Lovely Beara: Is that this peninsula Eire’s best-kept secret?
We’re pottering up from the ferry, plucking the odd blackberry as we attempt to resolve which method to flip on the prime of the street. Proper begins us off on the Ardnakinna Lighthouse looped stroll. Left results in a heritage centre set within the island’s old fashioned constructing. I would like a take a look at the latter, to get our bearings, however do not know if it is open.
Simply then, a woman powers across the nook, pulled in the direction of us by a really decided canine.
“Is the heritage centre open, are you aware?”
“It in all probability is,” she says, catching the question on the hop, like a Gaelic footballer in full flight, and gesturing again up the hill. “It is a couple of mile up that manner.”
Most likely?
By some means, we appear to have each gained info and misplaced it. Welcome to Beara, I suppose.
“Hardly anybody is aware of what we now have down right here,” I used to be advised a few weeks earlier. I would taken to Twitter, asking for tips about what to do and see on this off-radar peninsula. We had been approaching a vacation – a multi-generational group of grandparents, mother and father and children. However we needed a selected sort of vacation, someplace we may decelerate, hit the reset button and spend time being the place we had been, quite than racing the place we would have liked to be.
Castletownbere. Photograph: Fáilte Eire
The Healy Move. Photograph: Pól Ó Conghaile
Bere Island: ‘We spherical a bend to discover a white horse observing us within the close to distance…’
The view from Dzogchen Beara
The Beara Barista, Allihies
Allihies, or na hAilichí, means ‘the cliff fields’. Photograph: Pól Ó Conghaile
Eye sweet in Eyeries. Photograph: Pól Ó Conghaile
Seafood medley at Berehaven Lodge
Meals at Helen’s
Tea Room
Inside McCarthy’s Bar, Castletownbere
The Ring of Kerry we all know, and love. So beautiful is its surroundings, so magnetic its mountains, that tour buses are often strung alongside it like sausages. The Beara, one outrageously lovely outcrop to the south, is a special story. This is a peninsula straddling Cork and Kerry, but named for a Spanish princess (Beara was the spouse of Excessive King Owen Mór). It is dwelling to numerous Wild Atlantic wow-moments however, past Glengarriff and Kenmare, only a single lodge. Place names like Allihies and Eyeries sound like they need to be in songs, a Buddhist retreat clings to its cliffs, roads get spindly as spaghetti and climate whips from moody mists to blue skies to showers of soaking rain within the time it takes you to shed a layer.
And but nearly everybody driving by means of Kenmare or Glengarriff drives straight previous. Hardly anybody turns off on to this massive, lovely, recalcitrant lump of land.
We determined to take the flip.
Scouring the web for self-catering, I booked one of many cottages overlooking Bere Island at Berehaven Lodge, about 5km exterior Castletownbere. It might be our base for breakfasts, showers, garments washing and a few meals in… if we felt like cooking. Our plan was to organize for all types of climate, schedule some outings and go away others to likelihood. The adventures went from there.
Bere Island was one. Shortly earlier than assembly our power-walker, we boarded the boat in Castletownbere. My dad, my two children and me, shared a cabin with a pair carrying SuperValu procuring baggage, two French vacationers with their child in a again provider, a string of locals, and some households in strolling gear.
And now we’re on the prime of the boreen.
‘Most likely’ is not sufficient to plan on, so we flip proper, setting off on the coastal loop. The 10km path is a piece of the Beara Method, whose yellow arrows roam the peninsula like a Celtic Camino. It takes us previous hedgerows fiery with orange montbretia, previous dank previous coastal defences and as much as the lighthouse itself, the place we cease for a sambo below skies swarming with seabirds. When the climate worsens and the observe will get steeper, grandad digs deep for an excellent story. When the mist is at its thickest, we spherical a bend to discover a white horse observing us within the close to distance. It is a spectral factor, like one thing out of Tír na nÓg. Later within the week, again in Castletownbere, we stroll into one other legend, albeit a cosier one.
“What day is it?” asks the woman at MacCarthy’s bar.
“Tuesday,” I affirm.
“Ah sure. Chess is within the again room.”
Inside McCarthy’s Bar, Castletownbere
The black-and-red pub famously offers each title and canopy picture for Pete McCarthy’s journey guide McCarthy’s Bar. “By no means go a bar that has your identify on it,” is without doubt one of the writer’s maxims, and it leads him to an all-night hooley in Castletownbere.
We’re right here for chess evening, which is rather less rock ‘n’ roll, however we rating a spot within the cosy by the entrance window. The inside is simply as McCarthy describes, in components like a grocery store squished right into a bar, in others like a bar squished right into a grocery store. Barry’s Tea, Mr Sheen, Weetabix and different necessities line the cabinets; there is a ham slicer on the counter and a samurai sword behind it (Dr Aidan MacCarthy, whose daughters run the bar, was a prisoner of warfare in Japan – simply one among many surreal tales on the peninsula). I pay €four.30 for a pint, and settle in to observe my nine-year-old play chess with a few locals who’ve arrived in from the countryside with their boards and items.
“Even at seven o’clock within the night, damp, friendless and with out a plan, I can sense that this place could be a contender within the Greatest Pub within the World competitors I’ve been privately conducting since 1975,” McCarthy writes.
Castletownbere is as shut because it will get to a hub city on the Beara, nevertheless it’s under no circumstances touristy. This can be a working harbour, with a dozen or extra brightly colored trawlers backed up towards its harbour wall. Spanish fishermen clump by means of city with cigarettes on their lips, locals go about their enterprise, and guests appear restricted to the odd camper van, peloton of cyclists or rental automotive. Retailers like Wiseman’s Drapers, with its until in a glass sales space, or O’Sullivan’s storage, opening on to the principle avenue, really feel like time capsules. Once we cease for tea and Victoria sponge at Evie’s cafe in Eyeries, the proprietor recollects biking the 5 miles or so to high school between the 2 cities.
“It was simpler going downhill,” she smiles.
One morning, we rise early for the drive to Dzogchen Beara, a Tibetan Buddhist retreat overlooking the ocean between Castletownbere and Allihies. Every day, 45-minute guided meditation periods are free to attend right here, and we be a part of a motley crew of residents, locals and blow-ins by image home windows overlooking the superior Atlantic under.
In three brief periods we’re inspired to be current, to really feel our ft on the bottom and our bums on the seats, to concentrate on the sounds round us – a gurgling tummy, a voice exterior, a punch of wind towards the window – however to softly convey ourselves “again to the second”.
I immediately consider the 1000’s of emails gathering in my inbox, however handle to park the thought. It is one other little tug away from the rat race.
The Beara has its massive moments, too. Do you know the Dursey Island cable automotive is the one one in Eire? It offers a nail-biting 10-minute experience over the sound. Daphne du Maurier set her 1943 novel Hungry Hill, based mostly on the Puxley household who ran the copper mines at Allihies, on the peninsula – naming it for the dramatic mountain lurking on the county border behind Adrigole. And Neil Jordan filmed components of his motion pictures Ondine and Byzantium right here – the latter, starring Saoirse Ronan, contains scenes for which the Mare’s Tail waterfall was dyed pink.
Most beautiful of all, maybe, is the Healy Move. Passing from Kerry to Cork (or vice versa) alongside the R754 over the Caha Mountains, you possibly can see the again of your head on its bends. Stopping on the grotto for a photograph, the street in the direction of Adrigole seems to be like tangled twine; a scattering of sheep like they have been marked by farmers enjoying paintball. It jogs my memory of Trollstigen, the ‘Troll’s Street’ in Norway; driving right here is for not for the faint-hearted. At one level, a bicycle owner comes barrelling round a bend, wobbling scarily as he reacts to keep away from us.
That is Eire’s wild west, so the climate does what the climate does. A stroll by means of the woods at Glengarriff is amongst the wettest I’ve taken. However we get fortunate, too. A brief loop from Dunboy Citadel, the unique O’Sullivan-Bere stronghold, brings us to a sunny bout of beach-combing at Bullig Bay, the place we discover a heron preening and the tide peeled again like a blanket. One other strolling path, the North Engine Loop, takes us from the candy-coloured village of Allihies in the direction of Ballydonegan Bay, the quartz sands of which got here from the copper mines that after dominated the world. We loop previous a jagged coast (Allihies, or na hAilichí, means ‘the cliff fields’), recognizing loads of birds, bugs and butterflies earlier than climbing a stile and rising into the mountains with their previous mining husks and the eerily deserted engine home itself (right this moment cordoned off for security).
The Beara Barista, Allihies
Eight kilometres later, we return to a bit of blue caravan by the seaside. The Beara Barista’s menu has caught my eye, with decisions starting from a Macroom Buffalo Burger with smoked Milleen’s cheese (€5.50) to a Gubbeen Smokehouse hotdog (€four.50), alongside coffees, ice cream and scorching chocolate for foot-weary walkers. A queue snakes again from the hatch; rising with campers caught out by appetites after swimming on a uncommon sunny day.
Native meals seems on menus elsewhere, too. There’s baked ‘Camembeara’ cheese on the Beara Coast Lodge. Beara Ocean Gin & Tonic takes delight of place on the drinks menu at Berehaven Lodge, the place South African chef Mark Funston serves up the perfect meal of our journey. A seafood medley of native monkfish, prawns, mussels and squid is smothered in butter, herbs and wine for €24; a lobster risotto is dear at €29, however comes with half of a lobster. Tremendous-friendly workers and ambiance seduce us into reserving a second meal later within the week.
“Have you ever ever been to the Beara?” somebody asks Pete McCarthy in McCarthy’s Bar.
“I by no means have… a bit of stories which is greeted by sighs of pity and incredulity all spherical,” he writes.
Beara is slowly bewitching us, too. In the future, the children within the lodge subsequent door knock in with the provide of some mackerel they’ve caught. I cook dinner it below the grill with a bit of pepper and lemon. I am having fun with the aimless chats on our walks, nonetheless delighting in good place names like Hungry Hill and Tooth Mountain.
Like a lot of West Cork, the Beara has a tug on artists, and we go a number of beautiful little galleries on our journey. Within the Tea Rooms, a comfy Castletownbere café with an Insta-friendly counter of muffins, I meet a criminal offense author who has re-located from Dublin. In Castletownbere, artist Sarah Walker (sarahwalkergallery.com) has repurposed a carriage home on the finish of the harbour – if the tide’s in, an indication says, we must always take our sneakers off. We drop in to discover a surprisingly vivid, white area the place Walker’s work of untamed flowers and meadows pop alongside eclectic books, photographs and work by different artists – Jenny Richardson’s driftwood items, for instance. There’s a bit of desk for youths to attract at, and Walker herself is completely happy to talk.
The Healy Move. Photograph: Pól Ó Conghaile
In Adrigole, we pull over to research the Hungry Hill Gallery (hungryhillgallery.com), the place musician Gerry Bruton runs a gallery, venue, café and little store promoting craftsy goodies and presents like shawls, jewelry and Burren Perfumery cosmetics. Desserts are laid out on the counter, a pleasant Labrador lies on the prime of the steps, and we browse West of Eire scenes painted by Jo Ashby and Padraig McCaul. Bruton is establishing for a gig upstairs, and although we like a few the works, we determine we’ll mull issues over. Till we sit within the tea room and see a rustic scene sing to us from the wall, that’s.
We take it. The second feels proper.
Over per week, we see no giant tour buses. On one drive, on to the anvil-shaped spit of land between Kilcatherine Level and Ardgroom, we go a few vehicles, a camper van with German plates, two hikers and a pair of motorcyclists on Africa Twins. We cease to see An Cailleach Béara, the ‘Hag of Beara’, who legend says lived seven lifetimes earlier than being turned to a stone now peppered with cash, medals and beads overlooking the coast.
Driving on, indicators for native honey and pottery blip by amongst hedgerows blushing with raspberry-pink fuchsia and vivid yellow gorse. Passing although a niche within the rocks, we immediately emerge to an explosive view of Kenmare Bay and the Iveragh Peninsula, with a lone trawler chopping a bobbing path in the direction of the open ocean. It is onerous to not think about massive buses and busy accommodations simply a few miles away.
For a second, the coast seems like ours.
Hungry, we push on in the direction of Helen’s Bar at Kilmacalogue, on the Kerry aspect of the Beara. Right here, a fading signal sits over baskets brimming with flowers and a gaggle of German motorcyclists has paused for a pint by a bay the place low-tide waters lap over coffee-brown and olive-green seaweeds and a shoreline flanked by wind-blasted bushes.
“Helen says she’ll take half a dozen,” says a person on the cellphone below the porch. Inside, 4 pumps are lit below fluorescent lights on the bar, a black-and-white picture reveals how little the place has modified and Helen herself glows with the nice and cozy aura of an Irish mum. After a couple of minutes, she delivers our order, a plate of Castletownbere crab on brown bread, along with a bowl of mussels plucked from the brisk waters exterior.
“Nothing has touched a freezer,” she tells me, nodding in the direction of the bowl of black shellfish. “A contact of white wine. Shallots. A bay leaf. That is the key. They’re going to cook dinner in their very own juice. And do not go away them in too lengthy.”
Is the Beara Eire’s best-kept secret?
Most likely.
Get there
Eye sweet in Eyeries. Photograph: Pól Ó Conghaile
Castletownbere is a four.5 hour drive from Dublin, or two hours from Cork. Roads are much less crowded than the Ring of Kerry, which makes driving — or, even higher, biking and strolling — a better choice. For more information, see bearatourism.com or wildatlanticway.com
The place to remain
The view from Dzogchen Beara
Dzogchen Beara (dzogchenbeara.org; above) has hostel beds from €20pp, or three-bed cottages from €115 per evening.
In Castletownbere, the Beara Coast Lodge (bearacoast.com) has two nights B&B with dinner from €220pp, whereas the Eccles Lodge in Glengarriff (eccleshotel.com) has an analogous deal from €135pp.
For self-catering, examine airbnb.ie or Berehaven Lodge (berehavenlodge.com), the place three-bed cottages begin from €560 per week, or €350 over weekends.
Take three: Castletownbere eats
The Tea Room
Tea Room
The muffins on this Castletownbere café could have you reaching for Insta. Veggie and brunch menus are yum, however get there early for the perfect tables. theoldmedicalhall.com; €
Berehaven Lodge
Seafood medley at Berehaven Lodge
This is your special-occasion spot, particularly for seafood. On Sundays, the South African chef takes issues up a notch with a braai (barbecue). berehavenlodge.com; €€€
Murphy’s
Skinny chips at Murphys
Cease right here for the perfect bowl of chips on the Beara – skinny, twice-cooked, flaked with Irish Atlantic Salt. Household run, with stable seafood and pleasant service. 7 Foremost St; €€
What to pack
Put together for all seasons, irrespective of if you journey, packing sunscreen, layers, wetsuits for swims, strolling boots and rain gear. A number of locations we stopped at didn’t take playing cards, so have money at hand, too.
Souvenirs? Take dwelling Beara Ocean Gin, Milleen’s cheese and Irish Atlantic Sea Salt.
Weekend Journal