IRELAND


was aboard the ill-fated Endurance with Irish Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton. Still standing today, in Annascaul, is the pub Crean founded when he retired, the South Pole Inn, now plastered with portraits, cuttings and medals celebrating his exploits. Before the path returns us to the village,


it takes in Annascaul Lake — a pool of quicksilver in the crook of a valley dotted with Fresian cows and curly horned sheep. We plonk ourselves down on the bank, among the bell heathers. “Appreciating nature, for me, is a process of unlearning, trying to find a state of wonder, curiosity, unknowing,” Ciarán confesses. “You may think you know a place, a scene — but try to look closer.”


Bantry House, a stately home and museum with guest rooms overlooking Bantry Bay on Sheep’s Head peninsula; it’s still run by descendants of its 18th-century founders


The wild west I bid Ciarán goodbye in the pretty tourist town of Killarney and drive on along empty coastal lanes, until I cross into County Cork. The landscape is so rugged, rural and untouched, it’s easy to believe you’re the first traveller to stumble upon it. Unpaved roads, braided across the Beara Peninsula, bring me to postcard-perfect, pastel-hued Allihies, with its dramatic ruined engine houses — a reminder that this was once a thriving copper mining village. And in the fishing port of Castletownbere, I eat more


than I can justify at the Beara Coast Hotel: buttery scallops, line-caught fish and salty samphire, followed by a platter of local cheeses (Milleens, Durrus and Beara Blue). Aſterwards, I sip pints of Guinness with locals in MacCarthy’s Bar. A tense game of Gaelic football is unfolding on the television, and I’m accepted into the fray with the cheerful question, “Who are you shouting for?” from the barmaid. The next day, I press on, parking the car


and taking the tiny wooden cable-car across to Dursey Island for a hike. As old cables crank the carriage across the seething strait below, I notice a bottle of holy water from Knock and a psalm pinned to the wall — presumably to reassure travellers of a nervous disposition. “I’ve also got a bottle of whiskey if you need a little extra courage,” a passenger sitting opposite me jokes. The island is a revelation: lobster crates


and tame donkeys decorate cottage gardens; a ruined abbey, said to have been built by the monks of Skellig Michael, haunts a cliff; stonechats click and flutter among hedges of tasty blackberries. During the summer, I read, it’s a great spot for whale-watching. Dursey, I also discover, has a tragic history that demands to be heard: in 1602, Queen Elizabeth I’s forces massacred 300-odd


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