The meeting will be held on campus at UCC, with the talks taking place in room G2 of the Kane Building, and registration in room G7, which is next door despite what is suggested by the numbering. The Mathematics Department is nearby in Aras na Laoi/Lee House. All of these can be found on the campus map provided as part of the University's "how to find us" pages. There you will also find some information about the campus, along with information about how to get there from the city centre and further afield, and important information about the parking situation, should you be driving.
The campus itself is located to the west of the city centre just off Western Road, as shown in the two maps available here. The campus is served by two bus routes from the city centre, the 5 and the 8, the latter of which comes close to the train station and stops at the bus station. None of the distance involved are particularly great (about 1 mile from city centre to campus) and so, apart from when you are struggling with heavy suitcases, walking is always a very viable option.
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It's quite likely that you will be driving, in which case the most important bit of advice is there is something of a shortage of parking spaces in the immediate vicinity of the Mathematics department (located in Aras na Laoi/Lee House). Consequently, if you are staying overnight in a nearby B&B/guest house then you would be well advised to leave the car there.
For users of public transport, the bus station and train station are (relatively) centrally located in the city, with the most useful city bus service from both to the College being the number 8. (Train passengers should note that they will need to walk into town a little way until they intersect with this particular bus route.) Otherwise there is always the option of taking a taxi.
Slightly more extravagant (though not necessarily by too much) is the internal flight option from Dublin. Generally this means Aer Lingus, although there are no doubt some other possibilities. For travellers from the North of Ireland, there is a new service from Belfast being introduced by Jet Magic, which should be up and running in time for the conference.
Cork is amazingly well served by direct(ish) flights from all corners of Britain. The following table summarises the current state of our knowledge in these matters. If you know of new services, or the withdrawal of any of the ones below, then please let me (SJW) know...
| Departing... | Flying with... | Departing... | Flying with... |
|---|---|---|---|
| London Stansted | Ryanair | Southampton | Aer Arran |
| London Heathrow | Aer Lingus/BA, B Midland | Bristol | Aer Arran |
| London City | Jet Magic | East Midlands | BMIbaby |
| Leeds/Bradford | B Midland | Manchester | Aer Lingus/BA, BMIbaby |
| Birmingham | Aer Arran, B European | Swansea | Air Wales |
| Edinburgh | Aer Arran, B European, B Midland | Plymouth | Air Wales |
| Glasgow | Aer Lingus/BA, B European, B Midland | Cardiff | Air Wales |
An important point to note is that not all of the above are totally direct flights - certain routes essentially bounce around Britain before crossing the Irish Sea. For example the flight from Southampton stops briefly in Bristol, and the British Midland ones seem to generally go via Leeds/Bradford.
Also, Aer Lingus and BA are code sharing partners, and so can sell each others flights via their own web site, and not always at the same price, so it can be worth checking both. Aer Lingus operate the Heathrow-Cork route, and BA (or a subsidiary) do most of the others, and a search on either company's web site will unearth a number of possibilities, some more comprehensible than others.
For the more hardy traveller there is the option of sea travel. There is a direct car ferry service into Cork that departs from Swansea (run by Swansea Cork Ferries, surprisingly enough). That is quite a long crossing, so an alternative is to sail into Rosslare or Dublin/Dun Laoghaire on boats run by Irish Ferries or Stena Line and then either drive across or make use of public transport. From Dublin you have a choice of train or bus; from Rosslare it's bus only.
Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Malaga and Paris (CDG) are all linked by direct flights to Cork with Aer Lingus, Alicante, Barcelona, Brussels, Milan (Malpensa), Nice and Rome (Ciampino) are about to be connected by direct flights with Jet Magic, and there are occasional direct flights from Prague with Czech Airlines. Starting out from elsewhere will require some slightly more complicated manoeuvres. One option is to search for regular airlines who can sell you a connecting flight. Typically this would be something like BA to Heathrow, or an affiliated airline to Amsterdam, Dublin, Frankfurt or Paris, and then joining the direct Aer Lingus flight from there.
For those who don't mind a little more risk, you could try stringing together two (or more!) budget airline flights, for example using Ryanair or similar to get to Stansted, and then using the Ryanair flight to get across to Cork. The risk involved is that these companies will not always guarantee to accommodate you on the next flight should something go wrong with an earlier connection and you end up being delayed. However, there are quite a large number of Ryanair flights to Cork each day, and so you can arrange as long a stopover in Stansted as you feel comfortable with. With the growth in the number of flights from various points in Britain to Cork (see above) there are now even more options of this type. For example you could fly via East Midlands with BMIbaby, via Birmingham with British European or Leeds/Bradford with British Midland, or indeed try out a mixture of companies.
For the more relaxed alternative from France, there is the option to travel by ferry direct to Cork from Roscoff on a service operated by Brittany Ferries. Also there are services to Rosslare from Roscoff and Cherbourg courtesy of Irish Ferries, and P&O Irish Sea link Cherbourg to both Rosslare and Dublin. The non-Cork options will then obviously require a longer drive this side.
There are no flights from outside Europe direct to Cork, and indeed the only flights from outside Europe that come directly to Ireland are from a select few places in the US (Boston, Chicago, LA, NYC and Washington-Baltimore) with Aer Lingus. If you choose to come this way then they will almost certainly be able to sort you out with a connecting flight from Dublin to Cork at practically no extra cost. On the other hand better prices might be found by a bit of shopping around and coming in via a third country. In this category would be flights into London Heathrow, Amsterdam, Paris or maybe Frankfurt via the carrier of your choice, and then onwards to Cork with Aer Lingus. Your local, friendly travel agent will be able to advise you.
Be aware that if you come in via London that Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted airports are a long way apart from each other and so transfers between them will be quite time consuming. Moreover, such a route might cause additional visa headaches for those who have to jump through the bureaucratic hoops.
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Last updated May 19, 2003. This page was created and is maintained by Stephen Wills (s.wills@ucc.ie).