Explore Cork

The English Market is a covered municipal food market in the centre of Cork, running between Princes Street and the Grand Parade. A market has stood here since 1788; the present halls date from the mid-19th century, with a Princes Street entrance of 1862 and a cast-iron fountain. Its stalls sell fish, meat, bread and local foods such as drisheen.

St Anne's Church is a Church of Ireland church in the Shandon district of Cork, built between 1722 and 1726 on a hill above the River Lee. Its tower, faced in red sandstone and white limestone, carries four clock faces, a salmon weather vane and eight bells cast in 1750, the Bells of Shandon of the song. Visitors can climb the tower for a view over the city.

Elizabeth Fort is a star-shaped fort on high ground off Barrack Street in Cork, first built of timber and earth in 1601 and rebuilt in its present form in the 1620s. It later served as a barracks, as a depot for convicts awaiting transportation to Australia and, until 2013, as a police station. Visitors walk along its walls, which overlook the city, and can join a guided tour.

Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral is a Church of Ireland cathedral on the south bank of the River Lee in Cork, where Saint Finbarr is said to have founded a monastery in the 7th century. William Burges designed the present Gothic Revival building, consecrated in 1870, with three stone spires and its sculpture, stained glass and mosaics.

Cork City Gaol is a former prison in Sunday's Well, Cork, designed by William Robertson and opened in 1824. From the late 1870s it held only women, and during the Civil War it also held republican prisoners before it closed in 1923. Restored and opened as a museum in 1993, its cells and wings show 19th-century prison life with life-size figures and an audio guide.

Blarney Castle is a partly ruined medieval tower house in the village of Blarney, near Cork. The present keep was built around 1446 by the MacCarthys of Muskerry. Visitors climb to the battlements, where the Blarney Stone is set in the parapet, and walk through the surrounding gardens, which include a poison garden, a rock close and a lake walk.

Fota House is a Regency mansion on Fota Island, near Cork, created in the 1820s by the architects Richard and William Vitruvius Morrison from a hunting lodge of the Smith-Barry family. Guided tours tell the story of the family and the people who worked for them, and the grounds hold an arboretum begun in the 1840s and Victorian working gardens.

Cobh Heritage Centre is a museum in part of the Victorian railway station on Deepwater Quay. Its exhibition, The Queenstown Story, covers the town's past as Queenstown: mass emigration from Ireland, convict ships to Australia, the sinking of the Lusitania and the Titanic, whose last port of call was Cobh in 1912. The centre also offers family history research.

St Colman's Cathedral is the Roman Catholic cathedral of the Diocese of Cloyne, set on a hillside above Cork Harbour in Cobh and dedicated to St Colmán of Cloyne. Building began in 1868 and, slowed by rising costs and changed plans, was completed in 1919. Its 91-metre steeple makes it the tallest church in Ireland. Daily Mass is held, and tours can be arranged.

Spike Island is a 42-hectare island in Cork Harbour, reached by ferry from Cobh. An early medieval monastery stood here; the island is now dominated by Fort Mitchel, an 18th-century bastion fort later used as a convict depot, a prison and an army post. Visitors explore the fort, its cell blocks, gun emplacements and more than a dozen exhibitions.