The challenge
Cork City’s rich maritime heritage is almost invisible to modern visitors, most of whom remain unaware of Cork’s fine natural harbour. Research shows that they leave Cork with all their expectations met, except the one about learning about Cork’s heritage.
Fáilte Ireland asked us to look at the many aspects of Cork’s maritime story and suggest how they could be organised into a thematic structure that would enable existing and new attractions to tell the story in ways leisure visitors can understand.
Our response
Our work identified four over-arching themes, relating to the safe harbour, trade, defence and emigration.
Our Framework document provided user-friendly, evidence-based advice on how attractions can use themes to structure complex stories for visitors. It highlighted key stories and characters for each theme as well as primary and supporting locations.
It emphasised the importance of experience and identified core experiences for each theme, and the need for family-focused activity as part of attracting a wider range of visitors.
For this project we were supported by our friend Carolyn Lloyd-Brown aka The Heritage Angel.
