Book Shopping in Cork

I spent most of the last two weeks of May in County Cork visiting my Auntie and Uncle in Kilbrittain along with my Mum and another Auntie. Aside from the family get together one of the main purposes of once of my holidays is the acquisition of books - ideally volumes published in Ireland, related to Ireland or cheap in that order. After arranging a day in Cork City I then began to search online for the best bookshops in order to plan a walking route, though the best information I could find was a few rather sparse looking city guides and an 18 month old discussion thread. Google was also somewhat confused by the subtle distinction between Cork the city and Cork the county with the entertaining side effect that my walking route would suddenly get 80km longer as I innocently added another search result. I eventually came up with a route which I now share with you (slightly modified from the route I took, since now I have some bags with actual addresses and street numbers, see below for an updated route with defunct bookshops removed).


I was dropped off in the Merchants Quay Shopping Centre and then headed over the bridge to my starting destination, Vibes & Scribes. This is something of a treasure trove of bargain and second hand books along with a selection of popular new books and I spent a good deal of time digging around. In the end I bought three books:

• The Secret Language of Birds, Adele Nozedar €7.99 - folk tales and legends to do with birds from cultures past and present around the world, as well as being cheap (UK published price £16.99) this book is quite beautiful with many black and white line drawings.
• Virtuality Check, Francois Porter €2.99 - interesting looking and cheap, describes how modern ICT technologies are used to 'subjugate workers' (doubt I'll agree, but less than three quid to find out).
• Pistache, Sebastian Faulks €2.99 - I've recently enjoyed two Faulks novels so was interested enough to pick this one up

After that good start I couldn't find the next two bookshops on my itinerary - Mercier Press have apparently switched to an online only model and were nowhere to be found on Academy Street and the Mainly Murder Bookstore closed after the proprietor sadly passed away. While wandering around looking for these I did come across a second Vibes and Scribes on Lavitt's Quay which I've added to the updated route below.


Other Realms is a Fantasy and Sci-Fi shop, along the lines of Forbidden Planet, rather than a straight bookshop. There were a large selection of US import books, including some by Irish authors. They also had several 'author guide' sheets attached to the shelves which listed the different series by the author and the order they go in which I thought were really useful (I like to begin at the start!). No cheap or bargain books, and, though I was tempted by the complete set of Discworld books in US covers, I didn't buy anything.


Connolly's is a second hand bookshop and features books of all vintages piled floor to ceiling on shelves and any other spare, flat area. I could have spent a long time in here but instead concentrated on the Irish Interest section, and bought one book:

• High Noon And other short stories €5.99 - a collection of the best entries into the 2005 Cork County Library and Arts Service Bealtaine short story competion.

Since it was now lunchtime I met up with the family at The Crawford Cafe, on the ground floor of the Crawford Art Gallery on Emmet Place. I had a curry, which was very nice, and we can also recommend the soup (potato and garlic) and the pancakes After that it was back on the road.


A fairly typical Waterstone's, lots of three for two offers and a large section of Irish/local interest books. Since most of what was available I could get at any Waterstone's in London I just bought the one book:

• The Stolen Village, Des Ekin €12.99 - the story of how an entire West Cork village was captured by Barbary pirates and taken to a life of slavery in North Africa, I have just finished re-reading Stephenson's Baroque Cycle and this book immediately brought to mind the character Eliza.

A small second hand bookshop, also sold second hand CDs, tapes and records. Not the same variety as Connolly's, I didn't buy anything.


Saving the best till last, Liam Ruiseal Teo has new and bargain books, academic titles and a wall full of Irish interest books including several shelves of books in Irish (not that they were any good to me, of course). I spent a lot of time browsing around and ended up buying three books:

• No Time For Work, George Ryan €6.90 - a self published book, and signed by the author, about an assistant teacher, I read the first paragraph and laughed out loud.
• Head Rambles, Richard O'Connor €9.99 - didn't find their shop but I did at least find several books published by Mercier, this book is based on a blog
• All names have been changed, Claire Kilroy €12.99 - set in Dublin in the mid-1980s and focussed on a tight-knit writing group at Trinity College, it's a Faber book so could probably have bought it back in the UK but the money was burning a hole in my pocket

If you're visiting Cork in the near future (and it's well worth a day out) here's my updated bookshop walking route. I didn't have time to make it to the last one on my list, Shelf on Georges Quay, but I'd spent too much money by then anyway! Since I didn't get started until nearly midday I shouldn't think you'd have to hurry to fit it all in if you got started a bit earlier. If you know of any other good bookshops in Cork then please post a comment and I can check it out the next time I'm over.