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Checkin	Feb 2012 Mar 2012 Apr 2012 May 2012 Jun 2012 Jul 2012 Aug 2012 Sep 2012 Oct 2012 Nov 2012 Dec 2012 Jan 2013 Feb 2013 Mar 2013 Apr 2013 May 2013 Jun 2013 Jul 2013 Aug 2013 Sep 2013 Oct 2013 Nov 2013 Dec 2013 Jan 2014 Feb 2014 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
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Room Type	Twin Double

 

The Islands of West Cork

 

 

BERE ISLAND

Backed by a dramatic and mountainous peninsula at the southwestern corner of County Cork, Bere Island lies less than 2 km offshore at the entrance to Bantry Bay.  It is a long, green island, which shelters a deep anchorage beside the fishing port of Castletownbere.  During World War 1, the British fleet used the haven as a centre for Atlantic operations, and lines of battleships and destroyers anchored in the sound sailed off to fight the Battle of Jultand.  Interesting items to be seen on the island include scattered 19^th-century defenses used to guard the British fleet and on the eastern side a wedge-shaped gallery.  Today, these waters are popular with deep-sea fishermen and sailing enthusiasts and the island’s Lawrence Cove is a base for the Glenans Irish Sailing Club.  This is an offshoot of the famous French sailing school and it has courses for all levels from absolute beginners onwards.  The Beara peninsula has two other islands of very distinctive character and they make splendid day-trip destinations. 

DURSEY ISLAND

Beside Crow Head at the western tip of the peninsula,  Dursey Island is linked to the mainland by cable car.  There are no paved roads – transport is by motor-bike or horse-drawn vehicles – but three tiny villages nestle in the island’s rocky landscape.  The burial ground (now in disuse) at Kilmichael village contains the ruins of a small church.  This is next to the site of the massacres in 1602 of 500 refugees from Dunboy Castle.  Dursey is popular with bird-watchers, who climb the Far Western cliffs to watch gannets from the big breeding colony of the nearby Bull Rock, or search for rare migrants in autumn.  Also on Dursey Island are the ruins of a lighthouse and a martello tower. 

 

 

CAPE CLEAR

The southernmost island of Ireland thrusts up from the Atlantic at the entrance to Roaringwater Bay in West Cork.  Its wild and precipitous coastline is open to the full force of the ocean, and on the clifftops the pink flowers of thrift grow in tight cushions under the wind.  Yet the island’s interior, with its few narrow winding roads, has an idyllic and pastoral intimacy.  On the leeward slopes, tiny green pastures tilt towards the sea in mosaic of old stone walls, and flowering hedges of fuchsia and escallonia shelter the houses.  Cape Clear is about 5 km long, pinched in to a high rocky ridge above the northern harbour of Trawkieran.  Fishing, once vital to the island, has declined, but the summer ferries from Schull and Baltimore bring visitors, naturalists and language students who far outnumber the 150 or so native ‘Capers’.  The island still has Irish as its first language and retains a distinctive culture and musical tradition.  The older way of life is glimpsed in the pages of Conchur O’Siuochain’s ‘The Main from Cape Clear’.  The island is reputedly the birthplace of St. Ciaran, one of the first of Ireland’s saints, of an era even earlier than St. Patrick.  The little 12^th century church that bears his name looks down upon the harbour, and among the relics associated with him is a cross-pillar stone nearby.  Far stranger stones were a set of upright slabs above the western cliffs.  Dressed up in red coats, they were meant to frighten off the French in 1798 and are known today as Na Fir Breaghach – ‘The false men’.  Only one of these remains.  In its exposed situation 8 km off the south-westernmost tip of Ireland, Cape Clear plays a fascinating part in the traffic of birds.  The observatory set up on the island by Bristol University has become famous among birdwatchers for its records of rare songbird migrants which make landfall in spring and autumn.  The south-western headlands provide a grandstand view, not only of the lighthouse rock of Fastnet, but of the passage of ocean-going birds in summer.  Almost any week in August should produce Sooty, Great and Balearic Shearwaters skimming the Atlantic swells, together with Great and Arctic Skuas and huge numbers of commoner seabirds.  The cliffs also provide a look-out for the schools of whales and dolphins which travel these waters through the summer.  With the growing fame of the Fastnet in the contest of international yachtsman, Cape Clear has also become a focus for summer sailors attracted to the coast of Cape Clear.  Between the mainland and Cape Clear, Roaringwater Bay is ringed with islands, among them Long Island and Hare and Horse and Goat and the Calf islands.