A walk for the weekend: Sheep’s Head Peninsula

“Water and ground in their extremity.” Thus, Seamus Heaney described the Sheep’s Head Peninsula, while folksinger and author Mike Harding labelled it “the most beautiful landscape in Ireland.” This description unsettled me. Could Harding have beaten me to an incontestable truth? After half a lifetime exploring Ireland’s scene-stealing vistas, was it possible the best one had eluded me?

An opportunity to find out presented itself when David Ross invited me to overnight in the comforting snugness of his Top-of-the-Rock, Pod Park near Drimoleague. Fortified by a locally sourced breakfast, I had only one destination in mind next morning. Like all the best landscapes, Sheep’s Head reveals it secrets slowly and I am past Ahakista before I begin groping for metaphors to describe the contrasts before me. Not being Heaney, I have only managed “a delicate finger of land with gnarly, weather-worn knuckles” when I arrive at Tooreen carpark and begin following the blue arrows for the Lighthouse Loop.

Now, it is exclusively “shanks mare” but the trail is co-operative. Heaney found poetic inspiration here and it is easy to see why this place acted as a wellspring for his imagination. The landscape is a wild fusion of erratically strewn boulders, serene lakes of amplified hues and weather ravaged hillsides. For generations this austerely beautiful peninsula stoutly resisted all comers wishing to render it productive. It was only when local man, James O’Mahony, transformed it into a theatre of pleasure for Irish and overseas walkers, that this changed.

Certainly, I make common cause with many nationalities on the final ascent to the Sheep’s Head. Then, it is down a flight of concrete steps to where a small lighthouse stands as if indifferent to time. Surprising, this edifice is relatively modern and was built to facilitate ships accessing the giant oil terminal at Whiddy Island. Largely bereft of purpose since the advent of modern navigational aids, the lighthouse has now become an extravagantly scenic lodestone for almost all Sheep’s Head explorers. Sitting on the headland above the lighthouse gives me a soporific feeling of floating over earth and sun-dappled ocean as an old tanker chugs languidly out of Bantry Bay and heads towards Mizen Head where the extremity of Ireland spectacularly drowns in the southern ocean.

Returning along the north shore of the peninsula turns out a challenging but rewarding excursion. Inspirational scenery unfolds over great plunging cliffs to the momentous mountainy sweep of the Beara Peninsula crowned by the flat-topped eminence of Hungry Hill. Swinging inland past an old bothán with its roof long gone provides a glimpse into the past. This has me wondering, when did this tiny farmstead last ring to children’s laughter and what became of the people who once called this place home.

Such thoughts are then banished, over coffee and scones in Bernie’s Café, which must surely be Ireland’s most scenically located eatery. Here, I conclude that the Sheep’s Head may be equalled but not surpassed for Harding’s designation as “Ireland’s most beautiful landscape.”

Start: From Bantry take the N71 and then the R591 to Durrus. Follow the minor road signposted through Ahakista and Kilcrohane to Tooreen which is the walk start point.

Terrain: There-and-back walk from Bernie's Café to the lighthouse can be achieved in trainers. If returning by the north shore of the Peninsula, boots are best for the rough and sometimes wet underfoot conditions.

Time: 2.5 hours

Distance: 5km.