History
Cork ( Corcaigh , meaning "marshy place") had its origins in the seventh century when St Finbarr founded an abbey and school on the site where the impressive nineteenth-century Gothic St Finbarr's Cathedral stands today. A settlement grew up around the monastic foundation, overlooking a marshy swamp where the city centre now stands. In 820 the Vikings arrived, bringing their usual violence and destruction, and wrecked both abbey and town. They built a new settlement on one of the islands in the marshes and eventually integrated with the native Celts. The twelfth century saw the Norman invasion and Cork, like other ports, was taken in 1172. The new acquisition was fortified with massive stone walls, which survived Cromwell but were destroyed by Williamite forces at the Siege of Cork in 1690. From this time the city began to take on the shape recognizable today. Expansion saw the reclamation of marshes and the development of canals within the city, and waterborne trade brought increasing prosperity. Evidence of this wealth survives in the form of fine eighteenth-century bow-fronted houses and the ostentatious nineteenth-century church architecture decorating the city - sharp, grey and Gothic, much of it by the Pain brothers. Traces of the great dairy trade of that period can still be seen in the Shandon area. More recently, Cork saw much violence and suffered greatly during the Anglo-Irish and Civil wars: the city's part in Republican history is well documented in the local museum. The Black and Tans reigned here with particular terror, destroying much of the town by fire, and were responsible for the murder of Thomas MacCurtain, the mayor of Cork, in 1920. Cork's next mayor, Terence MacSwiney, was jailed as a Republican and died in Brixton prison after a hunger strike of 74 days. He was a popular hero, and his hunger strike remains one of the longest achieved in the history of the IRA. One of his colleagues in Cork prison, Joseph Murphy, achieved the longest fast on record, going 76 days without food. As part of the Republic, Cork has continued to develop - as a port, a university city and a cultural centre - and to assert its independence from Dublin
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