The Firkin Crane Centre

Detached multiple-bay two-storey former butter market building, built 1842, now in use as theatre. Renovated and remodelled c. 1985. tile roof with rooflights and balustraded parapet. Rendered walls with render platbands and cornice. Blind arcades to ground floor comprising of rendered pilasters having moulded archivolts and render keystones above. Fixed timber windows and timber panelled doors set in round-headed openings.

Though this building was greatly altered and renovated in the 1980s following a fire in 1980, it remains an integral part of this group.

This building forms part of an interesting group of related structures with the former butter market buildings in the Shandon area. The butter trade originating from Cork city in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries stretched to Great Britain, Europe, North America, the Caribbean, and the West Indies. Though this building was greatly altered and renovated in the 1980s following a fire in 1980, it remains an integral part of this group. The building is also of archaeological significance as it was constructed on the site of medieval Shandon Castle. This site was occupied by the Dominicans who had a chapel and convent here from 1784 until 1840.

Though this building was greatly altered and renovated in the 1980s following a fire in 1980, it remains an integral part of this group.