Cork Opera House
Proscenium arch
There has been a theatre on the present site of the Cork Opera House since 1855. The
original structure was designed by Sir John Benson and had been constructed as a Fine Arts Hall for the National Exhibition for Ireland in 1852 before being relocated stone by stone to the site of the old Custom Building in Nelson Square. First named the Athenaeum, then the Munster Hall and, finally, the Opera House, it stood for one hundred years until it was destroyed in a fire in 1955.