Go directly to gaol and then go wild in the park

A cheap day out: Cork: Value for money in Cork is not a distant memory, as Barry Roche, Southern Correspondent, is pleased to discover

Cheap days out in Cork may at first sound like a nostalgic blast from Leeside's past, like Thompsons' cakes or Hadji Bey's original Turkish Delight, but with a little enterprise and imagination, it is still possible to spend a pleasant day in the Republic's second city without having to have an offshore account in the Caymans to fund it.

Breakfast: But where to start? Napoleon once remarked that an army marches on its stomach and had L'Empereur des Francais made it to Leeside, he could have sampled the breakfast fare at either the Farmgate in the English Market or the Gallery in the Crawford Art Gallery where the Full Irish would have set him back €8 and kept him going for the day.

Mid-morning: Thus fortified, you might start your day with a morning trip to the Cork City Gaol Heritage Centre in Sunday's Well where visitors are treated to a fascinating insight into the grim nature of 19th-century prison life as well as _glimpses of political graffiti from the Civil War when Countess Markievicz and writer Frank O'Connor were residents.

Visitors are given a cassette to guide them around the gaol, and the rather stilted figurines of prisoners and warders which populate the cells and landings work strangely well, capturing in a ghoulish sort of way the desperate and frightening reality of prison life for the unfortunates held there. Admission is €6 for adults and €3.50 for children.

Lunch: Amble back to town via the Shaky Bridge for lunch and you might like to try a takeout from Wildways in Princes Street where a choice of delicious organic sambos, e.g. goat's cheese, sun-dried tomatoes and pesto, plus a baked potato or bean salad will cost you just €5.95 and is ideal fare for a picnic in somewhere like Fitzgerald Park.

Afternoon: Alternatively, you might like to delay your picnic until you get to Fota Wildlife Park just 20 minutes out of the city. Currently celebrating its 21st anniversary, Fota's an ideal spot to pass a pleasant afternoon with some 70 animal and bird species from all over the world enjoying the freedom to roam in generally very spacious corrals and enclosures. Fota is one of the most successful cheetah-breeding centres outside Africa and cubs are always among the most popular of the attractions there along with the kangaroos who can be found lazing near the centre of the park, not far from the many ponds and pools that are home to flamingos, penguins and a wide variety of birds.

While many of the larger animals such as the zebras and the giraffes remain rather distant in their spacious corrals, some of the primates such as the gibbons are hugely engaging as they perform acrobatics that would leave Olympic gymnasts in awe. Admission for adults is 9.50 and 6 for senior citizens and students. Children under the age of three are free.

Fota is 15km east of Cork city but if you want to venture further afield, you could go west to Clonakilty and visit the West Cork Model Village where model makers have assembled a superbly detailed replica of the now defunct West Cork Railway and many of the towns it served such as Clonakilty, Dunmanway and Bandon.

Ingeniously laid out, the model village is sure to prove a hit with children as they eagerly follow the progress of the trains into tunnels, over viaducts, past lighthouses and back into stations. Admission is €6 for adults and €3.50 for children.

Clonakilty has really come on as a town in recent years with an abundance of interesting shops, restaurants and pubs. You can get quite a decent lunch in somewhere like the Kilty Stone for under 8. Afterwards, you might like to spend an hour or two at some of the fine local beaches like Inchydoney, Owenincha or Red Strand.

Evening meal and entertainment: Back in Cork in time for an evening meal (why not try the Gables on Douglas Street or the Quay Co-op on Sullivan's Quay - both are reasonably priced and the fare is good), you could take a 20-minute stroll out to the Lough on the southside and if you time your visit correctly on either Wednesday or Sunday nights, you'll happen upon Ceili Cois Locha. It's been running for the past four years under the expert eye of the infectiously enthusiastic Tony McCarthy and you're as likely to see Spanish, Italian or French visitors try their feet at dances such as the Siege of Ennis or the Walls of Limerick as you are locals. It's particularly popular with youngsters, all are welcome and the good news is that it's free.

Next Wednesday: Belfast