Here’s an interesting way to get your steps in.

A downloadable map will take you off on a tour of Cork that celebrates the contribution of women to art, culture, and society.

The walk, which is the first in a series of walks launched last year and facilitated by Maggie O’Neill, Professor of Sociology and Criminology at University College Cork, writes women into the spaces and topography of the city.

The walk was created in discussion with MA Women’s Studies, MA Anthropology, BA Sociology & Criminology students and Dr Naomi Masheti, Cork Migrant Centre; Danielle O’Donovan, Nano Nagle Place; Mary Crilly, Sexual Violence Centre Cork; Eileen O’Shea, Traveller Visibility Group; John Barimo, Mother Jones Plaque and James Cronin, Honan Chapel.

“There are, at present, no monuments to women in Cork city.” the team explains.

“Representations of women can be found in the apple seller (Fitzgerald Park), the onion seller (Coal Quay/Cornmarket), and the school children (near Shandon Bells) and in the street names, named after queens and Saints. If we look closely, there is evidence of women’s great work embedded in the topography of the city, and also their resistance to inequalities and oppression and their work individually and collectively to build fairer, safer and more equal communities.”

The route

​The route begins at the Honan Chapel with women artists’ contributions to Irish arts and crafts, and then on to Nano Nagle Centre and Cork Migrant Centre to honour Nano Nagle and Naomi Masheti.

You then walk along Oliver Plunket Street, taking in the #AskConsent banners, cross Mary Elmes Bridge and walk to the Traveller Visibility Group to honour Katie O’Donoghue and the women who set up TVG.

“We then walk up to the Firkin Crane Centre, where we stop to reflect on Denise Joan Moriarty’s contribution to Irish dance. Mother Jones Plaque is next, and we then walk down to Camden Place and end the first phase of the feminist walk of Cork at the Sexual Violence Centre, Cork and honour the work of Mary Crilly.”

​The walk will take around two hours and the terrain is mostly flat, with an upward incline on the walk to Nano Nagle from College Road and on John Redmond Road in Shandon.

You can download the map here and there’s a version that the kids can colour in available too here.