It's Cobh, a town about 15 mins from Cork City Centre.

Those overhead lines are pretty common in urban supplies in older non-central parts of Cork (and elsewhere) and in the older parts of the towns around the county.

In general overhead cables are only seen in places where electricity was retrofitted. i.e. they were built before the turn of the 20th century when electricity began to become common place in homes. The street in that picture would date from the 1700s-1800s. Although again, it would depend on the area. Since the late 50s all supplies have been universially underground.

Generally, in city centre areas the lines are underground.

Not 100% sure what era the cables in that picture date from.

You'll also see the same arrangement running on wooden poles. In many cases the stack of wires has been replaced with a single run of heavy quadruplex.

Personally, I think the quadruplex stuff looks far worse as even though it's a single bundle it's far thicker and dark black colour so it stands out from the background. Those old stacks just look kind of quaint and part of the street scape. They're not particularly pretty, but they're just part of 20th/21st century life.

There is a gradual process of undergrounding where it's economically viable and where the disruption caused is outweighed by the benefits of putting them underground. So, they might get done while an area was being given a face lift, repaved/resurfaced etc..

Also, new connections to exsisting overhead systems are made by running a duct to the nearest pole and up the side of the pole for about 12ft. Overhead drops aren't generally used. The underground sections must be run through approved round red ESB ducting. Burried armoured cable isn't allowed anymore.

Those poles don't look too bad when they've nice flowers / a palm tree [Linked Image]