Not all it's Corked up to be...

 

Tuesday 21 May

We'd been looking forward to our guided walk in Cork but sadly it was cancelled the night before. We found a route in our guide book and negotiated the 220 bus into the city centrre - quite some distance, but it's always good to see your surroundings from the top of a double decker (and yes we sat in the front!)

We alighted close to the English Market (now I know where the word Sasenach comes from, it's Gaelic), noted it for reference and walked up to the Elizabeth Fort (named after Lizzie I of course). When built, Cork was a walled city under English rule, so the fort was intended to provide the city with protection against the Irish chieftains still in power in other parts of Ireland. The fort was attacked by its citizens, concerned for further Catholic oppression, in 1603 when James I succeeded Elizabeth. 

It's free admission, and with informative legends about the fort and the conflicts which determined its status. Neily enjoyed interacting with statues, and ensuring I went into the stocks for a photo opportunity...

Did you know - that a cannonball was fired at just shy of the speed of sound?? There was also an excellent  little exhbition about the role of the fort in the 19th century as a convict depot for women (and their children) convicted of minor thefts, before transportation out to Australia and Tasmania, where there was one woman to every ten men - very few returned.

After a coffee, we wanted to take a look around St Finnbare's Protestant cathedral, 

but baulked at the hefty entrance fee and continued on to the Glucksman gallery on the UCC campus - not very accessible works to be honest. We walked on the the English Market, enjoyed a delicious soupy lunch in the Farmgate balcony bar, and then picked out some fish pie for our eat-in dinner later.

We moved on to the Crawford Gallery which was small (pending refurishment closure) with some nice pieces, but it did make us apprecite the breadth of the collections we enjoy in London at the Tates, Royal Academy and so on. 

We tthen split up for a while and I did a bit of shopping while Neily went for Guinness! We met up at Murphy's for more of their amazing ice cream, then went for a drink outside a bar amid rolls of thunder. Thankfully, the rain held off until we were waiting (for a looooong time!) for the bus back to Classes Lake and another eat-in dinner with a nice bottle of wine from M&S, where prices more or less align with UK. 

So we were somewhat underwhelmed by Cork. It's billed as the food capital of Ireland, but apart from the excellent English Market, we couldn't really see why as we could see no interesting restaurants (maybe we weren't looking in the right places). It struck us as rather scruffy and down at heel, (many many closed units)

and there appeared to be less warmth in the greeting of service people compared to outlets further west (with the exception of the wonderful kids at Murphy's, who have been charming wherever we encountered them). The shops were pretty mainstream, of the high street chain variety, and we just felt less of a vibe about the place. So unless you can prove us otherwise, Cork, we won't be rushing back,