Fifty-one places make up this list, and the shape of it follows the coast. Cobh and Crosshaven sit on Cork Harbour itself, close enough to the city for an afternoon: Cobh with its pastel terraces climbing to St Colman’s Cathedral and the ferry out to Spike Island’s star fort, Crosshaven with the Royal Cork Yacht Club, founded in 1720 and the oldest in the world, five beaches within two miles and Camden Fort Meagher on the cliff above the water. Kinsale, a little further round, is the painted harbour town with the star-shaped forts and the seafood reputation.
West of there the N71 strings most of the rest together. Clonakilty stands at the head of its bay, 52km from the city, with the Blue Flag strand at Inchydoney 3km out. Castletownshend is a single steep street running down past two sycamores growing in the middle of the road to a small pier. Bantry sits at the head of Bantry Bay and is the launch point for the Beara, Sheep’s Head and Mizen peninsulas, so the far ends of this list, Castletownbere and Crookhaven, mean a long drive beyond it.
Inland is thinner but not empty. Ballyvourney is the heart of the Muskerry Gaeltacht, Dunmanway still trades at a horse fair chartered in 1615, and Ballinhassig lies 10km south of the city.
The Titanic's last port of call and Ireland's main emigrant gate, with pastel terraces under St Colman's Cathedral and the ferry to Spike Island.
A painted harbour town long styled Ireland's gourmet capital, with star-shaped forts, the region's only Michelin star and coastal walks at the Wild Atlantic Way's southern end.
A commuter village 10km south of Cork with a violent past, the 1845 riot and the Toureen ambush, and the Republic's longest abandoned rail tunnel nearby.
The heart of the Muskerry Gaeltacht, where Irish is the everyday language and the St Gobnait pilgrimage rounds take walkers to a holy well and grave mound.
Set at the head of Bantry Bay and the launch point for the Beara, Sheep's Head and Mizen peninsulas, with Bantry House gardens and a Friday market.
51 of 51 shown — tap a pin for the place.
Cobh, cork
Cobh was the Titanic's last port of call and, for a century, Ireland's main emigrant gate – some 2.5 million people sailed out from here. Pastel terraces climb the hill under St Colman's Cathedral, and the ferry to Spike Island's star fort is the standout day trip.
cork
Kinsale is a painted harbour town in County Cork, long styled Ireland’s gourmet capital and home to the region’s only Michelin star. Its 1601 battle changed the course of Irish history, and today the draw is the star-shaped forts, the seafood, and coastal walks at the southern end of the Wild Atlantic Way.
Ballinhassig, cork
Ballinhassig is a quiet farming-turned-commuter village 10 km south of Cork, but its past is anything but quiet: the RIC killed eleven people here in an 1845 riot, and the IRA's Toureen ambush in 1921 brought reprisal burnings. The Gogginshill railway tunnel nearby is the longest abandoned rail tunnel in the Republic.
South-west County Cork, cork
Ballyvourney is the heart of the Muskerry Gaeltacht, where Irish is still the everyday language and the pilgrimage rounds of St Gobnait draw walkers to a holy well, a grave mound and a medieval oak statue shown just twice a year. The composer Seán Ó Riada lived and is buried here.
Bantry, cork
Bantry sits at the head of Bantry Bay, the launch point for the Beara, Sheep's Head and Mizen peninsulas. Bantry House has Ireland's best-known terraced gardens and the Hundred Steps, and the Friday market in Wolfe Tone Square is the reason to time a visit for the end of the week.
Castletownbere, cork
Berehaven is Ireland's largest whitefish port, a deep-water anchorage sheltered behind Bere Island on the Beara Peninsula. It was a Royal Navy Treaty Port until 1938, and Lonehort Battery and four Martello towers still guard it. Two ferries cross to Bere Island year-round.
Castletownbere, cork
Castletownbere is Ireland's largest whitefish port, a working harbour town at the foot of the Caha Mountains on the Beara Peninsula. It makes the natural base for the area, with ferries to Bere Island, the Dursey cable car west along the coast, and the Beara Way passing through.
Castletownshend, cork
Castletownshend is a West Cork village of a single steep street that runs down past two sycamores growing in the middle of the road to a small pier and a 17th-century castle, now a family-run B&B. St Barrahane's Church, reached by 52 steps, holds Harry Clarke stained glass, and boats run whale-watching and sea-kayaking trips from the harbour.
Clonakilty, cork
Clonakilty sits at the head of its bay on the N71, 52km southwest of Cork city. It is the home of Twomey's black pudding, of De Barra's folk club, and of a Blue Flag strand at Inchydoney 3km away. Michael Collins went to school here, and there's a statue of him in Emmet Square.
Cork City, cork
St Finbarr founded a monastery here in the 7th century, and the island he chose still holds Cork's centre: the English Market trading since 1788, the Shandon bells above the rooftops, and a run of Victorian quays you can walk end to end in twenty minutes.
Crookhaven, cork
Ireland's most south-western tip lies at Crookhaven, where the sheltered basin cradles a fleet of colourful fishing boats. Beyond the harbour, Barleycove’s golden sands and the historic Marconi wireless experiments of the early 1900s add layers of natural and technological distinction to the peninsula.
Crosshaven, cork
Crosshaven is home to the Royal Cork Yacht Club, founded in 1720 and the oldest in the world, at the mouth of the River Owenabue on Cork Harbour. The village has five beaches within two miles, a working marina, and the clifftop ramparts of Camden Fort Meagher above the water.
Dunmanway, cork
Sir Richard Cox laid out Dunmanway’s grid of streets in the 1690s, and the Ballabuidhe Horse Fair still trades under a charter granted by James I in 1615. Sam Maguire, whose name is on the All-Ireland football trophy, was born and buried here, and the surrounding lakes give free fishing for trout and salmon.
Enniskeane, cork
Enniskeane and its twin, Ballineen, sit either side of the River Bandon in West Cork. The pull isn't the villages themselves but the ring of sites around them: Kinneigh, the only round tower in Ireland with a hexagonal base, the ten-arch Ballineen Bridge, and Kilcascan Castle, which you can walk into for free at your own risk.
Beara Peninsula, cork
Rainbow-coloured shutters line the cliff-top houses overlooking Coulagh Bay. From this lively doorstep, the Beara Way unfurls past ancient stone circles, while local pubs and farm shops keep the village buzzing year-round.
Fermoy, cork
Fermoy was laid out on a grid in 1791 by the Scottish entrepreneur John Anderson, who ran Ireland's first mail-coach system from here. The town sits on the salmon-rich River Blackwater in east Cork, with a riverside promenade, a rowing club founded in 1884 and walks into the Blackwater Valley.
Glandore, cork
Glandore is a one-street sailing village on a deep, sheltered inlet in West Cork, its harbour mouth guarded by the Adam and Eve islands. The Bronze Age Drombeg Stone Circle is a couple of kilometres east, and the village fills out for its August regatta and biennial classic boat festival.
Glengarriff, cork
Glengarriff Harbour is a calm West Cork inlet where the blue waters of Bantry Bay meet the ancient oak woodlands of the Caha Mountains. Visitors can catch a short ferry to the sub-tropical gardens of Garinish Island, follow waymarked trails through Ireland’s finest oceanic oak forest, or simply watch the fishing fleet and summer cruise liners drift into the mountain-framed waters.
Mallow, cork
Mallow grew from a defended ford on the River Blackwater into an 18th-century spa town known as the Irish Bath. Its 16th-century castle keeps a herd of white fallow deer descended from a gift by Elizabeth I, and the town centre still turns on the 19th-century Clock House and its surrounding pubs.
Midleton, cork
Most of Ireland's best-known whiskeys – Jameson, Redbreast, Powers, Green Spot – are distilled at Midleton, an East Cork market town 25 minutes from the city. The old distillery, now the Jameson Experience, holds the world's largest pot still at 140,000 litres; up the road the Kindred Spirits sculpture marks the Choctaw Nation's donation to Irish famine relief in 1847.
Clonakilty, cork
The West Cork Railway closed in 1961; this hand-built model, opened by President Mary Robinson in 1994, freezes its towns and branch lines as they looked in the 1940s. Working trains run through miniature Clonakilty, Bandon, Dunmanway and Kinsale, and a road-train tour takes you out onto Clonakilty's real streets.
Newmarket, cork
Two figures from a Cork town of a thousand people left a long shadow: John Philpot Curran, the great courtroom orator, born here in 1750, and his daughter Sarah, the sweetheart of the rebel Robert Emmet, who is buried in the town. Newmarket (Áth Trasna) grew from a 1615 market grant into a quiet Sliabh Luachra music town, with the Island Wood and its 'Twelve Apostles' tree a short walk from the square.
Shandon, cork
Pastel merchant houses line the north bank of the River Lee at Pope's Quay, below the columned front of St Mary's Dominican Church. The quay takes its name from a widowed merchant, Mary Pope – not the Pope in Rome – and mixes Georgian and Victorian stone with a run of independent cafés and craft shops.
Rathbarry, cork
Twice named Ireland's tidiest settlement, in 1999 and again in 2017, Rathbarry sits at the gate of the Castlefreke estate. A 9 m memorial cross, the tallest in Ireland, stands over the demesne, and a network of waymarked trails links the ruins, Kilkeran Lake and the dunes behind Long and Red Strand.
South-west coast of County Cork, cork
Schull is a sailing village at the edge of the Mizen Peninsula, under the 407m slopes of Mount Gabriel. Its sheltered harbour fills with boats in summer, a ferry runs to Cape Clear Island, and a planetarium sits in the community college. The Old Butter Road walk links it to Ballydehob.
Skibbereen, cork
The River Ilen threads through Skibbereen, West Cork's unofficial capital, past pastel shopfronts and a Saturday market of Gubbeen cheese and local produce. It carries a hard Famine history – up to 10,000 are buried in the Abbeystrewry pits – and makes a handy base for Lough Hyne, Tragumna beach and the Roaringwater Bay islands.
Union Hall, cork
Union Hall is a small working fishing village on the west side of Glandore Harbour, home to about 360 people and a busy fleet at Keelbeg Pier. The draws are mostly a short drive out: the Drombeg Stone Circle, Blue Flag beaches, and whale-watching trips into the Atlantic. Netflix used the village, lightly disguised, as the town of Bodkin in 2024.
Eastern side of Cork Harbour, cork
Baile Bhuirne, cork
Ballineen, cork
North County Cork, cork
Cork, cork
Bandon, cork
West Cork, cork
Buttevant, cork
Charleville, cork
Churchtown, cork
Cill na Martra, cork
Cúil Aodha, cork
Drimoleague, cork
West Cork, cork
cork
Killavullen, cork
Kilmacsimon, cork
North-west County Cork, cork
Bere Island, cork
Lyre, cork
Castletownbere, cork
Monkstown, cork
Macroom, cork
Ringaskiddy, cork
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