gate 22. Cork city's boundaries haven't changed in 50 years, practically all its suburbs are outside the small city boundaries. To suggest it has only 190,000 people is laughable. The Cork metropolitan area including it's commuter towns is closer to double that. As someone who has lived in both cities, Belfast is larger but not significantly larger and by the way as has been said many times, a lot of Cork passenegers, especially from the county use Shannon for cheap Ryanair flights.