Things to do in County Cork

Ballea Castle is situated on a cliff overlooking the Owenboy River in Carrigaline about 8 miles south of Cork City Ballea Castle is a three storey tower with a more recent two storey wing making an L-plan structure. The building has prominent crenellations, and the large windows show that it is designed as a residence rather than a fortress. There is a large White Horse painted on a cliff face below the castle which can be seen from the Ballea Road. Facilities The castle is a private residence and is not open to the public. The castle was built in the 15th century. It appears to have been renovated and extended into a three storey L-plan fortified house in the 17th century. It was home to the MacCarthy family until the late 17th century. The castle then fell into disrepair until 1750 when restoration work was undertaken by the Hodder family who held it to until the early 1900s. The castle has been modernised in more recent times and is now a private residence. Legends Legend has it that one of the Hodder daughters fell in love with a local farmer's son. Her father was furious, wanting her to marry a man of his choice. An argument ensued. The daughter's horse bolted over the edge of the cliff, with both daughter and horse falling to their deaths. The White Horse was painted on the cliff to mark this fateful day.

Ballintotis Castle is a medieval tower house in County Cork, representative of the densely settled fortified landscape that developed across Munster during the later Middle Ages. Cork is one of Ireland's richest counties for tower houses, and Ballintotis belongs to the tradition of smaller fortified residences built by local landholding families who needed a defensible home that expressed their status and provided practical protection in a period when local conflict and raiding were recurring features of rural life. The tower house form was remarkably successful precisely because it was adaptable to a wide range of budgets and landholding situations. The largest and most powerful lords built extensive complexes with additional bawn walls, outbuildings and gate towers, while smaller landholders could construct a simple rectangular tower of two or three storeys that still provided the essential functions of elevation, strong walls and a defensible entrance. Ballintotis represents this tradition in its local Cork form, using the materials and building practices characteristic of this part of Munster. The landscape context of the castle is typical of the fertile agricultural county that Cork has always been. The rivers, rolling farmland and mixture of Old English, Anglo-Norman and Gaelic settlement patterns that characterise this part of the county produced a particularly dense concentration of castles and fortified houses. Ballintotis sits within that matrix, one of several dozen such structures surviving in various states of preservation across the area, and understanding it in relation to its neighbours gives the best picture of how fortified settlement actually functioned as a system of local control rather than as a series of isolated buildings. Today the castle is an evocative ruin in a rural setting, valued as a survival of the medieval landscape that preceded the plantation and reorganisation of landownership that transformed much of Munster in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. County Cork's coastal scenery, extensive harbour and wealth of historic sites make it one of Ireland's most rewarding destinations, and Ballintotis adds a local dimension to a heritage picture that extends from the prehistoric stone circles of the Beara Peninsula to the walled city of Youghal.

Ballybeg Dovecot near Buttevant in County Cork is one of the finest surviving medieval dovecotes in Ireland, a tall circular tower built to house hundreds of pigeons providing fresh meat and eggs for the adjacent Augustinian priory. Dovecotes were important elements of monastic and manorial estates across medieval Europe, and complete Irish examples are rare, making Ballybeg particularly significant. The priory, founded in the thirteenth century, preserves a remarkably complete complex of medieval buildings including church, cloister, tower house and dovecote. The internal arrangement of nesting boxes around a rotating potence allowed efficient collection of eggs and young birds throughout the year.

Ballyclogh Castle is situated in the village of Ballyclogh The castle is a square tower house which is now in ruins, and the roof has collapsed. Trees are growing around the castle, and starting to invade the ruins. Ballyclogh Castle was the home of the MacRoberts branch of the Barrys. It was forfeited in 1641 and given to the Purdons. Ballyclogh Castle was surrendered to the Williamites in 1691. In the early 19the century, the castle was renovated and occupied by the estate steward. Lean-to buildings were built against the surrounding defensive wall, but these are all in ruins.

Ballyhooly Castle is situated amongst woodland on the north side of the River Blackwater near the town of Mallow in County Cork. The original castle is a five storey tower house with a relatively modern 20th century two storey fishing lodge adjoining the side of the medieval tower. The castle has been well maintained, and the house has been recently refurbished, making it a comfortable family home. Facilities Ballyhooly Castle offers comfortable self-catering accommodation for up to eight guests, with three double bedrooms, two single bedrooms, and four bathrooms. The castle has a dining room, sitting room, drawing room and kitchen. A housekeeper and cleaner are on hand to look after the property, and cooking services can be provided. The castle overlooks the river offering picturesque views and pleasant walks in the nearby woods. The castle has exclusive private access to five miles of fishing on the River Blackwater, one of the best salmon rivers in western Europe. The Lakes of Killarney are within an hour drive, and other activities in the area include golf, walking, cycling and horse riding. The castle was built to guard a ford over the River Blackwater in the 16th century. Ballyhooly Castle was occupied by the Roches until it was forfeited in the Confederate Wars, when occupation passed to Richard Aldworth. The castle was restored in 1862, and the fishing lodge was added in the 1920s.

Ballynacarriga Castle (also known as Ballinacarriga Castle) is set on a rocky outcrop overlooking Ballynacarriga Lough, about 5 miles from the town of Dunmanway in the west of County Cork. Ballynacarriga Castle is a large four storey tower house. It is about 15m by 12m with walls are over 6 feet thick at the base. There is a short section of defensive wall remaining at the north east corner. At ground level there is a spiral staircase at the north east corner, and a guard chamber from the main entrance lobby. The eastern doorway has been reconstructed, but it still retains the portcullis groove. A Sheela na Gig carving (a naked woman) can be seen high above and to the right of the door. The north west and south east corners have bartizans at third storey level. The third storey has vaulted ceilings. Fireplaces are set into the southern wall of the second storey and fourth storey. The castle features a number of carvings in the window recesses. At second storey level, there is a carving of a female figure with roses, and carvings of geometric designs. At the fourth storey level, there are carvings of the Passion of Christ. The are also carvings of the initials RM CC believed to be the initials of Randal Muirhily (Hurley) and his wife Catherine O'Cullane. The wooden ceiling which would have covered the basement of the castle has disappeared, but the stone corbels still remain. On the second floor there is a garderobe (a primitive toilet) on the north side built over a chute. The castle roof, parapets and battlements are missing. On the south east is the remains of one of the original four defensive towers which guarded the main castle, but the other three towers have gone. Facilities The local residents association has carried out improvements to the site. Ballynacarriga Castle was built in 1585 by Randal Hurley. (The date 1585 can be seen in a window-recess on the top floor). The castle was forfeited by the Hurleys in 1654, and it passed to the Crofts. It is believed that the castle was used as a chapel as well as a family residence. Locals say that the chapel was still in use until 1815.

Ballynamona Castle is a ruined tower house in County Cork, Ireland. The castle is a four storey square tower house with corbelled turrets at opposite corners. There used to be a house attached to the castle, and the remains of the gables can be seen on the walls. Ballynamona Castle was built by the Nagles around 1600. The castle was occupied until the 19th century. There was once a Sheela na Gig (carving on a naked woman) on the castle wall, but around 1894, the Sheela was removed from the castle wall and attached near the entrance door. Around 1900 the figure was removed and smashed. Apparently, while the castle owner Garrett Nagle was in London, tradesmen working on the castle found the Sheela na Gig, broke it and scattered the pieces.

Baltimore is a small fishing village and sailing centre on the southwestern tip of County Cork, positioned at the entrance to Roaringwater Bay with views across to the Sherkin Island, Cape Clear Island and the Fastnet Rock lighthouse on the horizon beyond. It is a place of considerable maritime character and atmospheric beauty, its compact harbour, colourful houses and fishing boats reflecting a way of life shaped by the sea across many centuries of occupation in one of the most dramatically indented and island-scattered coastlines in Ireland. The village has a history that extends far beyond its current quiet character might suggest. In 1631 Baltimore was the site of one of the most extraordinary events in Irish coastal history, when Algerian corsairs led by the Dutch renegade pirate Jan Janszoon landed in the night, ransacked the village and carried approximately a hundred men, women and children back to North Africa as slaves. The Baltimore Captives, as they became known, were the subject of the poet Thomas Davis's famous ballad, and most of the captives never returned to Ireland. The attack was devastating enough to effectively depopulate the village for a generation, and the memory of it has never entirely faded from the local consciousness. The Sherkin Island ferry runs from Baltimore harbour several times daily, making it easy to visit the island with its ruined Franciscan friary, sandy beaches and relaxed island community. The ferry to Cape Clear Island, the most southerly inhabited island in Ireland, provides access to an Irish-speaking community with a long seafaring tradition and one of the best seabird observation stations in Ireland at the island's southern tip. The Fastnet Lighthouse, visible from the Cape Clear coast, is one of the most famous lighthouses in the world as the turning mark of the Fastnet Race, the classic offshore sailing race. Baltimore has developed a reputation for excellent local seafood, and the combination of fresh fish from the harbour, island hopping and coastal walking along the Mizen Peninsula makes it one of the most rewarding small coastal destinations in the southwest of Ireland.

Bantry House stands on the shore of Bantry Bay in County Cork, one of the largest natural harbours in the world, and is one of the finest and most beautifully situated country houses in Ireland. The house was built in the early eighteenth century and enlarged into its present impressive form during the early nineteenth century for the White family, later Earls of Bantry, who assembled within it one of the most significant collections of Continental European decorative art and furniture to be found in any Irish house. The building is still occupied by the White family and is open to visitors, making it an unusually authentic example of a great Irish house that has retained both its contents and its family connection. The exterior setting of Bantry House is exceptional. The house looks south across the full width of Bantry Bay toward the mountains of the Beara Peninsula, with the long blue-grey expanse of the bay and the dramatic mountain backdrop creating one of the most compelling views from any house in Ireland. The formal terraced gardens stepping up the hillside behind the house provide elevated viewing platforms from which the relationship between the architecture and its spectacular landscape setting can be fully appreciated. The combination of the house, the terraces and the bay makes this one of the most photographed locations in west Cork. The interior of Bantry House contains an extraordinary accumulation of French and Continental European furniture, Gobelin and Aubusson tapestries, Russian icons, Spanish leather panels and decorative objects assembled by successive generations of the White family during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The quality and breadth of the collection is remarkable by any standard, reflecting both the family's wealth during the peak of their prosperity and their access to the great houses and auction rooms of Europe. The Armada exhibition in the courtyard adds a further historical dimension, commemorating the French fleet that took shelter in Bantry Bay in 1796 in an abortive attempt to land troops in support of the United Irishmen rebellion. Bantry itself is a pleasant market town with good restaurants and the weekly Friday market, and the surrounding west Cork landscape of Sheep's Head, Beara and Mizen provides some of Ireland's finest coastal and mountain scenery.

Barleycove Beach on the Mizen Peninsula in County Cork is one of the most dramatically beautiful beaches in Ireland, a long arc of pale sand tucked between the rocky headlands at the very tip of one of the great southwestern peninsulas, with the Atlantic stretching to the horizon to the south and the wild hillscape of the Mizen rising behind. The beach is relatively undeveloped by the standards of many comparable Irish coastal beauty spots, with a small car park, a seasonal café and the long floating boardwalk over the sand dunes providing the principal infrastructure, and that restraint preserves the elemental quality of the setting. The approach to Barleycove along the narrow roads of the Mizen Peninsula provides a succession of Atlantic views that anticipate and contextualise the beach, and the final glimpse of the bay and the sand from the road above is one of the finest seaside reveals in the southwest. The boardwalk crossing over the dune system from the car park to the beach is a characterful approach unique to Barleycove, its floating sections accommodating the seasonal changes in the water level of the brackish lagoon that lies behind the dunes. The beach is flanked by the headlands of Brow Head to the east and the western headland above Mizen Head to the west, and the walking available from Barleycove is exceptional. The coast path to Mizen Head, the most southwesterly point of the Irish mainland, follows dramatic cliffs above the Atlantic and takes in some of the wildest and most spectacular coastal scenery in Ireland. The Mizen Head Visitor Centre at the tip of the peninsula, reached across a dramatic bridge over a sea chasm, provides information about this exposed and beautiful corner of the country. The Mizen Peninsula is one of the five great peninsulas of southwest Ireland, less visited than the Ring of Kerry or the Dingle Peninsula to the north but offering coastal scenery and driving routes of comparable quality in a setting that feels genuinely remote and uncrowded.

Blarney Castle in County Cork is one of the most visited tourist attractions in Ireland, famous throughout the world for the Blarney Stone, a block of limestone set into the battlements of the fifteenth-century tower that visitors lean back over a significant drop to kiss, reportedly acquiring thereby the gift of eloquence and persuasive speech. The origin of the tradition is uncertain and probably relatively recent in historical terms, but the international fame of the Blarney Stone has made the castle one of the essential stops on any tour of Ireland and has brought visitors from virtually every country in the world to this otherwise pleasant but unremarkable corner of County Cork. The castle itself is a substantial and well-preserved fifteenth-century tower house built by Cormac Laidir MacCarthy, whose family dominated this part of Munster for several centuries. The tower rises to impressive height within its ruined enclosure walls and the views from the battlements over the surrounding parkland and the woodland of the Blarney estate are extensive. The castle's most famous literary association is with Queen Elizabeth I, whose exasperation with the evasive diplomatic responses of Cormac MacCarthy to her demands for submission allegedly led her to describe his excuses as all Blarney, giving the language a new word for flattery and empty talk. The Blarney Castle estate extends to considerable size and includes extensive woodland gardens, the Rock Close with its dolmen, witches' kitchen and druidic stone, and the formal gardens around the castle. The woodland walks through the estate are genuinely beautiful and often undervisited by those who come primarily for the stone, providing a rewarding hour of walking in mature mixed woodland beside the Blarney River. The walled garden and the arboretum add botanical interest. Blarney village below the castle has developed into a lively destination with a variety of shops, restaurants and the famous Blarney Woollen Mills providing visitor facilities and gifts.

Blarney Castle near Cork City is one of the most internationally famous tourist attractions in Ireland, a well-preserved fifteenth-century tower house in its own extensive woodland estate that draws visitors from across the world to kiss the celebrated Blarney Stone set into the battlements near the top of the castle. The tradition of kissing the stone to acquire the gift of eloquent and persuasive speech is one of the most enduring and widely known pieces of Irish cultural mythology, and the long queues of visitors waiting to lean backwards over the parapet to reach the stone have become one of the characteristic images of Irish tourism. The castle was built in its current form by Cormac Laidir MacCarthy, King of Munster, around 1446 and represents one of the largest and best-preserved tower houses in Ireland. The tower rises to approximately 26 metres and the stonework, though worn and lichen-covered, retains considerable structural integrity. The climb to the battlements involves a succession of narrow spiral stairs that emerge onto the roofline where the Blarney Stone is set slightly below the parapet level, requiring visitors to lie on their backs with their heads extending beyond the wall to kiss the underside of the stone, a manoeuvre that provides a simultaneously terrifying and absurd experience that most visitors regard with good humour. The grounds of Blarney Castle are considerably larger and more varied than many visitors expect. The woodland gardens extending beyond the castle contain a series of named areas including the Rock Close, an informal garden around a stream and glacial boulders that has been associated since the eighteenth century with druidical worship and fairy legends, the Witch's Kitchen, the Druids' Cave and a set of wishing steps reputed to grant wishes to those who walk them backwards with eyes closed. The combination of ancient woodland, informal garden design and romantic mythological associations makes the garden as rewarding as the castle for many visitors.

Cape Clear Island, known in Irish as Oileán Chléire, is the most southerly inhabited island in Ireland, a small and dramatically scenic island off the southwest Cork coast accessible by ferry from Baltimore and Schull that combines one of the most important bird observatories in Britain and Ireland with the character of a Gaeltacht island community maintaining Irish as its everyday language. The combination of the extraordinary bird migration that makes Cape Clear one of the best seabird and migration watching sites in the British Isles, the island landscape and the authentic Irish-speaking community creates a destination of exceptional distinctiveness. The Cape Clear Bird Observatory has operated continuously since 1959 and the island's position at the extreme southwestern tip of Ireland makes it one of the most important landfall points for migrating birds crossing the Atlantic from North America and for European migrants moving along the Atlantic coast. The autumn seabird passage off the south point of the island, when shearwaters, petrels, skuas and other oceanic birds move in large numbers past the headland, is one of the most exciting and most sought-after wildlife watching events in Ireland. The island supports a small permanent population of Irish speakers, the culture of the Gaeltacht community including traditional music, storytelling and a summer language school that brings students from across Ireland to study Irish in its natural spoken environment. The three-sided harbour at North Harbour, the dramatic sea cliffs on the south and west coasts and the wild landscape of the island interior provide an island experience of authentic and rewarding character.

Carrigadrohid Castle is situated on a rocky outcrop in the River Lee near the village of Carrigadrohid in central Cork. The castle is a ruined three storey tower in a picturesque setting on the river. It is joined to the river bank by a road bridge at second storey level which joins the eastern wall of the castle. Carrigadrohid Castle was built in the 15th century by the MacCarthys of Muskerry, and has been extended and modified over the years. In 1650, the castle was besieged by Parliamentary forces. The MacCarthys were dispossessed, and the castle was taken over by the Bowens who occupied it until the mid 18th century. The castle then fell into disrepair. In recent times, a local group has been established to preserve the castle

Carrigaphooca Castle, whose name means the rock of the spirit in Irish, is a ruined tower house perched dramatically on a clifftop above the River Sullane near Macroom in County Cork. Associated with the MacCarthy Muskerry dynasty, the castle occupies a naturally defensible crag above a strategic valley pass connecting Macroom with west Cork. The rocky outcrop beneath the castle contains prehistoric rock art, suggesting the site held ceremonial significance long before the medieval tower was built. The town of Macroom is the gateway to west Cork, where the landscape transitions from pastoral midlands to the rugged mountain and lake scenery of the west.