When our son was very young, we spent several Easter holidays in Baltimore, a beautiful harbour village in West Cork. We took the ferry across Roaringwater Bay to Sherkin Island and Cape Clear, where Fastnet Rock Lighthouse looms in the distance, wistfully known as Ireland’s Teardrop by mournful emigrants setting off across the Atlantic in centuries past.
We stayed at a friend’s holiday home on the hill overlooking the bay but the house was eventually sold and, sadly, Baltimore no longer played a recurring role in our lives. Recently, this maritime gem came up in conversation at a friend’s birthday celebration in Dublin. I was introduced to Stuart Musgrave, who explained that he had ditched his London life to return to Baltimore at the start of the pandemic, moving his young family into his own childhood holiday home. He described the freedom that had opened up during that time with Carbery’s 100 Isles to explore – the islands in and around Long Island Bay and Roaringwater Bay – and his own lockdown project reimagining St Matthew’s Church as a live music venue.
I was impressed further to hear that the shuttered swimming pool had reopened and was now run solely by a team of committed locals. The coastal community had risen to the challenge of reinvigorating the village at a difficult time for small town Ireland and I immediately began making plans to return to Baltimore to experience this new energy for myself – this time as winter sets in.
It’s a four-hour trip from Dublin, and the light is beginning to fade as we drive the final stretch of road from Skibbereen with the reflection of the moon on the River Ilen leading us all the way to dinner. We park in the shadow of 13th-century Dún na Seád castle and the warm glow from the windows of Dede restaurant at the Customs House beckons from the top of the hill.
Maria Archer also spent many holidays in Baltimore and when this building came up for sale in late 2019, she jumped ship from Dublin and set about creating a world-class food destination. Turkish chef Ahmet Dede had already drawn a crowd for his Hiberno-Turkish cooking at another local restaurant, Mews, and he joined Maria at the helm of her new project.
Maria leads us around the corner to try their recently opened sister restaurant Baba’de and soon we’re feasting on cacik (yoghurt and cucumber), flatbread, mushroom shawarma and haddock lakarde assembled with stellar Irish ingredients. Ahmet jokes with our teenage son while telling us tales of cooking in Dublin, Oslo and Amsterdam’s best restaurants, but it took a move to this village in 2017 before he finally found his feet, winning a Michelin star at Mews, before gaining two stars at Dede in 2023.
The upshot of our friend’s Baltimore bolthole being sold is that we get to stay at Liss Ard Estate, a few miles back towards Skibbereen. Every fire is lit in the reception rooms when we arrive and, after some hot whiskeys in the bar, we follow the light of our mobile phones through the woods to our room in the nearby Lake House.
Paul, the head gardener, leads us on a tour of the 65-hectare (163-acre) grounds the next morning. The Georgian manor was bought by the Swiss government during the cold war with an emergency plan to hightail it here in the event of nuclear holocaust.
A Swiss art dealer took up the reins next, bringing with him world-renowned land artist James Turrell, who spent two years creating his Irish Sky Garden in the middle of the leafy grounds. As I lie on the central stone plinth, at the base of this grassy crater, the sky is framed above me in a perfect oval. Total peace descends.
There’s more peace as we gaze out at Liss Ard’s lake from a glass-fronted sauna perched above the shore. Ireland has finally adopted the Scandinavian method of dealing with harsh winters and outdoor saunas are popping up alongside beaches, waterways and hotels across the country.
Baltimore beckons again in the afternoon and the harbour lies before us as we enter the village, with fishing boats and ferries drawing lines across the glistening bay. St Matthew’s Church has looked out on this view since 1819 and I hear more from Stuart Musgrave about its new life, moonlighting as a music venue. Sadly, there’s nothing scheduled during our stay but as we ascend the stairs to the balcony I imagine the walls vibrating with the sounds of some of Ireland’s most acclaimed musicians. We stroll up the hill to visit the village’s other success story, the thriving local swimming pool, heated by a roof of solar panels.
We make our way to cosy Bushe’s Bar to admire their collection of nautical maps and maritime photos. A toasted sandwich and a pint of Murphy’s set us up for a windswept walk to the Beacon, a 15m navigational column on a sheer cliff at the entrance to the harbour.
We jump back in the car and the sun is setting when Lough Hyne comes into view a few miles to the east. Atlantic Sea Kayaking has been leading night-time tours of this lake since 1995. As we paddle into the inky darkness, owner Jim Kennedy begins a masterclass in astronomy, pointing out stars, constellations and Elon Musk-owned satellites. Almost on cue, the lake’s plankton respond to the stars above with their own green, bioluminescent sparkle. Each dip of the paddle lights up the depths with mesmerising waves of glowing lights.
After two and a half hours in a kayak, we are just about ready for dinner back at Liss Ard. New resident chef Braden Perkins has been lured here from Verjus, his Parisian restaurant, and he serves sharing plates assembled from local ingredients. Braden raves about the produce he has found here, especially the salmon we’re about to eat from nearby Woodcock Smokery.
The Skibbereen farmers’ market is in full flow the next morning and we sample Gubbeen cheese, locally cured salamis and home baking. Skibbereen has more British residents than any other town in Ireland, and many of them participate in this market, adding to the strong food culture that has developed in recent decades. Film industry luminaries Jeremy Irons, David Puttnam, Paul Mescal and Saoirse Ronan have also have been drawn to the area, but there’s no sign of any of them in the coffee queue.
We race back to Lough Hyne to climb Knockomagh Hill as the views from the top are reputedly some of the best in West Cork. Once above the treeline, we ascend to the rocky summit taking in Toe Head to the east and Cape Clear to the west. Countless other islands are scattered across Roaringwater Bay farther west again.
Fastnet Lighthouse lies somewhere beyond, hidden in the clouds but still casting its magnetic presence over the whole of West Cork. I can’t wait to return again soon, with less of a hiatus this time, for the next chapter in the story of this vibrant West Cork community.
The trip was provided by Tourism Ireland. Liss Ard Estate has doubles from €160 a night. Lough Hyne night kayaking tour from €75, atlanticseakayaking.com
