THE great cruise liner - Queen Elizabeth II, better known as the QE2 will be seen in Cork harbour again this summer, and it will not be alone.
With it will come most of the world's major liners, including ships from Caribbean Cruise Lines, Princess Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line and Seabourn Cruise Line. These will bring an estimated 22,000 peopled to the port of Cork.
In the halcyon days, the harbour knew them all and played host to many famous names. Jet travel put paid to the idyll on the high seas and the magnificent liners stopped coming. The agents' offices in Cobb - formerly Queenstown - closed.
There was silence on the quays, the very quays from which the coffin ships left after "American wakes". Folklore has it that when the families of those departing for the new world crowded into Cobb to the lodging houses, to cry their last tears, unscrupulous landlords jerked up the rent. It was a business opportunity, you might say, even if it was happening with the Great Famine as a backdrop.
The drama on the quays of Cobb was replaced later by the arrival from the opposite direction of the rich ones who could afford to cross the Atlantic for pleasure - at great cost and in great comfort. When that stopped, Cobb stopped, to all intents and purposes.
The cruise liner traffic gave Cobb its identity and defined its purpose. It had come from being a place of sadness for hundreds of thousands of people to being the landing point for the famous and the spoiled. They could afford holidays that few Irish people at the time could.
As a young reporter on the Cork Examiner, as it was known then, the drill was to rise at 5 a.m., go to Cobb and then by tender out to one of the great liners. There were always celebrities on board - a prelate on his way to Rome; a film star; a famous singer or a writer; someone in the news.
Those trips always made good copy and there was breakfast on board in lavish surroundings.
When that was finished, the steward would tell you that the tender was returning to Cobh. It was time to rejoin the real world. For a junior, it was a great buzz.
The Cork Harbour Commissioners held sway at that time. Last weekend, like the other port authorities, they relinquished their control and became a semi state company. The commissioners, as we knew them, are no more, but the personnel will remain the same.
The Port of Cork Company, as it will now be named, is into a new era. It has been knocking on doors. It doesn't want the Cobb quays to be silent any more. The signs are that this will not be the case again. Great things are in store.
Mr Pat Keenan and Mr Sean Geary, who have guided the fortunes of the second largest port in the State over the past number of years, have started a revival. In the 1980s they began courting the cruise liner traffic. Their overtures came at a time when US travel companies had decided the sun and the Caribbean were becoming a bit boring. Something new was needed.
The Harbour Commissioners thought they had it. If the liners called into Cobb en route, the passengers could explore the south west. Not a bad option, and, since the development of the Cobb Heritage Centre, visitors could disembark there to feast on the history of the Irish diaspora.
The centre is well worth a visit. The advance parties from the cruise companies believed this also and saw that a coach operator could have interested passengers in Blarney or Killarney in double quick time. Cobb is back. The liner traffic is up by 30 per cent on last year.
When the Norway - formerly the France - sails into Cobb this summer, it will make history in the port, being the first visit to Ireland of the longest cruise ship in the world.
The cruise liner traffic, says Mr Keenan, doesn't greatly add to coffers of the port or the port authority, but it has undoubted benefits for the region.
The Minister for the Marine and the Minister for Finance hold the shares in the newly formed company but, despite its changed status, the focus is on a more commercial operation.
Mr Keenan, the chief executive, now with a vote on the board under the new arrangements, is intent on developing the liner traffic. Cobb had its day in that regard and will do so again, he insists. The Port of Cork will handle 7.5 million tonnes of cargo this year - a record amount. It has a turnover of £11 million with a staff of some 130 and it has plans for its own development, even if the liner traffic never came back.
An £8 million container terminal was opened in Tivoli last weekend; a three tiered development at Ringaskiddy in the lower harbour involving reclamation, a massive new crane - capable of lifting 4,000 tonnes a day - and an extension to the deep water berth, will cost up to £10 million.
The port is making good money. It doesn't publish its profits for commercial reasons, being required only to report to the Government, but as Mr Keenan says, "things are going well". When he and his team started the drive in 1989 to bring the liners back, five ships called. This year, 23 will arrive in Cork harbour.
Things have never looked better.