The following extract sums up the importance of the English Market for the city of Cork. It is taken from Serving a City: The Story of Cork's English Market (Collins Press, 2005), by Diarmuid Ó Drisceoil and Donal Ó Drisceoil.
Durcan's Butchers, English Market, Cork
A photo of Durcan's Butcher's, a stall in the English Market in Cork. It is a traditional butcher's that sells Cork's favourite meats, especially beef. It also now also stocks meats that are popular with Cork's large Polish community.
© Cork City Libraries.Durcan's Butchers, English Market, Cork
© Cork City Libraries.
© Cork City Libraries.
Durcan's Butchers, English Market, Cork
A photo of Durcan's Butcher's, a stall in the English Market in Cork. It is a traditional butcher's that sells Cork's favourite meats, especially beef. It also now also stocks meats that are popular with Cork's large Polish community.
© Cork City Libraries."The potential of the unique city-centre location of the Market stimulates creativity, not only among traders, but also in the wider artistic community. Since the mid-1990s cultural events have been staged there ... Fashion shows and food fairs have been hosted, and the Farmgate has been the venue for a series of the Cork Film Festival's "Grand Café Screenings" of silent classics with live musical accompaniment. The old gallery has hosted poetry readings, choral, operatic and traditional song recitals, and art exhibitions, while a theatre company has used the entire night-time Market as a stage. These developments have been positively received and add a new ingredient to what the Market offers.
Evolution, change, decline, rejuvenation, neglect, passion and endurance have created the Market as it is today. Its existence has an organic quality that ensures continuing change, the pace of which has quickened in line with developments in the wider world."