The town of Cobh, has always maintained a strong maritime tradition which we hope you too will experience. Today Cobh, while respecting the various tragedies of the past, now shines with a vibrancy that lifts the spirit and embraces Ireland's new confidence and vision.

Cobh, pronounced cove, is situated only 20 km from Cork City and is located on the southern shore of the Great Island, a jewel in one of the world's finest natural and deepest harbours. Some of its early place names are believed to derive from battles held with Phoenician Invaders. In the 7th century is was visited by religious monks who settled and contemplated all things spiritual. By 1176 the invasion of Henry the 2nd of England reached the port and its environs and altered the ownership and perspectives of local landowners. When Queen Victoria visited Ireland for the first time in 1849 it was at Cobh she first stepped ashore. The town was renamed Queenstown from then. However, following Irish Independence from Britain in 1920, it was renamed Cobh which is an Irish language word for Cove and is pronounced the same.

The history of Cobh is marked with great ships, majestic cruise liners and adventurous tales of the sea. As Ireland's most strategic port of call for transatlantic liners, it became the foremost port of emigration during The Famine, witnessing Ireland's sorrowful release of its treasured sons and daughters to brighter and better things in the New World.

Some of the great ships that berthed at Cobh are the paddle steamer 'Sirius', which in 1838 became first ever ship to cross the Atlantic from Cobh Harbour to New York without the aid of sail and The Lusitania which was torpedoed in May 1915 with the loss of 1198 lives.

Cobh was the last port of call of RMS Titanic which anchored at the mouth of the Cobh harbour on April 11th 1912. It was from here that the ship weighed anchor for the last time and sailed west towards her tragic fate in the icy waters of the North Atlantic. One hundred and twenty three passengers left from Cobh on the tragic voyage.