TRAVEL
From ports to forts: Some enchanted evenings in Kinsale History, culture, food so fresh it practically swims to your plate and ‘unicorn horsies’. Barry Egan explores a magical West Cork
A
sip of whiskey on the balcony of the Trident Hotel one evening overlooking the port of Kinsale sent my mind all the way back to the 16th century. It wasn’t the strength of the whiskey that did it, though. The story goes that Hugh O’Neill’s men were defeated in the Battle of Kinsale, that started on Christmas Eve, 1601, because his attack plan was given up to Sir George Carew for a bottle of whiskey by Brian McHugh Oge MacMahon. However, according to the history buffs, it’s just that – a story.
Ballinacurra House, two miles outside Kinsale, where Emilia and her two-and-a half-year-old brother, Daniel, were given a special lesson on how to make pizzas. The estate’s head chef David Rice taught them how to prepare the dough and put their toppings on before putting their pizzas into a giant outdoor woodfire oven. Having worked up an appetite from the pony trekking (Daniel and I were also hungry from the walk around the lovely grasslands of Commoge), we all tucked into the pizzas prepared by Emilia and Daniel.
Back to the balcony. What allowed me and my wife to enjoy – uninterrupted – the spellbinding views out to sea from our hotel that particular evening was the fact that our two young kids were fast asleep in their beds after a full day of fun.
After our tasty al fresco feasting, we took a leisurely stroll around the house and then, through the fairytale woodlands right down to the tributary of the Bandon river. The gentle silence was broken only momentarily by birds landing on the still water.
My five-year-old daughter had spent the afternoon pony trekking at the Kinsale Equestrian Centre in Commoge with her mother. The delight on her face as she trotted off gently into the fields on Wally, her little ‘unicorn horsie’. (Emilia’s mother Aoife seemed pleased with herself too as she rode off on the slightly bigger Phantom.)
An hour later, my family and I were gazing out on bigger waters aboard the Spirit of Kinsale as we explored the harbour and further out to sea. The charming captain brought us on a wonderful journey that included everything from the sights of seals and otters to a stunning view of the Old Head of Kinsale to James Fort, built in 1603, Charles Fort, built in the late 1600s, and Ringrone Castle, built in the 12th or 13th century.
Ninety minutes later, when the child returned with Wally, I saw a unique beam of happiness on her face. Unicorn horsies are indeed magical. Afterwards, we drove to the magnificent
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The captain also told us the tale of the passenger liner, the Lusitania, which lies at the bottom of the sea off the Old Head of Kinsale – torpedoed without warning by a German
U-boat in May 1915. Around 1,200 people perished, and it changed the course of the First World War. The marinas harbouring the endless yachts (many of them state-of-the-art, some of them straight out of a James Bond movie) should give you some idea of the wealth in and around this special place in Ireland, only a 35-minute drive from Cork city. Its boating fraternity apart, the wealth of fantastic restaurants in Kinsale is extraordinary, especially for such a small town. It is not difficult to see why it is has such a culinary reputation, some even dubbing Kinsale the gourmet capital of Ireland. The food throughout is world class. Even a plain bowl of seafood chowder in a local pub in Kinsale is like something you’d get in a swanky hotel abroad. You know you are eating the best of locally caught seafood whenever you’re in a restaurant in Kinsale. Something you can’t say in every establishment around Ireland, but I digress.