Ninety-nine steps, a suspension bridge spanning a terrifying gorge and a spectacular white-washed fog signal station - even on a good day, this island's most south-westerly point is daunting, dramatic. So many ships have foundered off the headland that it is said a diver could "walk" from wreck to wreck.
At least two vessels are trapped in the "narrow gut" between the tip of Mizen Head and the little islet that bears the Commissioners of Irish Lights posting, according to author and photographer, Daphne Pochin-Mould. One was the Irada, bound for Liverpool from Texas in December, 1910, with a crew of 69 and a cargo of cotton. In thick fog, it tried to make for the Fastnet and was caught by the tidal stream that sweeps around the Mizen.
Miraculously, as the seas churned up thousands of cotton bales, the survivors were picked off the cliff-face the next morning by the men building the Mizen station.
The former Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, was also fortunate when his yacht ran into difficulty there in August, 1986, but many others have not been so lucky. Late last year, four fishermen on the 65-foot St Gervase lost their lives close by en route south from Castletownbere. The timber-built vessel broke up within days, and to date two bodies have still not been found.
Sue Hill and Stephen O'Sullivan know the headland's tragic history in detail, and that's why yesterday's official opening of the Mizen Head visitor centre is both a celebration and a commemoration. Ms Hill, who runs the Heron's Cove guesthouse in nearby Goleen, was the driving force behind local efforts to retain a "human" link when the light was automated by the Commissioners of Irish Lights in 1993.
That year, Mizen Tourism Co-operative Society was registered and was granted a lease from the commissioners. With the support and funding of West Cork Leader co-operative, Murphy's Brewery and Cork County Council, the society's shareholders developed a visitor centre which was opened to the public in June, 1994, and now attracts some 50,000 visitors a year.
Though it was a prefab-cabin, it was a start. And for the past six years, the committee of management has worked tirelessly to build a permanent centre at the top of the cliffs, while the station itself illustrates history since the first radio beacon was built there in 1931. West Cork Leader, Bord Failte/ERDF, Cork County Council, the National Millennium Committee and Ford Ireland have contributed to the cost of the latest phase, and the balance of the £0.75 million budget has come by way of an AIB bank loan.
Artwork was commissioned locally - including a stunning model of the Fastnet lighthouse, clearly visible from Mizen, by Geoff McCarthy and Dave Otway, and a mural of the south-west landscape behind by Jules Thomas. Sheena Wood and Kurt Lynndorf of the Ewe Art Centre, Goleen, have created three sculptures on the themes of water, sky-to-sea and lighthouse keepers' crafts. Images of lights extending from the Old Head of Kinsale to Cromwell Point, Valentia, Co Kerry, taken by the indefatigable lighthouse photographer, John Eagle, are displayed; while the work of Richard Mills, wildlife photographer, is also represented.
Safety at sea is the theme, appropriately enough; and it was while working on that concept that Sue Hill accidentally generated the idea for another project which may very well become a source of income. Having been the location for that first radio beacon, Mizen is still at the cutting edge of marine communication; it has one of three differential geographical positioning systems (DGPS) in Ireland for satellite navigation.
While inquiring about other examples of marine technology for the centre, Hill was put into contact with the Cork company, CharterNav. Gary Delaney, its energetic founder and a former Naval Service officer, suggested installation of a navigational aids simulator. Before she knew it, Hill was at the helm of a ship approaching Dublin port in bad weather, with several hundred passengers on board . . .
Almost. On the centre's behalf, she had acquired Ireland's only commercial simulated ship's bridge, approved by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) and fitted with three plasma screens providing a 120-degree view of seven selected ports, along with the standard controls and equipment found in any modern wheelhouse.
Transas of St Petersburg, Russia, provided the software, which reproduces "visuals" of seven ports - Dublin, Liverpool, Dover, Calais, Folkestone, Boulogne and Glasgow. Hill hopes to include Mizen Head also, on a route from Fastnet rock into Bantry Bay, when funding permits. An instructor station and exercise editor can replicate any condition at sea - weather, tides, currents and other traffic - and the special effects include the sickening thud of a collision, and the more protracted groan associated with running aground.
The "skipper" can opt to steer any one of three vessels: a passenger ferry, stern trawler or rigid inflatable boat (RIB). A standard VHF radio chatters away in the corner, while an anemometer measures wind speed and a Navtech weather system feeds into the chart display. The simulator's purpose is two-fold: to give visitors a visual appreciation of a ship's bridge and a navigational passage, and to provide for specialised marine electronic navigation training, complementing courses run by the Cork Institute of Technology and the new maritime college at Ringaskiddy.
Described by Delaney as "the best gameboy in town", the simulator may help the centre to pay its way. It may, but should not, distract visitors from making the breathtaking short trek down the cliff walk from the centre and across the suspension bridge to the signal station, where a simulated lightkeepers' quarters, complete with sleeping keeper, give some idea of the isolated life of those who "manned" the lights.
Hill won't stop there, although a rich benefactor is badly needed. State agencies have been supportive, but sponsorship from private companies has been difficult to come by, she says, in spite of the obvious educational and environmental dimensions to the project. She and her committee of management have other plans, including a research facility and observation tower for the many whale and dolphin watchers attracted to the headland.
Mizen Tourism recently purchased a computerised Automatic Weather Station (AWS) to facilitate collection of data for Met Eireann. "If we get Mizen mentioned on the daily sea area forecast coastal reports, imagine the benefit of that," she says. For Mizen, neighbouring Goleen and those mariners preparing to give the treacherous headland a good wide berth at sea . . .
Mizen Head Visitor Centre and Signal Station is open daily from mid-March to October: 10.30 a.m. - 5 p.m. in March, April, May and October, 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. from June through September. It is open on weekends during the winter months. Admission is £3.50 for adults, £2.75 for students and senior citizens, £2 for children aged between five and 12 years, and no charge for children under five years of age. A family ticket (two adults and three children) is £11. There is a 10 per cent discount for groups.