Scenic Point in County Cork

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.

Cobh, pronounced Cove, is a Victorian seaside town on Great Island in Cork Harbour whose combination of the extraordinary cathedral of St Colman dominating the town from the hillside above, the colourful terraces of Georgian and Victorian houses rising in tiers from the waterfront and the profound historical associations with Irish emigration and the Titanic make it one of the most emotionally resonant and most visually distinctive harbour towns in Ireland. The town was for over a century the principal point of departure for the millions of Irish who emigrated to America, Australia and elsewhere, and its identity is inseparable from the experience of departure and loss. The Queenstown Story in the old railway station provides one of the most moving and most comprehensive accounts of the Irish emigration experience available anywhere, drawing on the stories of those who left from this harbour during the Famine emigrations of the 1840s, the mass emigrations of the late nineteenth century and the twentieth-century departures to tell the story of what emigration meant for the individuals and the communities who experienced it. Cobh was the last port of call of the RMS Titanic in April 1912 and the final port of departure for 123 passengers who did not survive. The Cathedral of St Colman, one of the finest and most ambitious examples of Gothic Revival architecture in Ireland, dominates the town from its elevated position and provides a backdrop to the harbour that is recognisable across a wide area of Cork Harbour. The 49-bell carillon in the cathedral tower is the largest in Ireland and its regular performances provide an unusual musical soundtrack to the town.

The Healy Pass is a mountain road crossing the Caha Mountains between Adrigole in County Cork and Lauragh in County Kerry at an altitude of approximately 334 metres, a route of extraordinary scenery through the heart of the Beara Peninsula that is widely regarded as the most dramatic mountain road in Munster and one of the finest in Ireland. The hairpin bends of the ascent on both sides, the views from the summit toward Bantry Bay to the south and the Kerry lakes to the north and the wild mountain landscape of the Caha Mountains create a mountain driving experience of considerable power and beauty. The Healy Pass was built as a Relief Road during the late nineteenth century, the road construction providing employment for the local population in the tradition of Famine road building that had preceded it by half a century. The road is named after Tim Healy, the first Governor-General of the Irish Free State, who was a native of this part of Cork and who promoted the road's construction. The combination of the Victorian road engineering and the mountain landscape through which it passes creates one of the finest examples of the utilitarian mountain road as scenic heritage. The summit of the pass is marked by a small crucifix and the views from this point encompass the full extent of Bantry Bay to the south, with the Sheep's Head and Mizen Head peninsulas visible beyond, and the Kenmare River and the MacGillycuddy's Reeks to the north in a panorama that captures the full drama of the Cork-Kerry mountain border country.

Mizen Head marks the southwesternmost point of mainland Ireland and has been the first or last piece of Ireland seen by generations of travellers crossing the Atlantic. The headland reaches into the Atlantic Ocean from the far end of the Mizen Peninsula in west County Cork, a position that has made it both a navigational landmark of crucial importance and one of the most dramatically beautiful coastal locations in Ireland. The cliffs at Mizen Head drop to the sea from heights of over 45 metres, the dark red sandstone faces pounded by Atlantic swells that have been building across thousands of kilometres of open ocean. The power and scale of the waves here during winter storms is genuinely astonishing, and even on calmer summer days the surge and suck of the water through the sea caves and gullies below the cliffs creates a sound of impressive elemental force. The rugged coastal scenery here is characteristic of the west Cork coast at its most dramatic. The lighthouse station at Mizen Head was established in 1910 and the signal station, originally built to house fog horns and signalling equipment, has been converted into a visitor centre that tells the story of maritime navigation in this treacherous corner of the Irish coast. A dramatic pedestrian suspension bridge spanning the gorge that separates the lighthouse rock from the mainland allows visitors to cross to the lighthouse and signal station, providing a vantage point from which the full drama of the Atlantic coast can be appreciated. The visitor centre contains exhibits about the history of the lighthouse service, the geology of the headland and the wildlife of the surrounding waters. Chough, a red-billed member of the crow family now rare in Ireland, can often be seen along the clifftops, and seabirds including gannets, razorbills and guillemots use the cliffs during the breeding season. Grey seals are regularly spotted in the coves below. Mizen Head is the most westerly point on the Wild Atlantic Way, the long-distance touring route that follows the Irish Atlantic coast from Donegal to Cork. Its location at the extreme southwest of Ireland and the clarity of light that characterises the far west make it a destination that rewards photography at almost any time of year.