Make Cork Your Valentine

14th Feb 2019

Spring is coming, it won’t be long before winter time is done,
Our thoughts will turn to holidays, and balming in the sun.

Your first thought might be the laptop, to start scoping some cheap flights,
And because it’s practically part of Cork, you’ve got Santa Ponza in your sights.

Or with the cheap seats to the States, you might be thinking Boston or New York,
But hold on there just a second sham, what the hell is wrong with Cork?

‘Ah there’s too much rain’ we hear you say, ‘the weather here is bleak’,
But after last summer’s heatwave that excuse is looking weak.

Do you not remember the blazing sun shining down from early May?
Everyone in short pants and caked in sun cream every day?

We had ice cream cones for breakfast and choc ices for our tea,
There were feens selling pineapples door to door above in Farranree,

It got so hot in Glanmire they were eating ice cubes through a funnel,
There was talk the Lee would evaporate and we could close the Jack Lynch tunnel,

Do you not recall the meteorological hand that Cork was duly dealt?
And that there were genuine fears in Shandon that the goldie fish would melt?

You could cook a chicken inside a car, and as if you needed proof,
There was one boy racer out in Mahon cooking rashers on his roof.

There were families out in Douglas like the O’Driscolls and the Sweeneys,
Who got very fond of taking the 207 into town in their bikinis.

A Cork travel agent received a call, one day as Cork began to sweat,
The voice roared, “Fly me back to Africa!”, and it sounded like a threat. 

It’s too hot here, roared a voice, it has me on the floor,
They told me Cork was nice and cool, but I can’t take it anymore. 

“Who’s this?”, said the trembling feen, because he hadn’t one iota,
“Just book the flights!” boomed the voice, “this is the lion below in Fota!”

Feens with late night cocktails, tapas, and plates of spaghetti,
You couldn’t have got more tropical if you booked the Serengetti.

The GAA had to cancel matches in the cities and in the bogs,
Even the County Board held a meeting with all the delegates in their togs.

So the old excuse that we don’t get the weather, is starting to look a little thin,
And neither is the one about all the bad tattoos on Kerry students’ skin.

Now that the balmy weather has been added to the mix,
You can stay inside the Rebel County to get your holiday fix.

Bantry, lah.

2
Your lust for a bit of heat and delicious seafood for your fork,
Can be easily and cheaply solved by staying right here in County Cork.

Why risk a pilot’s strike, staring at delayed flights on an airport screen,
When you could be on a Sherkin ferry after a big night out in Skibbereen?

Surf the waves at Inchydoney, and from your B&B in Courtmacsherry,
Watch a drone wreak havoc at some airport on the telly.

Don’t mind those Spanish beaches, packed like a Dublin bus,
Owenahincha, Gtown and Red Barn are the Med without the fuss.

Choose Ireland’s Ancient East or the Wild Atlantic Way,
Both start in Cork so you could even do both in a single day.

For culture and for history, in December or in June,
A gallery in Skibb for breakfast and Béal na Bláth in the afternoon.

We know you love your county, but the point of this little rhyme,
Is that if you take your hols in the PROC, you can make Cork your Valentine.