Don’t fret! My last-minute gift guide for festive Cork presents
Why not buy tickets for someone to ride the Ferris wheel on Grand Parade (above)? Or gift a loved one a voucher to a Cork restaurant or café, like Myo Café (right) on Pope’s Quay
This column is for the people who find themselves a week from Christmas with a long to-do list and a rising feeling of panic.
If you are waking up in the middle of the night from a dream about forgetting AAA batteries and ruining Christmas, I am here to solve your woes with a last-minute Cork gifting guide.
Forget gifting plastic things shipped from China, and reward the hard work of your fellow Corkonians by spending your hard-earned cash in their enterprises, instead of giving it to the billionaire CEO of a mega company that eats small businesses for breakfast.
Cinderella or Red Riding Hood? Opera House or The Everyman? You choose. A wholesome evening of singing, dancing and double entendres served with an enormous dollop of Cork humour awaits those with tickets for this year’s main pantos.
In the last few years, my kids have been old enough to sit still for a couple of hours, and each year are enthralled by the spectacle of the panto. It really is a fantastic family occasion and a highlight of the festive calendar. Gifting tickets for a show would be a present that goes down really well.
No kids in your life? Well, there is panto for everyone. The Improv Panto is for strictly over-18s and is currently running at the Cork Opera House.
It’s a different panto every night (improv, like) so I can’t strictly say if it’s any good, but if it has half the wit and production values of the traditional child-friendly pantos, it will be a great Christmas night out.
Extra dates have been added on Friday, December 27 and Saturday, December 28.
Chattyboo Productions’ annual adult panto Willy Wonky (say no more) is running at An Spáilpín Fánach until January 11 and tickets are available online.
If you don’t want our beloved city to be overrun with soulless, bland transnational food companies, consider supporting our amazing, independently owned businesses this Christmas.
Gift a voucher for one of your favourite spots to help ensure it will be there next year.
Myo Café on Pope’s Quay is one of my top recommendations. This gem of an establishment celebrated ten years of serving the people of Cork this year. It provides not only delicious food and coffee, but is also an important riverside focal point and space for the community to come together.
For Christmas, they are selling the work of local artists, writers, photographers, and crafts people, and are also selling Myo gift cards - a present which I personally would be delighted to open on Christmas morning (hint hint)!
Give the gift of vertigo this year with a trip on the Panoramic Ferris Wheel on Grand Parade.
I don’t know why whirring around three storeys high at a moderate speed is such a thrill, but it has become an integral part of Christmas in Cork. Tickets are available online.
One of my 2024 highlights was a Cork on a Fork farm tour event in Glenbrook Farm in White’s Cross.
Just a hop and a skip from Ballyvolane is a food oasis where Peter Twomey is raising the happiest free-range pigs in Munster, and Brian McCarthy of Cork Rooftop Farm is growing the best of fruit and vegetables - all to serve the people of Cork with nourishing food grown on their doorstep.
For me, the best part of Christmas is eating nice food with the people I love. What better way to gift the people you love than with wholesome Cork food?
The Cork Rooftop Farm supplies the freshest chemical-free vegetables throughout the year, and you can pop into either of their stores on Cornmarket Street or in the English Market to buy a gift voucher, or buy one online at corkrooftopfarm.ie.
If you’re feeling very generous, why not buy your loved one a subscription to a weekly or fortnightly veg box and keep them fed all year long!
Christmas dinner in our house is not complete without a glazed free-range ham from Glenbrook Farm. My kids can take or leave the turkey - “turkey shmurkey” - but devour the ham.
Glenbrook Farm’s shop is open every Saturday (and this Saturday, December 21). You can buy a gift box filled with free range sausages, rashers and pork in store or online at glenbrook.ie, or buy a gift voucher to use throughout the year.
A quintessential Cork experience is lunch from The Sandwich Stall in the English Market.
The hope of a mozzarella toastie, Reuben sandwich or chana masala curry for lunch regularly keeps me going through interminable Zoom meetings and pre-lunch slumps.
A gift voucher for The Sandwich Stall would brighten the back-to-work depression of January, and they also sell vouchers for the whole English Market, to be spent at any stall that takes the lucky recipient’s fancy.
Breda Casey’s shop, Miss Daisy Blue on Patrick’s Quay, is a treasure trove of beautiful things from the 1930s to the 1990s. Any woman of any age in your life would find something special to wear there.
Vintage cashmere, jewellery, handbags, varsity sweaters, cocktail dresses… you name it, and Breda has some amazing version of it in her shop.
If choosing is too difficult, Breda also does gift vouchers - very handy for the January sales! Miss Daisy Blue is open every day till Christmas.
So, there you have it. Panic averted. A 100% Cork shopping list ready to go. You’re welcome!
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