My in-law from Chicago looked a bit shook when he got out of his hire care near Turners Cross. Here’s a man who drives for a living with Federal Express all over America’s third city but nothing had prepared him for the craziness of driving around Cork. He’s a good-natured guy like all Americans but there was a “you cannot be serious” tone to his voice as he listed off phrases like Kinsale Road Roundabout! Barrack Street is two-way? and Five seconds after I crossed over the river downtown, I seemed to cross over it again.
The fact is that driving around Cork takes a bit of getting used to. So here are the top 5 things that a vesting motorist should know:
1: Parking Discs
It’s the scratch card where everybody loses. While other places have moved onto meter parking and ticket dispensers – we had them ourselves for a while, but the Corpo took them back because they proved too convenient – on-street parkers in Cork are still stuck with the disc. There are two certainties in parking life on Leeside: you never have an unused disc in the car and as you run up and down shopless side streets looking to buy some, it will rain unusually heavily. When it comes to scratching the time, the rule of thumb is to add ten minutes to the correct start time if you can see a parking warden from your car, thirty minutes if you can’t. Don’t use lipstick to mend old discs, it ends in tears.
2: Narrow two-say streets
Yes we know it’s odd that a glorified path with cars parked along both sides should take two-way traffic but welcome to Cork. If it looks like you can fit your motor down a lane without losing a wing-mirror then it’s probably a two-way street. Whenever you meet another car on a narrow street like Barrack Street the etiquette goes like this: They flash you to come on. You flash them back to say, ah no sure you come on. They respond by flashing their lights twice and muttering “will ya ever come on, ya langer.” You flash back twice and raise the stakes by waving him on. These stand-offs very often last for hours because your average Cork man would prefer to have somebody obliged to him rather than get to his destination on time. As a visitor, you will probably blink first and drive on. Make sure your wave of thanks is visible as you drive past or all hell could break loose.
3: Two Rivers
If you need to ask directions just pick somebody walking on the footpath who doesn’t look drunk, wind down the window and shout “Sorry??” at them, followed by your request. Getting directions in Cork is a tricky business though because of the river. People who live south of it might be able to tell you how to get from Ballinlough to Glasheen, but ask them how to get to Farranree and you’ll be met with “Haven’t a clue boy, never up there.” The truth is that you’ve a better chance of getting directions around Shanghai from a southsider than you have of getting hints on how to navigate the northside. It’s not much better in reverse; a northsider friend of mine has never seen the Lough. The other problem with the river is that splits in two around the city centre which means you have to tell visitors to cross the river twice when driving across town. For some reason this drives people from Dublin crazy – “how do ya mean it bleedin’ splits in two?!” – but to be honest it was like that when we got here and there’s not much we can do about it.
4: Multi-Storey Car Parks
If you decide to avoid the parking disc game when you drive into town, then you’ll need to choose a multi-storey car park. There’s a good selection of places strung along the river from City Hall in the east to St Finbarre’s out in the west. That said Cork people only ever want to go to the car parks at Paul’s St or Merchant’s Quay and will queue for an hour to get into them. Feel free to drive straight into the half-empty car park 100m down the road, there’s nothing wrong with it except that locals are slow to try something new in case they’re slagged for being avant garde, which is pronounced ‘langer’ in Cork.
5: Patrick’s Street
Despite appearances Patrick’s Street isn’t actually a pedestrian street. It’s just that if you’re pushing a buggy or drunk or both, you are legally entitled to run across the street at any point without any warning. Don’t blow your horn if somebody runs in front of you. The correct response is to calmly wind down the window and say: “Sorry?? You’re holdin’ up the whole of Pana.” Enjoy your stay in Cork.
