Cork Opera House, Opera house in Cork, Ireland

Cork Opera House is a theatre and opera house on Emmet Place, its main auditorium seating 1,000. The 1965 building by Scott Tallon Walker stands on the site of the 1855 Athenaeum, to the rear of the Crawford Art Gallery. A 100-seat Half Moon Theatre lies at the back of the building.

Cork Opera House opened in 1855 as The Athenaeum, designed by John Benson, and was renamed The Munster Hall in 1875 and the Opera House in 1877 after reconstruction. It survived the 1920 Burning of Cork but burned down on 12 December 1955, its centenary year, due to an electrical fault. The site was cleared in 1963 and a new theatre by Scott Tallon Walker opened in October 1965, inaugurated by President Éamon de Valera.

The venue has never limited itself to opera: theatre, music, drama, dance and comedy fill its programme. In 2015 the main 1,000-seat auditorium staged 276 performances of 108 events, while the 100-seat Half Moon Theatre to the rear hosted 77 performances of 29 events. The name changed with its uses, from The Athenaeum to The Munster Hall in 1875 and Opera House in 1877.

The venue is accessible on foot in the city center and well connected by local transport options. Most performances happen on weekday evenings and weekends, so plan your visit accordingly.

The reconstruction was handled by a nationally prominent architecture team and reflects design thinking from the 1960s. The Half Moon Theatre space allows experimental and smaller-scale productions to find an audience.