Must-see attractions in Cork City

  • Cork city jail.

    Cork City Gaol

    Cork City

    This imposing former prison is well worth a visit, if only to get a sense of how awful life was for prisoners a century ago. An audio tour (€2 extra)…

  • English Market.

    English Market

    Cork City

    The English Market – so called because it was set up in 1788 by the Protestant or ‘English’ corporation that then controlled the city (there was once an…

  • Crawford Art Gallery

    Cork City

    Cork's public gallery houses a small but excellent permanent collection covering the 17th century through to the modern day, though the works on display…

  • Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral, Co Cork, Ireland

    St Fin Barre's Cathedral

    Cork City

    Spiky spires, gurning gargoyles and elaborate sculpture adorn the exterior of Cork's Protestant cathedral, an attention-grabbing mixture of French Gothic…

  • Cork Butter Museum

    Cork City

    Cork has a long tradition of butter manufacturing – in the 1860s it was the world's largest butter market, exporting butter throughout the British Empire …

  • University College Cork

    Cork City

    Established in 1845 as one of three 'queen's colleges' (the others are in Galway and Belfast) set up to provide nondenominational alternatives to the…

  • Blackrock Castle

    Cork City

    Blackrock Castle is a restored 16th-century castle that now, rather incongruously, hosts a small hands-on science centre, an inflatable planetarium and a…

  • Elizabeth Fort

    Cork City

    Originally built in the 1620s, and serving as a garda (police) station from 1929 to 2013, this small star-shaped artillery fort once formed an important…

  • St Anne's Church

    Cork City

    Shandon is dominated by the 1722 St Anne’s Church, aka the ‘Four-Faced Liar’ – so called because each of the tower’s four clocks used to tell a slightly…

  • Cork Public Museum

    Cork City

    Located in a Georgian mansion with a modern extension, this museum recounts Cork’s history. The diverse collection of local artefacts tells the story from…

  • Lewis Glucksman Gallery

    Cork City

    This award-winning building is a startling construction of limestone, steel and timber, built in 2004 by Dublin architects O'Donnell and Tuomey. Three…

  • Stone Corridor

    Cork City

    This covered walkway on the north side of University College Cork's Victorian Gothic main quad houses Ireland's biggest collection of Ogham stones, carved…

  • Holy Trinity Church

    Cork City

    The Holy Trinity Church was designed by the Pain brothers in 1834 in the honour of Father Theobald Mathew, whose statue sits just south of the River Lee…

  • Old Butter Market

    Cork City

    Cork had the largest butter market in the world during the 1860s, exporting butter as far as India, South America and Australia. The Butter Exchange was…

  • Radio Museum

    Cork City

    The National Radio Museum is part of the Cork City Gaol which, after its closure in 1923, housed a radio station from 1927 until the 1950s. The change of…

  • Statue of Father Mathew

    Cork City

    The imposing statue on St Patrick's St, just south of the River Lee North Channel, is of Father Theobald Mathew, the 'Apostle of Temperance', who crusaded…

  • St Peter's Cork

    Cork City

    Housed in an old church, this cultural centre and gallery space houses a heritage display charting the history of Cork as well as changing exhibitions of…

  • City Hall

    Cork City

    Built in Georgian style in the 1930s to replace the original city offices, which were burnt down by renegade British forces in 1920, Cork's impressive…

  • Red Abbey Tower

    Cork City

    Overlooking a small public square, Red Abbey Tower is Cork's only surviving medieval building, and all that remains of a 14th-century Augustinian priory.

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