Rory Gallagher Plaza — Cork

Rory Gallagher Plaza on Merchant's Quay in Cork city is the public space and memorial dedicated to one of the greatest guitarists Ireland has ever produced. Rory Gallagher was born in Ballyshannon, County Donegal, in 1948 but grew up in Cork, and the city has claimed him as its own with enduring intensity. A bronze statue of Gallagher in performance — plaid shirt, battered Fender Stratocaster, bare feet — stands in the plaza, and the surrounding area has become a destination for guitarists and rock music fans who make the pilgrimage to Cork to honour a musician whose technical and emotional mastery of the blues guitar tradition was matched by almost no one in his era.

Gallagher first came to prominence with Taste, the Cork-based trio he formed in the late 1960s, before launching his solo career in 1971 following the band's dissolution. His solo recordings — Rory Gallagher, Deuce, Blueprint, Tattoo, Irish Tour '74, and many others — document a guitarist of ferocious technique and complete authenticity: a man who played the blues because he loved it, without commercial calculation, touring constantly in a plaid shirt and jeans that became his permanent uniform. Jimi Hendrix, asked who was the greatest guitarist in the world, reportedly replied 'Ask Rory Gallagher'.

Gallagher died in London in June 1995 at the age of 47, from complications following a liver transplant. He is buried in St Oliver's Cemetery in Ballincollig, near Cork. The Rory Gallagher Plaza is freely accessible. An annual Rory Gallagher International Tribute Festival is held in Ballyshannon, his birthplace, each June. Cork city centre is easily reached by train from Dublin, and the plaza is a short walk from the main pedestrian thoroughfare of Patrick Street.