placenamesCork City
Cathair Chorcaí
Lewis recorded a city library governed through regular committee meetings.
The name
A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
- Cathair Chorcaí · Irish · main form · validated name
- Cork City · English · main form
Place & story
A library and its readers
Cork Library Society was founded in 1790 and occupied premises on the South Mall when Samuel Lewis described it in 1837. Its collection then exceeded ten thousand volumes, covering science, art and general literature. A committee met every other week to select books, admit members by ballot and conduct the society’s business. These arrangements placed the choice of reading material and membership in the committee’s hands. Lewis’s account concerns that particular society, rather than a free municipal library or the total number of books available throughout Cork. [2]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Cork City. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Cork Societies: A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) · Samuel Lewis
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.