Beyond the City
Cork's story spills past the city bounds: the castle that named a way of talking, the battle that ended Gaelic Ireland, the island prison, the port of a million goodbyes, and the two great liners the harbour will never forget.
Blarney Castle
The MacCarthy stronghold whose stone, and whose lord's smooth letters, gave English a word.
Youghal
Raleigh's walled port: a gaol inside a clock, a £1,500 land deal, and a Hollywood whale.
The Battle of Kinsale
An hour's fighting down the coast ended Gaelic Ireland, and put a fort over Cork.
Kinsale
Wine port, battlefield, and the great star fort that watched the harbour for 250 years.
Spike Island
Monastery, 24-acre star fort, and for a few Victorian years the biggest prison on earth.
Cobh
Cove, Queenstown, Cobh: three names for the port where 2.5 million said goodbye to Ireland.
The Titanic at Queenstown
Cork was the last land the Titanic ever touched. 123 boarded from the harbour tenders.
The Lusitania
Torpedoed off the Old Head of Kinsale. She sank in 18 minutes; the rescue ran from Cobh.
Walk this history
We walk the city itself on the tour and send you on toward the harbour and the coast these stories lead to.
Read the fuller story of each place in The Cork Stories Collection, ten illustrated books for €24.99.
Homeplace · New for ChristmasHomeplace · Surname maps by TouringCork
The names they left behind.
If your family sailed from Cobh, their name stayed on in the parishes they left. Homeplace maps where each Irish surname lived in 1926, county by county, from the first full census of the new state.
McCarthy, the name of Blarney's lords: 10,658 in Cork in 1926, more than half the McCarthys in the Free State.
Framed 60 x 80 cm, €179 · Prints from €35 · Free delivery
Order by Friday 4 December for Christmas delivery.Missed the post? A Homeplace gift card arrives by email.