> Among the functions the facility houses are customer care, finance, localisation, logistics, manufacturing, finance, sales support and transport management. In more recent times, it has also taken responsibility for iTunes after the business relocated from Luxembourg.
> Apple organises the supply of products to more than 147 countries through Cork, either through online, retail or resellers. The company supplies more than 110 physical stores and 24 online stores, which typically chalk up more than a billion visits a year, as well as a large number of direct and indirect resellers.
> [...]
> Apple has been based in Cork since 1980, when it first opened a manufacturing facility with 60 staff. It now employs more than 5,500 people across sales, distribution, manufacturing and technical support across four buildings. Work on a new four-storey office block, which will accommodate 1,000 employees, commenced recently and is expected to be completed in early 2018.
> In addition to the main campus, the company also employs more than 500 other people at an office on Lavitts Quay in Cork city centre, which does work in a number of areas including customer services, finance, and operations. A further 1,000 people work remotely for Apple in Ireland, 700 of whom are working for AppleCare technical support.
Note that 'finance' is listed twice. ;) (That expansion was formally announced in 2022, now with a capacity target of 1,300 employees: https://www.idaireland.com/latest-news/press-release/ida-ire... .)
Apple's PR piece marking the 40th anniversary of the Cork campus https://www.apple.com/ie/newsroom/2020/11/apples-cork-campus... also makes sure to mention the "team of 20 to 30 manufacturing trainers". (Earlier there was also the famously snotty August 2016 "letter to customers" provoked by the tax controversy https://www.apple.com/ie/customer-letter/ .)
It's worth noting that even in 1988 the then Irish Minister for Finance wasn't very happy with the level of Apple's commitment to Cork https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/state-papers-... :
> He said Apple’s job targets had not been “remotely approached”, research and development facilities had not been located in Ireland and the skill levels of the workplace were “not particularly high”.
> He added: “The parent company has shown a lack of commitment to its Irish operation by opening a facility in Singapore [in 1981] which had a direct effect on performance in Cork.
The bottom line seems to be that Apple is going to get its manufacturing done where the serious mass-manufacturing capability is, and since the '90s that's been in China and/or South-East Asia. It wasn't always that way: back when the Cork plant opened, a meaningful amount of manufacturing which now would happen in Asia was taking place in Ireland (or in Scotland, in fact). As late as 1989 when Intel opened its first fab in Leixlip there was, IIRC, some kind of assembly plant there as well. But that's the way it is now. And on the other hand Apple seems more determined than ever never to let any of the Willy Wonka sh*t leave Cupertino, let alone for Cork specifically. So that leaves a mixed bag of "boring" functions, some of which are well served to be in a European branch office anyway.
But if you don't know what goes on in Apple Cork, don't worry, you aren't alone! Reposting part of an old comment of mine https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12389869 :
> True story: in the mid-2000s I was in the audience at an Apple recruiting talk for H1Bs at a European university (including one fairly-well-known then-Apple dev/manager). It didn't go very well: the audience was oblivious and largely uninterested, the Appleers were tetchy, I asked an impertinent question involving HyperCard. At one stage the rambling audience Q&A turned to a long discussion of the hypothetical possibility of Apple opening a European office at some point in the future. Now granted these were SW dev types rather than QAs or whatever, but ... I didn't quite have the heart to tell them about Cork.