A Port of Cork company’s five-year plan to expand its cruise liner trade is ahead of schedule with a record-breaking number of luxury passenger ships due next year.

The Port of Cork plans to build a new cruise line terminal at the deepwater quay in Cobh at an estimated cost up to €15m — and it could be operational by 2020.

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Mona Lynch has been a close friend of Mary McDonnell’s for nearly half a century. Currently studying an MA in creative writing at the age of 76, she writes about the life Mary has had, and what the future might hold for her and her daughter, Sinead. 

A masterplan is to be prepared to boost tourism to one of the finest remaining examples of a classical coastal artillery fort in the world.

An Bord Pleanála has a duty to the Irish people that it is not living up to with regards to Indaver’s plans for Cork Harbour, writes Linda Fitzpatrick

A small coastal community has the worst infrastructure in Co Cork, with its roads, water and sewerage systems being described as “Third World”, according to a local councillor.

Work is due to start shortly on clearing gantry cranes and other scrap metal from a toxic dump in Cork harbour, as a prelude to making the site safe and transforming it into a public park with playing pitches.

There won’t be another year like 2015 for Valerie Mulcahy. A 10th All-Ireland with Cork, an active role in historic legislation on marriage equality, her own nuptials and a tearful end of an outrageously successful union with Eamon Ryan. Beat that, 2016.

A lament to Thomas Kent, the displaying of an anchor from gun-running ship SS Aud, and re-enactments of marching Volunteers are among more than 300 events and projects being planned in Cork for next year’s 1916 centenary commemorations.

Cork County Council has spent nearly €10m in four years promoting tourism and is aiming to do more to aid the industry.

A new report has proposed an ambitious new tourist attraction for Cork that would open up its harbour to over 60km of recreational water trails for kayaking, canoeing, and other small vessels.

Cork County Council exceeded expectations by collecting €110.3m in rates last year, up €20m on 2009.

A junior minister has told Cork County Council it must drop a ban on building industrial-scale incinerators which the local authority has included in a blueprint for future development.

Cork County Council has managed to convince the Government to lift a recruitment embargo to fill senior positions on the local authority — but did not manage to do the same for frontline outdoor workers.

Cork County Council has already employed 121 interns on the JobBridge scheme and aims to employ a further 215 people through the Gateway scheme by the end of the year.

A senior garda has tried to allay community leaders’ fears that a tourist hotspot in Cork will not have its Garda station closed following the transfer of its sole sergeant.

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Kerry Collins is so fascinated by Fort Camden she’s exhibiting there

A leading environmental campaigner has given her seal of approval to a plan to make safe a toxic dump in Cork harbour and transform it ito a public park.

Three interpretive centres are to be opened on Spike Island in the summer of 2015, which will kickstart a series of projects aimed at turning it into a major tourist attraction, according to county manager Martin Riordan.

A major row broke out after a member of Cork County Council accused his own authority of complying with a Fine Gael project which he labelled as being akin “to slave labour”.

“I’ll be the last man standing,” declared retired Irish army sergeant Michael Kelly ahead of today’s 75th anniversary commemoration of the handover of the Treaty Ports from the British.

Some of Cork’s best-known food heroes took their produce to Dublin yesterday in a bid to tempt international conference visitors south.

Some eagle-eyed readers will recall no doubt recall The Menu’s debut column kicking off with an appeal for old china crockery to stock The Tearooms at the heart of the restoration of Fort Camden, in Crosshaven, ‘star’ of Diarmuid Gavin’s RTÉ series Dirty Old Towns.

PAUL BRIERLEY has a cool head on him, for a man on a deadline.

Tunnels below a restored coastal military fort are set to open to the public for the first time this summer with a host of new attractions expected to attract more than 15,000 visitors.

Investors are being lined up amid hopes Cork is set to land a leading role in several TV and film productions.

A RESTORED coastal fort could become an iconic internationally recognised tourist attraction, hosting up to 100,000 visitors annually within 20 years.

TAOISEACH Enda Kenny declined an invitation to a red head convention in Crosshaven, Co Cork, over the weekend due to a prior commitment, but that didn’t stop 500 people with ginger locks from partying to raise funds for cancer research.

A FORMER navy diver is taking to the sea and air to show off one of the world’s finest natural harbours.

LOCAL public representatives are to request that Cork County Council purchase a historic house as part of its plan to turn Cork’s lower harbour into a major tourist attraction.

COMMUNITIES in Cork could soon be cleaning their own streets and maintaining cemeteries because cash-strapped Cork County Council may be unable to provide the service indefinitely.

PLANS are being drawn up to create a tourist attraction out of a fort built in Cork harbour in the late 1700s.

CORK County Council officials are to compile a report on designating Spike Island a national heritage and amenity site, in a move which could finally remove any possibility of a super jail being built there.