Cork

Cork grew on an island between two channels of the river Lee, where the quays lead out to one of the world's largest natural harbours. It began as a monastery said to have been founded by Saint Finbarr in the sixth century, and Norse settlers made it a trading port between 915 and 922. Prince John granted its charter in 1185, and the walled town became an outpost of Old English culture in the middle of a hostile Gaelic countryside, cut off from the government in the Pale around Dublin. The neighbouring Gaelic and Hiberno-Norman lords took Black Rent from the citizens to keep from attacking them.

Between twelve and fifteen merchant families ran the municipal government, and their wealth came from exporting wool and hides and importing salt, iron and wine from the Continent. The city had roughly 2,100 people when the Black Death in 1349 killed nearly half of them. The mayoralty was created by royal charter in 1318. In 1491 the pretender Perkin Warbeck landed in Cork to raise support against Henry VII; the mayor and several leading citizens went with him to England and were executed when the rebellion failed. The city later took the nickname of the rebel city for its Yorkist loyalties. In September 1690 the Earl of Marlborough besieged Cork and its Jacobite garrison surrendered, and in the eighteenth century the port kept up its trade in wool, yarn, tallow and hides.