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Photo: The Speckled Bird, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
This was built 1602-07 after the siege of Kinsale, over the earlier Castle Ny-Parke, and named for King James I. It had a good range of fire over the harbour approaches from its "blockhouse" and remained in use when Charles Fort was completed. But after the siege of 1690, the new fort became the military base and James Fort fell derelict. You can stroll round anytime. It's only 200 m from town across the river but you have to cross the bridge, making it 3 km and a scenic turnaround point for walkers and joggers.
James Fort is an early 17th-century pentagonal bastion fort located on Castlepark peninsula in Kinsale harbour, County Cork, Ireland. Situated downstream from Kinsale on the River Bandon, the fort was built to defend the harbour and seaborne approaches of the town. Following the construction of Charles Fort on the opposite side of the harbour in the late 17th century, James Fort became known as the "old fort". Listed as a protected National Monument, and managed by the Office of Public Works, the fort is open to visitors.
© OpenStreetMap contributors
Impressive star-shaped fort, built 1677-82 over the earlier Ringcurran Castle, and named for the restored King Charles II. It became known as the "new fort", complementing the older James Fort across the harbour. It was built to repulse seaborne attack but was overlooked by higher ground and vulnerable to landward attack. That enabled John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, to capture town and fort in 1690 in the Williamite Wars. Various repairs and additions were made over the next 200 years and it remained a British military base until Irish independence in 1921. It then fell derelict before being restored from the 1970s, with an exhibition area in the former commander's quarters.
Small museum depicting local history. When the ocean liner RMS Lusitania was torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1915, most survivors and bodies were taken to Cobh. But some bodies were brought here and the inquest into the sinking was opened.
Well-preserved tower house built circa 1500 by the Earl of Desmond as a custom house. After 1641 it became a prison mostly for Spanish and French captured at sea — in 1747 a fire killed 54 French prisoners — and later for Americans. It continued as the town jail for another century and was a workhouse during the 19th century famines. In the 1990s it was done up as a museum (including for a time as the "International Museum of Wine") but has been closed "for renovation" at least since 2010.