Cork County

Cork is a great little city, of about 150,000 people. The nice thing about it is that it isn't nearly as crowded or busy as Dublin, and there is a lot of beautiful nature all around it. It has many sights to enjoy and places to visit.

Quick Tips:

Spend a few days in Cork itself, going to the various places of interest around the city. Then get out of the city and visit some of the many little villages around it that dot the countryside for a good taste of Irish culture and lifestyle.

Best Way To Get Around:

Buses are a little expensive, so it may be a good idea to rent a bike in Cork. The most interesting parts of the city are near the center, so extensive biking isn't usually necessary. Biking is an excellent way to do it. Also, there is a train, even one that goes out to the Grand Island south of the city in the Cork Bay. This is an excellent little trip to take.

Just south of Cork is Crosshaven, an area delightfully short of the clog of tourists you find in other places such as the Ring of Kerry and Dublin. Getting there is quite easy as well. This trek is an excellent route to take to see some beautiful Irish countryside and to get out of Cork for a day. If you are feeling adventurous, it is possible to cycle there from Cork. This route prove to be very dangerous to bicyclers. It is more recommendable if you are feeling like a good bike ride to get your bike to Carrigaline first, and then head along the river to Crosshaven. There aren’t any other roads to the town, so you don’t have to worry about taking the wrong route, just ask a local the way to Crosshaven. The bike path is a very well kept and beautiful route, running along the Lee all of the way to the Bay of Cork.

Crosshaven isn’t a very large town, but is very much a fishing village, that much is obvious from the large number of boats in the estuary in front of it. That is a draw, an authentic Irish fishing village, with none of the exaggerated tourist traps. There is an old church there with a large tower, and a few shops and such to mosey around in, and then you can look around on the docks.

There is also a old castle up the hill facing the Bay of Cork, matching a similar one that lies on the other side of the bay. These two castles were built in the narrowest part of the entrance to the bay, as protection. They aren’t open to the public, but there is an excellent view from there across the bay. You can see Great Island and the town of Cobh, which has a lot of naval history in it. For example, Cobh was the last port at which the Titanic stopped before heading off to its doom. Then, if you circle around the other side of the castle, you have an excellent view of the Atlantic. There are regular ferries heading out of this everyday, immense boats heading off to France or England. To get to the castle, just take a left right behind the Cronin’s pub in the plaza. After trekking up such a long hill, Cronin’s is a great place to stop and have a few pints. It is an excellent little pub, a good place to drink with the locals.

If you are needing to take the bus back to Cork, make sure that you catch the evening buses, the times listed at Cronin’s, because there are no night buses. If you have to put your bike on the bus, prepare to be fleeced, because they might charge you anywhere from 5 to 7 euros.

What It's Like: Just outside of Cork, on Grand Island, is a fantastic nature area like I have never seen before called Fota Nature Reserve. To get there, just take the train from Cork (in the only train station there), on the Cobh route. It’s only about 3 euros round trip, and the train literally stops right outside of the two gates of the park.

What sets this park apart is immediately obvious as you enter the gates and see a herd of lemurs flocking around the cafeteria area. This park is one without bars, a place that is as close to being in the natural habitat as you can get in Ireland. There are half a dozen or so islands with all sorts of monkeys and apes. If you are a bird-lover, then you will be pleased by the gigantic selection of birds, particularly waterfowl, from all over the world. There are also several pens that hold cheetas, beautiful and graceful predators. These pens of course are a little more sturdy than those for the monkeys, but nonetheless, only a few feet and a single fence separate you from up to eight or ten of the animals. Evidently they are bred here and then sent back to the countries from which they originated. Besides these creatures, you have giraffes, zebras, and the extremely rare oryx. The latter animals are thought to be extinct in wild and are very hard to come by in captivity. Fota is a place filled with many endangered animals. They obviously have a point to their game reserve, which is the opportunity to allow you to see firsthand the animals that are struggling for survival.

That alone is a great reason to go, but also is the opportunity to stand on a hill in Ireland five feet from a zebra or giraffe with nothing but a single electrified wire between you and the animal. It is truly an amazing place and a great way to spend an afternoon. Bring a picnic lunch, there is plenty of grassy hillsides from which to eat.

One of the excellent sites in Cork that is a must-see for just about anyone is Cork Gaol, or Jail. This is a very fascinating place, a very historic one. It was built in the beginning of the 1800's, to replace what evidently was a terrible hole of a prison. It was beautifully designed, like a cross except with two sidebars. Inside they have restored several of the cells, which you can look into. The inmates were kept almost entirely in solitude and silence, which drove some of them crazy. The cells were tiny, maybe ten feet by five feet, and must have been absolute torture to stay in for months or years at a time. Obviously, that really is the purpose of a prison, to be a deterent, but most of the inmates in that time were only petty thieves that were struggling to survive, and stealing a loaf of bread and receiving six months in that place seemed to be astonishingly cruel. Still, it was fascinating to see the kind of prison that existed in the 1800's through the 1920's. It was a different style, obviously, much less humanitarian than today's style. There is an audiotape that people can carry around and listen to a narrative of each section, which is very interesting and also quite profound. It describes the stories of a lot of people down on their luck who ended up getting the shaft. There is also a video display, which I found to be tedious and fairly lame. The cells and the tape are definitely the best parts of the experience. That, and knowing that you are walking under an area where they had built gallows to hang those who ended up receiving death sentences. Somehow that has an impact on the mind. The prison really is very intersting, though, and a good way to spend a morning.