Cork
— — a port town that still hums on a Saturday morning.
Not only on a wall.
“Second city of Ireland, set on an island where the River Lee splits and re-joins on its way to Cork Harbour. The old quarter holds the English Market under its 1788 roof, the Shandon bells over Shandon Street, and a stout poured slow at the bar. Cork carries the rebel name with quiet pride. The light, off the Lee on a clear morning, is the colour of weak tea and silver.
Cork, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Cork sits on the River Lee in the south-west of Ireland, the country's second-largest city and the seat of County Cork. The medieval core was built on a marshy island where the Lee splits in two and re-joins downstream toward Cork Harbour, one of the largest natural harbours in the world. The city centre lies near sea level, walkable end to end in about thirty minutes. University College Cork, founded in 1845, anchors the western quarter. The wider metropolitan population is around two hundred and ten thousand.
St Anne's Church on Shandon Street, finished in 1722, gives Cork its silhouette: a sandstone-and-limestone tower with the four-faced clock locals still call the Four-Faced Liar for the slight disagreement of its dials. The English Market dates from 1788 and runs under a Victorian wrought-iron roof; the same families have held some of its stalls for four generations. Down on Patrick Street, the curved Georgian facades follow the river's old course. The Cork City Gaol on the north hill, opened in 1824, now serves as a museum.
The River Lee shapes Cork the way the Liffey shapes Dublin. It rises in the Shehy Mountains to the west and reaches the city as two channels around the old island, then runs east into Cork Harbour at Lough Mahon. The harbour itself, often listed second in the world by area after Sydney, sheltered the last port of call for the RMS Titanic at Cobh in 1912. The Lee floods occasionally in winter; the city has lived with the tides for eight centuries.