Cork

Day 1,575, 07:01 • Published in Ireland South Africa • by Domagoj 93

Cork is the second largest city in Ireland and the island of Ireland's third most populous city. It is the principal city and administrative centre of County Cork and the largest city in the province of Munster.









County Cork is the largest County in Ireland, and Cork City is Ireland’s third largest city after Dublin and Belfast. The area of Cork City is 3,731 hectares. County Cork covers an area of 7,459 square kilometres or 2,880 square miles, which is 11% of the Irish State.










Cork is known as the “Rebel County” due to the high level of rebel activity in the county during the War of Independence and the subsequent Civil War.




The Irish or Gaelic name for Cork is ‘Corcaigh’ meaning ‘a marsh’. Cork City began on an island in the swampy estuary of the River Lee.











There are many tourist attractions in Cork and one of the most popular is Blarney Castle, here you will get an opportunity to ‘Kiss The Blarney Stone’ – when you kiss the Blarney Stone it is said you will get the ‘Gift of The Gab’ meaning you will speak in a persuasive and interesting way!












Fota Island is one of the three bigger islands in Cork harbour and is a wildlife reserve and wildlife park with an arboretum contain rare species of trees and shrubs. Fota Wildlife Park has over 70 species of exotic wildlife that includes giraffes, zebras, ostrich and much more that roam together in 40 acres of grassland.













Cork was originally a monastic settlement founded by Saint Finbarr in the 6th century. Cork achieved an urban character at some point between 915 and 922 when Norseman (Viking) settlers founded a trading port.It has been proposed that, like Dublin, Cork was an important trading centre in the global Scandinavian trade network.



















Cork is an important educational centre in Ireland. University College Cork (UCC), a constituent university of the National University of Ireland, offers a wide variety of courses in Arts, Commerce, Engineering, Law, Medicine and Science.




St. Patrick's Street, the main street of the city which was remodelled in the mid 2000s, is known for the architecture of the buildings along its pedestrian-friendly route and is the main shopping thoroughfare. The reason for its curved shape is that it originally was a channel of the River Lee that was built over on arches