Charles Fort, Cork

When we arrived at Charles Fort it was raining so hard that we decided to have lunch and hope it cleared up enough to allow exploration of the mostly exposed site. With typical Irish hospitality, and changeability, the rain did indeed stop enough for us to have a look around.


According to the OPW, Charles Fort is a 17th century structure erected on the site of an earlier coastal fortress. Check out the OPW website for an arial photo that shows you the classic star shape of the fort.

Charles Fort is one of the largest military forts in the country and was actively involved in a number of historic battles. It was involved in the Williamite War in 1690 and the Irish Civil War in 1922-23.

The site is huge.

It's practically a whole ruined city.

As always, I'm struck by the narrowness of the hallways. Defensible, I suppose, but it's an interesting reminder of how much skinnier people were in days of old. I imagine that even modern soldiers, still a physically fit bunch, would have trouble squeezing their bulging deltoids through these corridors.

The site is damp and gloomy today, and it's hard to imagine that it was ever much more cheerful. If I had been stationed here I'm sure I would have developed a pathological fear of the dark, slimy storehouses.

There were some strange quirks in the battalions who manned this fort. For example, a small number of the company were permitted to have wives in the barracks. These army wives received free rations in exchange for slave labour sewing and cooking for the troops. They also, weirdly, didn't receive any special accommodation and had to bunk up with their hubby and all the other men.

Again, it became difficult to be polite to the men of our company following this brief visit. Hanging out with the OPW may yet turn me into a raging feminist. I found myself proposing that afternoon that women should institute a 600 odd year burst of retaliatory oppression just to even things up a little before we seriously attempt equality.