Cork Historic Walking Tours
Learn about Cork's long and illustrious history
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Scheduled Tours end Friday Sept 25th
Private tours run year-round
General Information
Cork Historic Walking Tours offers tours of Cork city which are intended to give the visitor an understanding of the origins of Cork, and how it developed throughout its varied, and occasionally precarious, history.
The first settlers in Cork were the monks of St Finbarre, who founded a monastery on the south bank of the river. In the early 800's A.D. the Vikings set up a trading post beside the monastery. The Normans arrived in 1177 A.D., drove out the Vikings and built the walled city that lasted until 1690 A.D. In its early days as an English outpost, the city was close to collapse, with the settlers being refused permission to return home to England, in an attempt to keep it viable. The City supported the losing side on many occasions, including Perkin Warbeck's, Charles II's and James II's. It has suffered many catastrophes such as fire, flood, famine and disease. After the siege of Cork in 1690A.D. the city walls were abandoned and the city exapanded in all directions.
Today it has a population of appproximately 130,000. Cork is famous as the home of Murphy's and Beamish and Crawford stouts, Barry's tea and the Examiner newspaper. It once was one of the largest ports in Britain or Ireland and was the hub of a huge rail network throughout the Southwest. It has played host to and produced many prominent people, including Edmond Spenser of "Faerie Queen" fame, Jonathon Swift, Bishop Berkeley, George Boole of boolean algebra fame and Rory Gallagher, Ireland's greatest guitarist. It was also the birth place of Nano Nagle, Frank O'Connor, Danny La Rue and Dennis Irwin and Roy Keane of Manchester United.