Tripe and drisheen ham it up alongside chorizo and terrine

It may be right in the heart of Cork, sandwiched between Patrick Street and Oliver Plunkett Street, but for a time in the late 1970s and early 1980s it looked as though the English Market was about to be bypassed by Corkonians rushing to embrace modernity.

Shopping centres with ready parking and shelves full of convenient, if rather homogeneous, food were springing up in the suburbs. The market was showing its age - a relic of a past which increasingly affluent Cork people were happy to relinquish.

"Dirty and smelly" is how Sean Calder-Potts, a South African-born Kilkenny man, describes the then public perception of the market which he had to overcome when he opened Iago's there six years ago.

"But that perception is changing - all the fish stalls around us, for example, are hosed down every night and now some of the cream of Cork, I suppose you could call them, are shopping in the market," he says.

Iago's - noted for its cheeses, fresh pasta and great coffee - is just one of the newer arrivals in the market which have helped lend it a more cosmopolitan flavour. The result is a curious and completely original market offering everything from traditional Cork fare such as tripe and drisheen to olives, chorizo and poppadoms.

In between you can find fresh, cured and smoked meats, fresh and smoked fish, fruit and veg, and a handful of restaurants offering first-class sandwiches and lunches. Little wonder that the English Market has won some enthusiastic admirers - such as restaurateur Declan Ryan of the Arbutus Lodge Hotel.

"If I have journalists visiting Cork," says Declan, "two things are de rigueur - one is Shandon to play the bells and the other is the English Market. These people go around the world so it's very hard to impress them but these are two tremendous sights we have in Cork.

"There's no other city in Ireland or Britain that has a market like it. It's unique - a traditional market selling all these foodstuffs under one roof, it's marvellous."

All but a couple of the 50-plus outlets in the market are either selling or preparing food. It's part of a strategy adopted by Cork Corporation and the private company it has appointed to run the market, Mall Management.

Frank Ryan, the Mall Management director, admits that taking over the market was something of an education for the company, which also manages suburban shopping centres in Douglas Court, Wilton and Ballyvolane.

"Our strategy for the corporation has been to preserve the food aspects of the market - or Cork's food emporium, as we call it. Most of the units are either food shops, restaurants or, in one case, a shop selling kitchen utensils."

The arrival of such outlets as Iago's and Toby Simmons's The Real Olive over the years has been hugely beneficial to the market, believes Frank, who points out that the rents are very reasonable.

"You can rent a stall in the English Market for less than £5,000 a year - you'd have no chance of getting a shop in the city centre for that."

Cork Corporation's estate management staff officer, Tadhg Cosgrave, is quick to point out that the corporation is happy just to cover its cost of maintaining and upgrading the market through its rental income.

"We get in around £90,000 a year in rent, exclusive of service charges, which bring in about the same again. We could charge more for the place - we could turn it into a shopping centre and charge £300 to £400 a square foot - but then the place would lose its character," he says.

Frank and Tadhg reveal that Mall Management has plans to upgrade the Market Alley entrance on Oliver Plunkett Street. "We plan to turn it into a retail precinct with a number of stalls and improved customer areas," says Frank.

For Declan Ryan, the attraction of the market is the range and the quality of the produce.

He supplies his own range of yeast and sourdough breads to On the Pig's Back there: "Isabelle Sheridan offers a range of pates, terrines and cheeses of a quality you wouldn't get in France," he says, adding that the range, quality and presentation of traditional fare such as fish have improved hugely in the market in recent years.

Declan's family have been in the hotel and restaurant business in Cork for over 35 years and he has been making bread commercially for the last eight.

"It was Elizabeth David's book on breads that got me interested and when at one stage in Arbutus we were short a pastry chef and I had to do it myself, that's when I got hooked on the bread- making. It's an addiction. Now I can't stop."

He first used the convection oven in the Arbutus kitchen, but swapped that about four years ago for a three-deck baker's oven. "Then just before Christmas we switched that for a five-decker, which is working flat out."

On a winter Monday like yesterday he would bake about 120 loaves, but on summer Saturdays he often does as many as 400. He now has plans to build a separate bakery close to the hotel, though he never expects, or wants, to go into mass production.

"That way we would lose the whole philosophy behind the venture, which is making slowly-produced, flavoursome bread. The way it's turning out, our bread has obviously become a weekend treat in many homes, with very loyal followers."

Bread, he says, is now what he does with his mornings. "But that doesn't mean that I don't have to run the other end of the kitchen to cook the guests' breakfasts in between . . . not to mention lunches and dinners."

As well as supplying to the English Market he supplies restaurants throughout Cork and various delicatessens.

Declan is also a big fan of another outlet in the English Market, Mr Bell's. It is run by a Moroccan, Driss Bellmajoub, who specialises in spices and other delicacies. "Mr Bell has a range of spices any Arab, Indonesian, Chinese or Indian would want," he observes approvingly.

The current traders' committee chairperson, Mary Rose - whose family have run a ham and bacon stall in the English Market for over 50 years - is also an enthusiastic supporter of the "newer shops" there.

"I think Mr Bell was slightly ahead of his time when he opened 15 years ago but he's thriving now, as are the other speciality food shops, and it's been good for the market as a whole.

"Ten years ago we were going through a bit of a lull - we were losing out to the shopping centres. Now the speciality foods have brought out a different kind of shopper. On Saturday now you find people doing luxury leisure shopping," she says.

Mary takes great pride in the friendly service the traders offer. "The units are small and everyone gets to know their customers - you build up a great rapport with people."

At On the Pig's Back, Isabelle Sheridan agrees.

From Nantes, she came to Ireland 16 years ago and opened On the Pig's Back six years ago. She began by selling pork liver pates with wild mushrooms, made from her grandmother's recipe and from Seamus Hogan's free-range pigs from Kanturk.

Isabelle has since brought charcutier Pascal Logez over from France to develop new pates and terrines. Visitors might like to try terrines such as venison with raspberries or duck with orange or pork with plum or Pascal's speciality, rillette - blending fresh and smoked salmon.

Isabelle has imported great tractor wheels of cheese from Normandy and over 15 types of chorizo from Spain and Portugal.

But she also supports small home-producers, and stocks some first-class Irish cheeses such as Orla - a sheep's cheese from Manch near Ballineen in west Cork, and Oisin Blue Goat's Cheese from Limerick.

The cosmopolitan influence in the market is by no means confined to just the more recent arrivals. O'Reilly's - purveyors of that most traditional of Cork dishes, tripe and drisheen - has recently produced a series of imaginative recipes to cater for gastronomic adventurers.

Maureen O'Reilly, whose family have been selling tripe and drisheen for over 50 years in the market, will furnish you with recipes for Spanish, Geneva and Neapolitan tripe.

"Our customers are mainly local people," says Maureen, "but we also get Chinese and Germans and Scots, who use tripe as a substitute for haggis."

Yet further proof of the food renaissance in the market is provided by one of its most recent arrivals, The Kitchen Pot - the creation of Ballymaloe-trained cooks Glena Casey from Dublin and Amanda Keating from Kildare.

"We do Italian-style sandwiches - ciabattas and bruschettas - to take away while we also do ready-to-cook gourmet meals including vegetarian dishes," says Amanda.

"The traders here have been just fantastic - they're very supportive, giving us oodles of advice. And of course we can buy everything we need here as well - we can get the best of produce fresh on our doorstep. It really is a brilliant spot."