Things to do
7-
Bantry House
A house of about 1700 above Bantry Bay, still lived in by descendants of the Earls of Bantry, with terraced gardens climbing a hundred steps behind it and Aubusson tapestries said to have been made for Marie Antoinette. The 1796 French Armada exhibition is in the courtyard.
-
Barleycove Beach
A wide dune beach near Mizen Head formed by sand thrown up in the 1755 Lisbon tsunami, reached across a floating pontoon bridge over the lagoon behind it. It is a protected dune system and one of the few Kerry-scale beaches in west Cork.
-
Dursey Island
An island at the tip of the Beara reached by the only cable car in Ireland, and one of the very few in Europe that crosses open sea, carrying six people at a time. There is no shop and no pub on it, the car closes in high wind, and the island walk is a full day.
-
Garinish Island
An island garden laid out by Harold Peto from 1910, with an Italianate casita, a walled garden and a Grecian temple, planted in soil brought over by boat. The ferry from the village passes a rock where harbour seals haul out.
-
Glengarriff Nature Reserve
Three hundred hectares of sessile oak on the slopes behind the village, one of the best surviving fragments of Ireland's old Atlantic rainforest, with waymarked loops from twenty minutes to two hours. The Big Meadow trail reaches a viewpoint over the harbour.
-
Healy Pass
A road of hairpins climbing to three hundred and thirty-four metres across the spine of the Beara between Adrigole and Lauragh, built as famine relief work and finished in 1931. The col carries a crucifix and looks down both sides of the peninsula at once.
-
Mizen Head Signal Station
The most south-westerly point of the mainland, reached over an arched concrete bridge of 1909 spanning a chasm to a signal station on the far rock. The swell breaks on the cliffs below and gannets work the water off the point.