Audley House

Ireland’s second city, built on an island in the River Lee and known for the English Market, the hills of Shandon, and a compact centre that makes an easy base for the whole of Cork and Kerry.

Cork city is built on an island formed by two channels of the River Lee, with the main shopping streets, St Patrick’s Street and the English Market among them, running through the flat centre and the older, steeper parts of town climbing the hills to the north and south. That layout gives Cork a distinct character among Irish cities, part waterside, part hill town, and a genuine sense of its own identity that Corkonians are happy to tell you about.

A B&B or guesthouse in Cork city puts you within walking distance of the English Market, a covered food market trading on the same site since 1788, and of the shops and cafes along St Patrick’s Street and the surrounding lanes. University College Cork’s riverside campus and the quieter streets around Fitzgerald Park are also close, so the city works equally well for a day of shopping and food or a slower wander through its Victorian and Georgian corners.

North of the river, the hilly Shandon quarter is Cork’s old butter and trading district, still marked by St Anne’s Church and its famous bells and pepperpot steeple. Cork City Gaol, a short walk further out, gives a sharper sense of the city’s nineteenth-century history. Together with the Crawford Art Gallery in the centre, these give Cork a real depth of things to see beyond a single afternoon.

Cork city is also the best base for day trips in this part of the country. Blarney Castle and its famous stone are about twenty minutes away, Cobh, the last port of call for the Titanic and a major point of departure for nineteenth-century emigration, is a short train ride to the harbour, and Kinsale’s harbour town is under half an hour by road. Staying in the city centre means you can reach any of them without checking out.