Cork trades a merchant past for a European Capital of Culture

If you've ever wondered what Venice would look like without the water, go to Cork, on Ireland's southern shoreline. Two arms of the River Lee still cradle the downtown core, but the other waterways that once connected 13 islands just upstream from the harbour have been reclaimed -- which explains some of the meandering curves and eddies in the city's road system.

The watery heritage that lends Cork a continental air also gave the city its name -- Corcaig, or marsh -- and its role as a major port dating back to Elizabethan times. Graceful Georgian buildings and myriad bridges still line the river quays, which once welcomed all manner of ships, trading goods such as salted butter.

"History is geography and geography is history," says Tom McCarthy, a local poet and historian who also served as assistant director of Cork 2005, the organization that led the city's renowned year as European Capital of Culture. "In 1620, one ship's manifesto showed it trading out of Laverno, Italy with 40 tons of Tuscan wine and olives on board. Go into the English Market today, and you'll see the olives still. The city remains a great window to the sea."

He's right. The iron gates of the English Market, still bustling between St. Patrick's Street and the Grand Parade after some four centuries in operation, open onto a cornucopia of fresh food. At one time, only "loyal" English settlers could be traders here. Such distinctions are thankfully relegated to the history books, and today the local delicacy "drisheen" (a pigs' blood sausage) ranks with organic coffee, fresh flowers, piles of silvery fish, small cafés and -- yes -- Italian olives.

Cork today is using the city's reign as Europe's cultural centre for 2005 in much the same way -- embracing traditions both local and distant, and coming full circle in its history, back to its earliest days as a monastic settlement and centre of art and learning. Scratch the surface, and you'll find everything from Irish choirs to Italian operas, along with dance, music, theatre, literature, architecture and art.

At the Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, just a quick walk from the English Market, one of Ireland's most important galleries fronts an outdoor pedestrian plaza that was itself reclaimed from the river waters. Inside the red brick and limestone building, the permanent collection's many Irish artists, past and present, include painter Jack B. Yeats. Brother to the poet W.B. Yeats, Jack earned a reputation in the first half of the 20^th century as a shrewd commentator on Irish culture, often turning small subjects -- donkeys, perhaps, or a boxer in the ring -- into works that reveal the dreams and motivations behind the face that the island presents to the world.

The layers beyond the surface appear to be a Cork phenomenon. McCarthy notes that the city is much like the now-hidden waterways -- it has a whole other cultural landscape beneath its merchant past, including in its architecture. He notes that St. Peter and Paul's Church was dedicated in 1866. "The man behind the building spent 20 years in Canada trapping furs, met a Jesuit met in the woods, went to Rome and became a priest, and then built the church," McCarthy explains.

The man in question -- the fur trading son of a family of brewers -- was John Murphy (the Murphy brewery's still going), and he had the good sense to bring in architect E.W. Pugin, whose father had helped to revive Gothic architecture. The church isn't obvious, tucked away off narrow Paul Street, but it's one of Pugin's signature works. Through the building's stained glass windows, framed in arches and rosettes, bright sunlight washes the deep walnut wood used throughout the interior in pure blues and reds. Gothic spires line the panel behind the altar, while saintly statues watch from a vaulted ceiling.

If you time it right, you'll be there as the priest begins a melodic repetition of the rosary, an age-old meditative pause in a building that seems to wrap the influences of art, trade and history into one -- much as Cork does.

For more information
Buses and trains run regularly from Dublin to Cork. For travel information, including accommodation, contact Tourism Ireland and the city of Cork.  Annual festivals include:
* Cork Midsummer Festival
* Cork Film Festival
* Guinness Cork Jazz Festival