Baltimore Cork Village
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.