Across to Beara

Cyclist heads to CountyCork’s Beara Peninsula,a beckoning finger of land in the wild Atlantic Ocean that promises some enchanting riding.

- James Spender

The south west of Ireland is a place like no other. On some days it must make for very bleak living indeed a battered stretch of coast wholly at the mercy of ambivalent seas and capricious weather. But on other days it’s a haven of tranquillity, where even the cows seem to drift atop pastures in dreamlike states.

Today, on the tip of the Beara Peninsula, is one such day. A hazy skymuffles a sun that’s doing its best to turn the plate-glass waters of Coulagh Bay a silvery blue.The air hangs so still that when ride partner Robert and I stop, all we can hear is a tearing sound followed by the rumpf of sheep grazing. It’s enough to make any body want to down tools but we still have the small matter of 134kmof riding before us.

Age and beauty

Like most places on the coasts of the Emerald Isle, Beara is built predominantly on sandstone, fishing and folklore. The cliffs rise up from the Atlantic like lost jigsaw pieces, appearing square-sided from the beaches but jaggedly cut when viewed from above. The good fishing is down to Beara’s serendipitous geography, reaching out as it does into a vast ocean rich with sea life, and thanks to neighbouring peninsulas providing one of the world’s biggest natural harbours in which fleets land their catch and shelter from storms. The folklore is entirely man-made, developed over millennia by inhabitants trying to make sense of the world.

Best known in these parts is the legend of