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We spent one day in Cork, Ireland — and it wasn’t enough!

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We spent just one day in Cork, Ireland and fell in love with the city’s history, architecture and food! Here’s what we did with just 8 hours in Cork!

After spending three days in Dublin, we drove to Sheen Falls Lodge in Kenmare. And the next day, after sleeping in a bit, we decided to backtrack to hit Cork rather than spend a full day doing the Ring of Kerry.

We were thrilled with that last-minute change since we Ioved Cork. And, we still got to see plenty of the Ring of Kerry on our way to Adare.

What to see in Cork Ireland

We did the first three and spent most of our day just walking around Cork. I often find walking without a set agenda the best way to explore a city vs. just going from attraction to attraction.

We saw kids getting out of school, people grocery shopping, and others sitting and enjoying lunch together. Seeing “normalcy” while a tourist makes the world feel more connected. It’s part of why I love running when I travel – you see the city differently!

Cork City Gaol

We came into the city and headed to the Cork City Gaol first. It’s a castle-like prison turned museum and super fascinating to tour.

Cork City Gaol

Cork Gaol

It opened in 1824 and while the building is impressive, the audio guide (which we highly recommend) described how brutal the conditions were.

cork city attractions

audio tour cork gaol

gaol in cork

Some rooms are furnished with the conditions the prisoners had and some cells had writing on the walls from prisoners. It was honestly a little jarring at times since it was almost too easy to picture being confined there.

Overall, it was a little eerie, a little cool and definitely worth visiting.

Lunch in Cork

After the Gaol, we parked our car on the other side of the river and grabbed lunch at Perry Street Market. One of my Instagram followers recommended it and she did NOT lead us astray!! Not only were the employees lovely, the food was INCREDIBLE.

Tommy got chili and I got another soup and both of us agreed it was some of the best food of our trip — and Dublin’s food was AMAZING so our bar was high. As we left, we got scones for the road and the employees loaded us up with all sorts of pastries without charge. I guess they could tell we were obsessed?

perry street market cork ireland

cork ireland restaurants

After lunch, we just meandered. We headed in the general direction of Saint Fin Barre’s Cathedral but we were okay with not taking the most direct route. We stopped where we wanted to, took in the views and just enjoyed the day.

cork ireland

Walk along The River Lee

The River Lee was so peaceful with beautiful views along the water.

things to do in cork

I mean, do you think the home of George Boole is a tourist attraction listed on most sites? Nope. But we found it on our meandering walk! Tommy and I both loved seeing where the creator of boolean algebra lived. I mean, who doesn’t love Algebra?! (For reals, I loved algebra.)

george boole cork ireland

And we eventually made it to our next stop!

Saint Fin Barre’s Cathedral

This place was UNREAL. It is just massive. Do you see me?

We had the cathedral nearly to ourselves, other than a couple of other tourists and the organist there practicing.

After exploring the cathedral, we returned to our car, passing by some more charm on the way. We drove back to Sheen Falls Lodge, which is one of the most magical places we’ve EVER stayed. More on that in another post!

walking cork ireland

Other nearby attractions

Tommy and I both agreed that we would stay longer in Cork (maybe spend one night?) to explore the area more. We’d love to hit the other things on the list above and some of the other attractions in the County Cork area.

  • Blarney Stone & Blarney Castle

We didn’t feel particularly drawn to go see the Blarney Stone but if we had more time, we probably would, just for funsies.

We particularly wished we had time to visit Kinsale, which is a fishing village about 30 minutes from cork.

We drove by Cobh on our way from Dublin to Kenmare and it look gorgeous! It’s also only about 30 minutes from Cork, and looked like it would have been a fun place to stop and have brunch before continuing on.

Always another reason to visit!

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