`Where Finbarr Taught Let Munster Learn." So goes the UCC motto, famously debunked some years ago by an academic from a rival institution who questioned St Finbarr's credentials as the founder of Cork. The UCC motto, he suggested, might more properly read: "Where Finbarr Thought He Taught." Such profanity!
Now comes more bad news, this time from within. It seems the world of academia will not rest until the historic certainties of the beginnings of Cork, hitherto held dear and unshakeable, have been cast aside. The charge on this occasion is being led by Ms Rose Cleary, of UCC's archaeology department.
Whatever about St Finbarr and his monastic settlement, which is a different thing entirely from a town, there is now proof positive that it was the Vikings who laid out the early streets and buildings from which grew the later medieval town and the city we know today.
Where does that leave Finbarr? In his monastery, which was probably on the site of the present St Fin Barre's Cathedral, seems to be the answer.
The saint is believed to have founded his monastic settlement in or about AD 606. From this holy place, the legend goes, the city developed.
However, Ms Cleary and her team now have new evidence to offer. Their excavations have revealed that earliest Cork rose about 1,000 years ago in and around the presentday Washington Street, South Gate Bridge/Tuckey Street area. Archaeologists call it the south island.
Using the system of dendrochronology or tree-ring dating on oak samples unearthed in Viking houses and streets, they found that at a depth of about 2.5 metres below the existing surface, the pattern of streets and houses dating from AD 1000 to some years later began to emerge. What the digs found, Ms Cleary believes, is the root of earliest Cork.
"We knew of Viking incursions but we didn't have firm dendrochronological evidence of an actual settlement. When published, the results of the team's work will provide the first overview of the city's real beginnings."