Earl of Cork is a title in the Peerage of Ireland, held in conjunction with the Earldom of Orrery since 1753.

Known as the "Great Earl", Richard Boyle was born in Canterbury, England, but settled in Ireland in 1588, where he married an Irish heiress and bought large estates in County Cork.

In 1689 he was summoned to the English House of Lords through a writ of acceleration in his father's junior title of Baron Clifford of Lanesborough.

Their third son Lord George Augustus Henry Cavendish was created Earl of Burlington in 1831.

He died unmarried at the age of thirty-three and was succeeded by his half-brother, Edmund Boyle, 7th Earl of Cork.

His eldest son, the tenth Earl, fought in the Second Boer War but died childless in 1925.

He also died childless and was succeeded by his second cousin, William Boyle, 12th Earl of Cork and Orrery.

Lord Cork was an Admiral of the Fleet and notably commanded the combined expedition for the capture of Narvik in 1940.

Edward of Norwich, Earl of Rutland, the first son of Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York, fifth son of Edward III of England, favorite of his cousin Richard II, had been created Earl of Cork in the Peerage of Ireland during his nephew's personal reign.

While the creation is unrecorded, he campaigned in Ireland from 1394 to 1395, and both he and King Richard use the title in letters that spring.

The heir apparent is the present holder's son Rory Jonathan Courtenay Boyle, Viscount Dungarvan (born 1978).