Ireland: Beara Peninsula and more of the Sheep's Head Peninsula and Bantry

Trip Date: August 6, 2011

Ryan and Sarah left early this morning to head back to Dublin for the day before their flight left which left Lizzie, Rob, Carl, Britta, my Dad, and me to continue exploring Ireland on our own. In southwest Ireland there are five major peninsulas that stick out into the Atlantic Ocean: the Dingle, Iveraugh, Beara, Sheep's Head, and Mizen Head Peninsulas. Already on this trip we explored four of the five (click the links) and today was the day we'd explore the fifth and final one - the Beara Peninsula. And it was about time, too since we'd been waking up looking at it every day of the trip!

But first, Dad wanted to see more of the Sheep's Head Peninsula and so while Carl slept in, the rest of us got in the van and drove up and over the ridge above Agma to the little town of Kilcrohane, stopping along the way to see a neat castle ruins in the morning sun. We walked around Kilcrohane in about five minutes and there isn't much there other than a neat old church, two small cafes, a hostel or two, and a tiny town store where we each got a little snack of sorts. The road out of Kilcrohane goes back up to the ridge of the Sheep's Head Peninsula where there are great views of the landscape and a ring fort in ruins.

Castle ruins on the Sheep's Head Peninsula

View from above Kilcrohane with a ring fort ruins on top of the hill and the Fastnet Rock Lighthouse way in the distance

Fastnet Rock Lighthouse

Ring fort ruins

Looking up to the ridge of the Sheep's Head Peninsula

We didn't leave for the Beara Peninsula until early afternoon as we didn't think it was going to take us that long to get out to the end of it. After all, it's only 30 miles long! With everyone packed into a mini-van and with our Ordnance Survey Ireland maps in had, we hit the road. The neat thing about the OSI maps is that they are incredibly detailed and mark each neolithic standing stone, ring fort, or burial tomb as well as any castles or abbeys or ruins of both, and only when you use those maps do you realize that these types of ruins are literally all over Ireland!

The first little stop we made was in the little town of Castletownbere, about two-thirds of the way out the Beara Peninsula. I think it's the biggest town on the peninsula and they have their own medical center there, but I was told by a girl in a shop in Bantry that any medical emergencies have to be brought back to Bantry! It's a neat town with the typical Irish one main road lined with pubs and shops and a church. We stopped in the McCarthy's Pub for a half-pint before going on our way and learned from the bartenders that the town and pub have been featured before in films. Now, whether you've seen or even heard of the films is a different story. My dad wrote down the names of the films and I've seen one of them so far called, Ondine, starring Colin Farrell. There was also a poster for a book by the same name as the pub, McCarthy's Pub, written by Pete McCarthy and has been reviewed to be, "...like Bryson without all the boring parts," so I couldn't not buy it, which was worth it because the bartender pulled out a huge notarizing stamp to make the purchase official! I haven't read it yet, but I'm excited to dive into it soon!

Church in Castletownbere

Pints, book, and notarizing stamp

Recreating the cover of the book

Just to the west of Castletownbere are some property gates that clearly mark the entrance to some grand estate. Turns out that this is the entrance to Dunboy Castle and the Puxley Mansion. Dunboy Castle is the site of the seat of the O'Sullivan Beare Clan who owned and ruled over the Beara Peninsula until it came under attack in 1601 from Cromwellian forces and finally fell in 1602. You can't really see much of the Dunboy Castle, though because the a land agent from Galway came into posession of the land in the late 1600s and added on the more formidable front of the Puxley Mansion. Down the road from the Puxley Mansion are the ruins of the Dunboy Monastery, built by a Spanish bishop in the early 1500s and later dismantled by pirates! It is unclear whether this Monastery was already in ruins by the time the English took over in 1602 or if those details belong to a Monastery built at the end of the Beara Peninsula. Nevertheless, buried in the ruins of the monastic chapel are the descendents of the O'Sullivan Beare clan, placed there in the late 1700s.

Ruins of the Dunboy Monastery

Group shot on the ruins

Though pretty simple and small, the ruins of the Monastery are pretty neat to explore

Old shipping quay used for the Dunboy Castle and/or the Puxley Mansion

The Dunboy Castle is attached to this building, but it is behind it so you can't see it from here. The Mansion was burned out by fire in the early 1900s and has since been restored and is going to open up as a modern hotel.

We kept driving for a while before making the turn onto the little single-lane road that brings you out to the very end of the Beara Peninsula, passing a neolithic portal tomb that is now in the middle of a cow field. A few settlements of B&Bs and tiny cafes are out here, but there's really not much else other than farmland. But what it must be like to live out here all year round! At the end of the Beara Peninsula is Ireland's only cable-car which brings farmers, hikers, visitors, and cows (yes, cows) back and forth from the mainland to Dursey Island, which has an old and varied history as well.

Vikings arrived in Ireland in 800 AD and found Dursey Island to be a good place to export Irish slaves back to Scandinavia. The island held this purpose until the Vikings left in 1150 AD, not long after they decided that Greenland would be a suitable place to explore and settle. The monastery on Dursey Island may be the one I referred to above that was built in the early 1500s and destroyed by pirates before 1600. Ireland should clarify this because now I'm confused! A castle, Oileán Beag, was also built on a small island near the larger Dursey Island, connected by a drawbridge. In the early 1600s the chieftan, Donal Cam, leading Irish resistant forces against English Royalist rule lost a battle at Kinsale down near Cork and fled to Dunboy Castle until that castle was taken by the English. The O'Sullivan Beare clan aided the English in attacking the castle built out on Dursey Island because Donal Cam had kidnapped the O'Sullivan clan's leader's wife, who was being held at Oileán Beag. The seige on Oileán Beag resulted in the razing of the castle, the rescue of Owen O'Sullivan's wife, and the massacre and pillaging of over 300 people. Today, Dursey Island is very peaceful and home to fishermen and farmers and is a fantastic place for hiking, wildlife viewing, and exploring, but the only way out to the island is by the cable car, which I've been told smells like cows...

We stayed out at the end of the Beara Peninsula for a little while reading all of the information signs before getting in the car and beginning the drive back to Bantry. Along the way, though, we stopped a few times for a quick snack and photos. 

Cow lying by a portal tomb

Sheep bouncing along at the end of the Beara Peninsula

 

Tír na nÓg is an Irish mytical land with no sickness or evil found at the ends of the world. If you remember in the movie, "Titanic" as the boat is sinking one of the third-class mothers is tucking her kids into bed while the water is rising and telling of the legendary land of Tír na nÓg. That's this place, but I guarantee that if you swim 25 km out that direction, you won't find anything but very deep water!

Me with the Skellig Islands off in the background

Irish farms on the Beara Peninsula

More farms

Ruins of a castle or signal tower on the Beara Peninsula

 

Standing stone off the road. These things are all over this part of Ireland!

The sun was setting by the time we got back into Bantry. Some of our group had not yet been to the Bantry House, the nice old hotel in town, so we quickly pulled up to the house and climbed the huge stairway to a hill overlooking the house and the bay for a few quick photos. We had one more sight to see before the sun set and that was the Kilnaurane Pillar Stone. A relict of the earliest Christian settlements in Ireland, the Kilnaurane is the oldest Christian symbol erected on the island - at least it is the oldest preserved Christian monument. It takes a little while to find as the roadside sign is covered by tree branches but it's worth the quick walk through fresh cow fields. I wish I had more information on it, but it's kind of hard to find any info on the internet so I'm not sure exactly how old it is or its whole story, unfortunately.

Lizzie and Rob on top of the hill behind the Bantry House

The beautifully overgrown Bantry House

Sunset over the Bantry House grounds

 

Me with the Kilnaurane Pillar Stone.

With another full day of sightseeing, we had one thing left to do on our last night in Bantry: hit up some of the pubs downtown! Dad wanted us to get a pint (half-pint for him) at the Anchor Tavern and the Denis Lucey pubs and Rob had seen another Bantry pub, Ma Murphy, featured in a calendar of Irish Pubs. So while the old guy had his half-pints, I taught Rob a thing or two about drinking pints! It was a very fun night ending with a late-night spaghetti dinner back at Agma before we all went to bed.