Bagpipes, ghost ships, and gray seals…

As expected, the weather quickly returned to sunny, even if the wind didn’t really ease. But nothing could have stopped us from exploring the surroundings of the Comeragh Mountains, so we set off to conquer Knockaunapeebra, the 724m peak dominating the area…

A distant sound of pipes…

Irish mountains are a little less steep than those of Andorra… That said, in case of a problem, they are no less dangerous, as they tend to end in cliffs that tower a hundred meters above the valley floor. And since there aren’t really any marked trails, you have to rely on the tracks left by sheep (they’re everywhere!), and it’s also a good idea to have a GPX route downloaded to your phone, just in case…

That said, the ascent of Knockaunapeebra undoubtedly falls into the “easy” category of Irish hikes, and it’s even more so in strong winds, as in our case, since the last few meters leading to the summit are done with the wind at your back, strong enough that you don’t have to make any effort to move forward! 🤣

But the Knockaunapeebra area is also known for its pipe player who, one cold winter night, is said to have wandered off in the fog and lost his way up the mountain, never to be found again. Since then, legend has it that on certain foggy nights, you can hear the sound of pipes coming from the mountain… We heard the sheep, and Benjamin a harmonica, but not really any pipes… 🤓

The saga of the Saga…

Because we had to go back down to the sea one day (among other things, to replenish our water supply), we decided to descend “in stages” and spend one last night in the forest, near the monument to Liam Lynch, an Irish officer who died there after valiantly defending his land.

Then back to the coast, and more precisely to Cobh, a small town much less famous than its neighbour, Cork, but which is nevertheless the latter’s port (in other words, Cork would be nothing without Cobh, since it is located much further inland…). In addition to being a small town with colourful houses and a certain charm, Cobh is also known for being the last port where the Titanic called, before its fateful voyage in 1912.

The Irish coasts are unfortunately notorious for shipwrecks, which mark every peninsula or beach on the island. We spent the night on Ballybranagan Beach (Baile Uí Bhranagáin, to the locals), where right next to Marvin was a rusty anchor, displayed like a sculpture. It turns out that in 1895, the Saga, a Swedish ship, ran aground right here on the beach. When the locals came to the crew’s rescue, they found a completely empty ship, without crew or cargo. With the story of the Mary Celeste making headlines at that time, the people of Ballybranagan quickly assumed they too had found a ghost ship. A few years later, research revealed that the crew of the Saga had been rescued by another ship after enduring a series of storms off the Irish coast, and its cargo (cotton) had been transferred to this other ship. The Saga had been abandoned, and no one had bothered to warn the Irish authorities that a Swedish ship might run aground on their beaches. As for us, we had the company of wild geese, but no ghost ship came to haunt our nights.

The beginning of the adventure (the real one)…

Before another night on a (another) beautiful beach, we reached Kinsale, the official gateway to the Wild Atlantic Way! From here, 2.500km of coastline torn by wind and waves await us as we reach the northern tip of Ireland, Northern Ireland, and the ferry to Scotland…

If Cobh seemed colourful to us, Kinsale turned out to be even more so! Apparently, winters are harsh and austere in Ireland, and like on the Scandinavian islands, houses are painted in bright colours to help brighten up the long winter months…

In addition to being the gateway (or exit, depending on which way you look at it) to the Wild Atlantic Way, Kinsale is also the birthplace of Anne Bonny, one of the few to have defied the ban on women boarding ships, in effect at the time (it brought bad luck), and to have become a pirate under the command of John Rackham, whose lover she would later become (for those who haven’t seen it, the Netflix series Black Sails explains Rackham’s story)…

It’s also around Kinsale that the cliffs begin. They’re still small, but still impressive and highly photogenic! 😁 It was off one of these cliffs that, on 7 May 1915, the Germans torpedoed a cruise liner, the Lusitania, killing more than 1.200 people (all civilians). The incident traumatised Ireland at the time (many of the Lusitania’s passengers were Irish) and led to the formation of Irish “militias” to “avenge the Lusitania”. It would also be the incident that greatly contributed to the United States entering World War I.

It was also a little beyond Kinsale, at the end of the Dundeady Peninsula, at Galley Head, that we saw our first gray seals (two of them), peacefully hunting in the raging waters at the foot of the cliffs. These would be the first of many, as where we settled for two nights, at the end of the Toehead Peninsula, a few more seals kept us company, just below our cliff.

It must be said that Toehead will undoubtedly remain one of the exceptional places we visited in Ireland. We were right on the edge of a cliff, at the end of a peninsula, nestled in a small field of green grass, heather, and ferns. In the “end of the world” genre, it’s hard to beat! This is where we spent two nights, rocked by the waves, contemplating the power of the tides. If the rest of the Wild Atlantic Way is as wild as this place, this route definitely lives up to its name!… 😍

All the way south (west)!…

The last leg of this post took us to the most southwesterly point of Ireland, Mizen Head, at 51°27’01.3” north latitude and 9°49’08.7” west longitude to be exact! It’s not the furthest West we’ll ever reach, not the further South we have been until now, but it’s officially the southwest corner of the country (everyone has their own definition of extreme geographical points… 🤔).

Mizen Head also has its share of stranded boats (which, among other things, encouraged the construction of the lighthouse located at the very end of the peninsula) and other maritime dramas (if you add to that the excellent series “37 Seconds” that we’ve been watching these days on Arte, we’re totally immersed in the marine atmosphere! 😜), and when you see the cliffs all around, you better understand the state of the enormous boat propeller exposed at the entrance to the lighthouse. It belonged to another ship that passed too close to the coast before the lighthouse was built, and struck the rocks with its propeller before running aground. The thickness of the bronze propeller is impressive, and yet the rocks shredded it as if it was made of cardboard…

For us, Mizen Head will also be the site of our first whale encounter this year! A fin whale was swimming peacefully just below the lighthouse. One of those moments that quickly makes you forget the disastrous state of the Irish roads (in addition to the tires, we’ll soon have to change the shock absorbers at this rate!) and the average speed of 21 km/h to reach the end of the peninsula… Just the perfect image to end the week comfortably installed on the edge of a pebble beach, on the neighbouring Sheep Head peninsula, right between the sea and a small lagoon where a few oystercatchers are peacefully pecking… 😍

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ON A Peninsula, or on the next one, LEAVE NO TRACE!

– Always travel on public ways and respect the signs.
– Limit noise and interfere as little as possible with wildlife.
– Respect the other users.
– Leave rocks, plants and other natural features as you found them and respect historic sites.
– Take your waste with you and throw it into the appropriate containers, in the nearest village.
– Do not camp inside protected areas and do not make any fires.