3 Best Sights in Castletownbere, County Cork

Bere is one of Ireland's largest islands and took a decade to hand back to the republic after independence due to its strategic and imposing location on Bantry Bay---but it is still navigable within a day. Unlike other islands that have seen their population dwindle over the years, Bere has retained its residents who live alongside the island's distant past, and are reminded of it daily with the abundance of historical monuments etched into the hilly terrain: a round Martello tower, standing stones, and wedge tombs are local landmarks, with the mainland's Hungry Hill across the sea as a backdrop. A scattering of pubs and facilities in the village offers guests the option to recharge their batteries after a brisk hike or cycle (bike hire is available on the island) around the island. Ferries run every day, year-round, with trips almost every hour.

The Beara Peninsula was the cradle of the most powerful O'Sullivan clan, and the crumbling walls of Dunboy Castle that lie wasting away by the ocean shore just south of Castletownbere were once its stronghold. Of enormous historical significance, the castle was the last bastion of strength held by the O'Sullivan chieftain, Donal Cam O'Sullivan, until it was laid waste by Elizabethan forces shortly after the Battle of Kinsale in 1601. Almost the entire clan of mostly women and children perished in a massacre at a failed hideout on nearby Dursey Island in the aftermath, the rest along the 804-km (500-mile) infamous odyssey due north in a bid to safeguard the clan. This is now waymarked and coined the O'Sullivan Way or Beara-Breifne Way, and is Ireland's longest walking and cycling trail. It can start at either Dursey or Castletownbere. Keep an eye out for Dunboy's neighboring ruin, Puxley Manor, a Victorian Gothic manor that was subjected to a botched development project during Ireland's Celtic Tiger period---its fate is still undecided.

These two brightly painted villages on the southern tip of the Beara Peninsula are regularly featured on tourism posters for their perfect, vernacular streetscapes---and dramatic settings. Allihies has an interesting mining backstory and pretty beach.