Cove Fort is a small bastioned land battery to the east of

Cobh Cobh ( ,), known from 1849 until 1920 as Queenstown, is a seaport town on the south coast of County Cork, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. With a population of 14,148 inhabitants at the 2022 census of Ireland, 2022 census, Cobh is on the south si ...

County Cork County Cork () is the largest and the southernmost Counties of Ireland, county of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, named after the city of Cork (city), Cork, the state's second-largest city. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster ...

, Ireland. Built as a coastal defence fortification in 1743, on instruction of the then

Vice-Admiral of the Coast The vice-admiralties of the coast were posts established in each of the twenty maritime counties of England, the north and south of Wales, and the four provinces of Ireland. The officer holders, designated as "vice-admirals", were responsible fo ...

, it replaced a number of temporary

coastal artillery Coastal artillery is the branch of the armed forces concerned with operating anti-ship artillery or fixed gun batteries in coastal fortifications. From the Middle Ages until World War II, coastal artillery and naval artillery in the form of ...

batteries which defended

Cork Harbour Cork Harbour () is a natural harbour and river estuary at the mouth of the River Lee (Ireland), River Lee in County Cork, Ireland. It is one of several which lay claim to the title of "second largest natural harbour in the world by navigational ...

. The seaward fortifications included a demi-bastioned frontage with three tiers of gun emplacements commanding the harbour's main

shipping channel In physical geography and hydrology, a channel is a landform on which a relatively narrow body of water is situated, such as a river, river delta or strait. While ''channel'' typically refers to a natural formation, the cognate term ''canal'' de ...

and defending the naval yards at Haulbowline. While the landward walls included musketry flanking-galleries, later 18th century reports criticised the fact that the fort was overlooked by higher ground to the rear and that planned landward bastion defences had not been built. A 1763 report recorded the fort as having a number of

24-pounder long gun The 24-pounder long gun was a heavy calibre piece of artillery mounted on warships of the Age of Sail. 24-pounders were in service in the navies of France, Spain, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United States. They were comparable ...

s, and a later survey by Charles Vallancey records a small detachment of

Royal Irish Artillery The Royal Irish Artillery was an Irish regiment of the British army in the 18th century. It was formed in 1755 as The Artillery Company of Ireland. The name was changed in 1760 to The Royal Regiment of Irish Artillery. History In 1755, the Roy ...

at the site. By 1811 there were 20 or more 24-pounder guns in place. In the 19th century the harbour's other defences were expanded at Fort Westmoreland ( Spike Island), Fort Carlisle ( Whitegate), and Fort Camden ( Crosshaven), and by the end of the

Napoleonic Wars {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Napoleonic Wars , partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg , caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...

Cove Fort came to house a naval and

military hospital A military hospital is a hospital owned or operated by a military. They are often reserved for the use of military personnel and their dependents, but in some countries are made available to civilians as well. They may or may not be located on a m ...

. By the 1830s the site was largely given-over to this use, and though used as a

barracks Barracks are buildings used to accommodate military personnel and quasi-military personnel such as police. The English word originates from the 17th century via French and Italian from an old Spanish word 'soldier's tent', but today barracks ar ...

, was no longer used primarily for battery defence. The "Queenstown Military Hospital" remained in operation until after World War I. The area of the fort now houses a

Port of Cork The Port of Cork () is the main port serving the south of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, County Cork and Cork City. It is one of the three "Ports of National Significance (Tier 1)" as designated by National Ports Policy. It offers all six ship ...

operations building and

harbour pilot A maritime pilot, marine pilot, harbor pilot, port pilot, ship pilot, or simply pilot, is a mariner who has specific knowledge of an often dangerous or congested waterway, such as harbors or river mouths. Maritime pilots know local details s ...

station, and is the site of a park (Bishop Roche Park), and the Cobh Titanic Memorial Garden. The latter includes a glass structure which has been engraved with the names of the 123 passengers who boarded at Cobh – RMS ''Titanic'''s last port of call. The memorial garden has a line-of-sight to the last anchorage point of the ''Titanic'', close to Roche's Point at the mouth of the harbour.

References

{{Cork Harbour, state=collapsed Buildings and structures in Cobh Forts in the Republic of Ireland Buildings and structures in County Cork 18th century in Ireland

See also

References