Custom houses, as a building type, were the state's physical presence at the point where goods crossed from ship to shore, the places where duties were assessed, cargoes recorded, and the revenue of empire or nation collected before anything moved inland. Cork, as one of Ireland's principal Atlantic ports, would have required exactly this kind of infrastructure at a relatively early stage of organised maritime trade, and the survival of the structure as a recorded monument speaks to its significance within the city's mercantile fabric.