Uncategorized | Cork Heritage

Cover of Cork A Potted History by Kieran McCarthy (2024, Amberley Publishing)

A Word from the Host Kieran McCarthy:

This year 2024 marks the 25th year of “Our City, Our Town”, my column in the Cork Independent newspaper that explores, recovers and celebrates Cork’s rich past. This website supports the column and has developed out of my own affection for Cork (a port city, European maritime region and Atlantic-facing territory in southern Ireland).

The website is my one stop shop to highlight my explorations of Cork’s history, heritage, landscapes and its memories.

Check out my Our City Our Town newspaper index, http://corkheritage.ie/?page_id=20 , historical walking tours, history trails, talks, books, educational programs, and photography on Cork City and its wider region in particular in the River Lee Valley and Cork Harbour. The website is also my tool to market Cork City and region as a tourist – cultural destination.

Originally, Cork comprised a series of marshy islands, which the Irish for the city, Corcaigh, or marshes, reflects. Just west of the city centre the Lee splits into two channels, each flowing around the city before meeting again in Cork harbour. This means the city centre is an island, bounded by a north channel and a south channel. The urban centre was built on the lowest crossing-point of the river, where it meets the sea. This situation has given the city a rich maritime history and a strong identification as a port town.

Cork is unique among other Irish cities in that it alone has experienced all phases of Irish urban development, from c.600AD to the present day.

The settlement at Cork began as a monastic centre in the seventh century, founded by St FinBarre. It served as a Viking port before the Anglo-Normans arrived and created a prosperous walled town. It grew through the influx of English colonists during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and suffered the political problems inherent in Irish society at that time.

Cork City was altered significantly through Georgian and Victorian times when reclamation of its marshes became a priority, along with the construction of spacious streets and grand town houses; its quays, docks and warehouses exhibit the impact of the industrial revolution; and in the last one hundred years, Corkonians have witnessed both the growth of extensive suburbs and the rejuvenation of the inner city.

Cork as a city has been and is being reinvented so much through the fulfilment of ideas of varied citizens, all striving to carve a niche for themselves in the life of the city.

Perhaps, the most important influence on the city’s development was and is the River Lee, which has witnessed the city’s growth from a monastic centre to a cosmopolitan twenty-first-century city.

Cork has been named in the top 10 cities in the world to visit by Yahoo, is a WHO Healthy City and is a UNESCO City of Learning. Cork has been placed third as one of the places to visit in the world by the influential Lonely Planet tour guide company. It was just behind such prestigious company as Abu Dhabi UAE, and Charleston USA and ahead of Istanbul, Lecce, Kyoto and Singapore.

Alongside the city’s physical development is the story of its people. In character they are astute, confident, and often rebellious – a trait passed down through generations and remembered in Cork songs and oral tradition. Corkonians make Cork unique.

Many commentators have noted the sociable nature of the inhabitants, as Robert Gibbings, poet and writer, put it in 1944: “… people that you have never met in your life stop you in the street for a conversation’. The city’s panoply of life – people, buildings, quays, bridges, river – echoes the history and cultural development of the acclaimed ‘southern capital of Ireland’”

A walk through Cork’s St Patrick’s Street, affectionately known as ‘Pana’, confirms the warmth of its people, the rich accent, the hustle and bustle of a great city and for me a city with a great heart.

Enjoy flicking through the various web pages!

But don’t just stop there though, Come and Visit Cork! And if living here, Get out and Explore it!