Shandon Bells & Tower, St Anne’s Church The top of Shandon Bells, also called Shandon Bells & Tower, St Anne’s Church, provides not only a view but also an overview of the City. From here it is possible to see past the City boundaries, the rolling hills north and south of the Lee Valley and, as mentioned for Patrick’s Hill, the overall structure of the landscape of the area. It is especially from here that we can see how the landscape of Cork City reflects the underlying geology vividly.
View from the top of Shandon Bells (on a wonderful day!).
Visitors to the building have loads to explore inside about its history. For its geological influence one can look from the outside. The tower has two sides made of pale limestone bricks and two sides made of Old Red Sandstone bricks. This is not an unusual colour scheme here in the City, as many buildings and walls are built from the same mix of stones. But the Shandon Tower hammers home the myth about the red and white colours of Cork’s identity arising from the red Old Red Sandstone and pale limestone. Even more striking, its southern tower wall consists of limestone blocks and faces towards the limestone outcrops of the area, while the northern tower wall is made of Old Red Sandstone blocks and faces the southern outcrop of Old Red Sandstone in the City. Whether you want to believe that the red and white colours of the City are derived from our use of the Old Red Sandstone and the pale Carboniferous limestone, it is still a great story.
The limestone and Old Red Sandstone walls of the Shandon Bells tower.
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