10 Reasons because Cork is family friendly.

1. Despite it is a small city, Cork has a lot of festivals and activities along the year that families and kids can enjoy themselves: Cork Guinnes Jazz Festival,  St Patrick Day, Ocean to City, Lifetime RiverLee, Food Festival,Live at the Marquee, Halloween, Christmas Market, …

2. You won’t waste time travelling to the office,instead you can walk or cycle 30 min as much: If you work in the suburbs, some companies are out of the city, you may drive or take a bus ride which takes you no more than 30 min.

3.  Cork combines good jobs with a good standard of living. Cork can offer you a lot of job opportunities in the Pharma and IT industry as well as in other sectors as far as your English level is good enough, and the cost of living is lower than in Dublin. Make sure you have the job sorted before you move with your family.

4. Plenty of options for going around for a day/weekend with the family:

– Natural Parks and nice towns: Killarney, Gougane Barra, Fota, Ring of Kerry, Kinsale, Youghal, Dingle, etc

– Beaches: Many options in West and East Cork, my favourite one, Inchidoney in Clonakilty.

– Open farms as well as indoor playgrounds, very convinients in the unlikely event of rain.

5.  Small Airport with a bunch connections available to other countries in Europe.

6. A great university as University Cork College http://www.ucc.ie/en/ as well as the Cork Institute of Technology, http://www.cit.ie: Both are good options, if you want to go for further education here.

7.  Cork is known as the best foodie scene in Ireland, having The English Market as the most visited place in Cork. In there you can find a high quality and good variety of products for small scale producers http://www.englishmarket.ie/. Also, if you enjoy dinning out, Cork offers a lot of options, being most of the restaurants child friendly.

8. Cork gives families a lot of options to have an active and healthy life. If you enjoy running there are very nice areas for a jog around the city as well as races all the year for different distances see http://corkbhaa.com/.

You also can do kayaking, surf, trekking,.. There are several gyms and swimming pools available, as well as a ‘rock wall’ in the Mardyke  which offers activities for kids over 4 years (http://www.mardykearena.com/climbingwall.cfm)

9. The Corkonians, I cannot forget them!!They are friendly and positive people, they’ll welcome you from the first moment you step into the city. They have a peculiar accent so don’t be worry if at the beginning you don’t understand much of what they say, it takes time to get used to.

10. Last but not least important, Cork City was named among the top 10 in the best cities to visit in the Lonely Planet guide’s ‘Best in Travel 2010′. http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/1103/123731-lonelyplanet/, and Ireland best country for doing business in 2014 according to Forbes: http://www.irishtimes.com/business/forbes-names-ireland-as-best-country-for-business-1.1617277

With that said, not everything in the garden is rosy:

– Childcare services are very expensive

– Health system could be seriously improved.

– Public transport it’s expensive.

– You may not find a direct connection to your City/Country from Cork Airport so then you have to fly from Dublin, it takes around 3 and a half hours by bus.

–  If you are not very religious person, most of the Public schools, also known as National Schools are under the control of Church Bodies. Only a 2% of the schools are multidenominational  (i.e. Educate Together), they have a great demand and it’s difficult to get a place.