6 Best Sights in County Cork, Ireland

The 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.

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.

Fetchingly 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.

The peaceful setting along this country road was shattered by the sound of gunfire on the 22nd of August, 1922. The ambush resulted in the death of one of Ireland's most famous statesmen---Michael Collins---and the assassination is still shrouded in uncertainty. A large limestone cross and other monuments mark the spot where this happened, which is frequently visited by a steady stream of people to this date.  Expect to discover the unique game of road bowling—an Irish sport where competitors throw a metal ball along a predetermined course—along this stretch of country lanes.

This 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.

On a windswept hill that tumbles down as far as the coast, this huddled gathering of megalithic standing stones has marked the changing seasons and braced the elements for thousands of years. Nearby, an ancient outdoor barbeque (fulacht fia) popular with Bronze Age alfresco diners has revealed its prehistoric culinary secrets to scientists— but modern-day travelers will find more convenient options available a few kilometers away, at the pretty, billowy, sailboat haven of Rosscarbery.