, the park is a remnant of Cork's Victorian past, and was the site of the 1902 Cork Exhibition. Its best-loved feature is the "Shakey Bridge," a famously unstable pedestrian suspension bridge linking the north and south banks of the Lee. The park is a popular venue for outdoor entertainment during the Midsummer Festival, and contains the Cork Public Museum, a Georgian mansion with displays of the city's history.
Western Rd., Cork City, Co. Cork, Ireland021-427–0679Sight Details
Rate Includes: Free, Museum closed Mon. and Sun. Oct.--Apr. -
8. Nano Nagle Place
City Center SouthNano Nagle (1718--84) founded the Presentation order of nuns, and was a pioneer in the education of the poor. The convent that was her Cork headquarters has been transformed into a delightful heritage center and provides a welcome oasis of calm in the city center. Visit her tomb, with its water fountain, graveyard, and garden before discovering the ornate Victorian Gothic Revival chapel ("The Goldie Chapel"), a popular new venue for readings and other events. The oldest buildings on-site, dating from the early 18th century, including Miss Nagle's parlor, can be visited only on guided tours, which depart daily at 11 am and 3 pm.
60--61 Douglas St., Cork City, Co. Cork, Ireland021-419–3580Sight Details
Rate Includes: Garden and graveyard free, heritage center €7.50, Closed Mon., It is free to visit Nano Nagle’s tomb and the gardens -
9. Old Cork Waterworks Experience
Set on the banks of the River Lee with a redbrick chimney that towers over the network of handsome sandstone Victorian buildings that house 100-year-old engine rooms, boilers, and steam centers, this fascinating experience takes you behind the mechanics that generated three centuries of local hydraulic innovation. With interactive exhibitions and informative tours, visitors explore Cork's industrial heritage, and get some insight into the science behind water supply and the challenges facing the environment today. Tours are held every 30 minutes.
Lee Rd., Cork City, Co. Cork, Ireland021-494--1500Sight Details
Rate Includes: Closed weekends Sept.--May, €5 -
10. St. Anne's Church
ShandonThe church's pepper-pot steeple, which has a four-sided clock and is topped with a golden, salmon-shape weather vane, is visible from throughout the city and is the chief reason why St. Anne's is so frequently visited. The Bells of Shandon were immortalized in an atrocious, but popular, 19th-century ballad of that name. Your reward for climbing the 120-foot-tall tower is the chance to ring the bells out over Cork, with the assistance of sheet tune cards---and, of course, the magnificent views over the city. The famous clock tower with its red sandstone and white ashlar finish is a city landmark and supposedly the inspiration for the county's renowned red-and-white sport's colors, while the clock's notoriously unreliable timekeeping gained it the nickname of the "Four Faced Liar." Beside the church, Firkin Crane, Cork's 18th-century butter market, houses two small performance spaces.
Church St., Cork City, Co. Cork, Ireland021-450–5906Sight Details
Rate Includes: Church free, tower €5 -
11. St. Fin Barre's Cathedral
City Center SouthOn the site that was the entrance to medieval Cork, this compact, three-spire Gothic cathedral, which was completed in 1879, belongs to the Church of Ireland and houses a 3,000-pipe organ. According to tradition, St. Fin Barre established a monastery on this site around AD 650 and is credited with being the founder of Cork. The cathedral was designed by William Burges, one of the greatest of the Victorian art--architects, and everything here, including the church fittings, furnishings, mosaics, ironwork, and stained glass, shows his distinctive "Burgesian Gothic" hand.
Bishop St., Cork City, Co. Cork, Ireland021-496–3387Sight Details
Rate Includes: €6 -
12. The Butter Museum
City Center NorthOnce the bread and butter of Cork City's economy, the creamy product from the Rebel County's lush countryside and beyond---butter---dominated the world market with distribution in every corner of the former British Empire. Today, in a quirky Shandon neighborhood near St. Anne's Church on a square that once housed the Butter Market and follows the contours of the large circular Firkin Crane building (where casks were once weighed), visitors can trace that history and discover the merchant's artifacts and tools in this pint-sized museum.
O'Connell Sq., Cork City, Co. Cork, Ireland021-430--0600Sight Details
Rate Includes: €5, Closed Mon. and Tues. -
13. University College Cork
Western RoadThe Doric-porticoed gates of UCC stand about 2 km (1 mile) from the city center. The college, which has a student body of roughly 20,000, is a constituent of the National University of Ireland. The main quadrangle is a fine example of 19th-century university architecture in the Tudor-Gothic style, reminiscent of many Oxford and Cambridge colleges. Several ancient ogham stones are on display in the North Quadrangle (near the visitor center), and the renovated Crawford Observatory's 1860 telescope can be visited. The Honan Collegiate Chapel, east of the quadrangle, was built in 1916 and modeled on the 12th-century Hiberno-Romanesque style, best exemplified by the remains of Cormac's Chapel at Cashel. The UCC chapel's stained-glass windows, as well as its collection of art and crafts, altar furnishings, and textiles in the Celtic Revival style, are noteworthy. Three large, modern buildings have been successfully integrated with the old, including the Boole Library, named for mathematician George Boole (1815–64), who was a professor at the college, and whose bicentenary was celebrated in 2015. Both indoors and out the campus is enhanced by works of contemporary Irish art. The Lewis Glucksman Gallery, a striking new building adjacent to the college's entrance gates, displays works from the college's outstanding collection and hosts cutting-edge contemporary-art exhibitions.
College Rd., Cork City, Co. Cork, Ireland021-490–1876Sight Details
Rate Includes: Free; guided tours €4, Visitor center closed Sun., and Dec.--Jan.
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