One of Cork’s streets has been named the best in Ireland and the UK. Cork’s Oliver Plunkett Street was the only Irish street in the running for ‘The Great Street Award 2016’. The city’s longest street was assessed by two judges in August and was announced as the overall winner at the Urbanism Awards Ceremony in London this afternoon.
Speaking after the adjudication process in August, Geoff Haslam, lead assessor for the Academy of Urbanism said: “It’s fair to say that we have been overwhelmed by Oliver Plunkett Street today…It offers everything that we are looking for in a Great Street, and more. We sometimes have to search for the DNA of a street, but Oliver Plunkett Street exudes it – it’s a vibrant living street and community, full of surprises and it is clearly on an upward trajectory.”
Cork fended off stiff competition from the other two finalists in Liverpool and London. Oliver Plunkett Street was laid out across the marshes east of the old medieval city in 1715. The street was originally named after King George. It was renamed Oliver Plunkett Street following the creation of the Irish Free State in the 1920s, and at 525-metres, it is the longest street in the city centre.