Cork in Irish Art: Cobh, Blarney, Mizen Head and the River Lee

Cork is the biggest county in Ireland, and its art is correspondingly varied: a harbour city seen from the hills in the 1790s, a lighthouse on the last rock before America, a Victorian history painter who started out in the city, and a quiet West Cork evening hung in the National Gallery of Ireland. This guide walks through the county in art, from Cork city out to the Atlantic, with the prints that go with each stop. For the wider picture, start with the Irish art prints collection.

Cork city and the river Lee, 1796–1799

The finest early record of Cork's setting is a set of aquatints by Thomas Sautelle Roberts, a Waterford-born painter who trained as an architect. Between 1795 and 1799 he published twelve views of Ireland's southern cities and rivers, and several of them are of Cork. They are worth knowing because they show a place before the nineteenth century rebuilt it.

City of Cork (1799) is taken from high ground, with cattle in the foreground, church spires on the skyline, the bridge over the Lee and a harbour crowded with masts. It shows the city near the height of its Atlantic provisioning trade, when Cork butter and beef fed ships across the ocean.

Blackrock Castle (1796) shows the old tower on the Lee, built in the 1580s to guard Cork's approaches, as it stood before a fire destroyed it in 1827. The castle there today is its successor. In Roberts's view, anglers fish from a rowing boat beneath the walls while tall ships ride at anchor. His Blarney Castle (1796) records a Gothic mansion at the foot of the medieval keep that was later lost.

Two Cork painters

Daniel Maclise was born in Cork in 1806 and became one of the leading history painters of Victorian Britain, best known for the large murals in the Palace of Westminster. His smaller, quieter work is more intimate. The Ballad Seller, painted in 1858, shows a young woman in a red cape with a sleeping child on her shoulder, a sheet of ballads in one hand and a basket of apples in the other. More of his work is in the Daniel Maclise collection.

Egerton Coghill (1853–1921) was also Cork-born and spent much of his life in Castletownshend, returning to the same landscapes again and again. A View of Castletownshend, from 1903, shows soft evening light over heathered hills with an old track winding through them. The original hangs in the National Gallery of Ireland.

Harbour, castle and coast

Not all of Cork's imagery is painting. Cobh, known as Queenstown until 1920, was the Titanic's last port of call and, for generations before that, the departure point for millions of emigrants. The Cobh retro travel poster shows the cathedral spire above a row of colourful houses, and it sits well in a hall or on a stairwell.

Further west, the Mizen Head framed print shows Ireland's most southwesterly point, with cliffs and deep blue water. Fastnet Rock, just beyond, has a lighthouse dating from 1904, and it was the last piece of Ireland that emigrant ships passed. Our Fastnet travel poster is the Cork lighthouse print, and the Irish posters collection has the rest of the series. For something older in feel, try the vintage prints.

Choosing a Cork print

If the print is for someone from Cork, the Roberts aquatints make the most distinctive gifts, because they show a recognisable place in an unfamiliar century. Cobh and Mizen Head suit a modern room, and Coghill and Maclise suit a quieter wall. All are made to order and ship free worldwide.