Travel: Treasure island

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Dursey Island silhouetted against the late afternoon sun near the top of Beara Peninsula.

An inlet along the Beara Peninsula.

Garinish Point and its tiny sheltered fishing port.

A green takeover bid on a farm-building roof.

A leprechaun guards a Beara letterbox.

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Jill Worrall discovers the delights of Ireland's Beara Peninsula.

It's so seductive – a place name on a map. It's a siren call that I find almost impossible to resist. Sometimes the places under the names remain out of reach – you fly over them, are swept past them in the train but when you are given a car and a map there is nothing to hold you back.

We had the car, we had the map but it was already late afternoon when we drove into Glengariff in County Cork. The town is at the head of Bantry Bay and from here a road leads out onto the Beara Peninsula, the least well known of the three peninsulas that splay finger-like into the Atlantic Ocean from the west coast of Ireland.

The Ring of Kerry and Dingle Peninsula to the north tend to overshadow the Beara and like many visitors our itinerary was set to pass it by, too. The following day was mapped out almost to the hour but there were still a few hours before nightfall. We had the benefit of a long northern hemisphere twilight, a full tank of petrol and a packet of crisps – it was now or never.

The road took us a little inland at first, winding its way through fir forest until dipping down into Adrigole, a village set beside a sheltered harbour. It had rained earlier and the granity Cara Mountains that rose up behind the bay were streaming with water.

Tiny bays strewn with kelp and protected by tumbles of rock lay to our left as we approached Castletownbere. Apparently this is Ireland's most important whitefish port but we weren't stopping for fish – I was determined we'd reach the peninsula's tip before sunset.

The traffic dwindled after the port, and modern bungalows gave way to stone cottages, some roofless, crumbling into the luminous green pastures. The last 10 kilometres of the road wound its way along the hillside high above the sea until we reached Dursey Sound and the end of the road. A churning cauldron of sea lay between us and Dursey Island. The island, however, seemed to be tethered to the mainland – cables stretched the 200 or so metres between the two.

This was not a suitably Irish way of preventing Dursey from drifting into the Atlantic. The cables support a cable car that was installed in 1969. Before fishing went into a decline and urban drift took hold, Dursey once had three villages and the cable car, suspended 250 metres above the water, was an alternative to an extremely perilous sea crossing.

Today, Dursey is home to only six or so people but the cable car, the only one in Europe to cross open sea, is still extremely popular with courageous visitors. I was pleased it had ceased running for the day or I might have felt compelled to ride it. The car dangled from the cables, swaying slightly in the sea breeze – apparently it can take six people at a time, or three people and one cow (that would clearly be a crossing to avoid at all cost).

Apparently even some of the hardy islanders didn't fancy it. One elderly man, after being told the cable car would be invaluable for medical emergencies, adamantly stated that he'd rather die in his bed.

As the sun began to dip behind the hump-backed island we had just enough time to read the eclectic collection of signs near the cable-car depot. A fingerpost pointed to Moscow – 3010km away. Just Moscow, no Dublin or New York. Nearby a plaque commemorated the last resting place of four Germans who were killed here when their Luftwaffe Junkers crashed in 1943.

Our last stop was at Garinish Point where Atlantic waves were surfing over the narrow neck of a peninsula that formed a protective arc for a tiny fishing harbour. We walked along the concrete harbour wall, past a rusting ship's anchor and watched the seaweed swirling in the transparent water.

The wind was a little keener now and the rumble of the waves seemed to accentuate the isolation. Only a handful of whitewashed cottages dotted the hills behind us. There was almost the entire northern coast of the peninsula to explore but time really had run out.

For now the siren calls of Allihies and Coulagh Bay, Tuosisi and Urhin would have to be resisted.

Gardens of Ilnacullin

Maybe the reason not all tourists take the detour around Beara Peninsula is because they are enticed into the Gardens of Ilnacullin and tarry too long.

The gardens cover the whole of Garinish Island that lies at the head of Bantry Bay. A short ferry ride from Glengariff, past rock islets littered with basking speckled common seals, provides access to the island.

The 15 hectares of gardens were the labour of love of Annan Bryce, who bought the island from the British War Office in 1910. He commissioned architect Harold Peto to design a mansion and the garden and between the two of them they created a wild garden full of horticultural treasures and a stunning formal Italianate garden.

This was an awe-inspiring feat as the island consisted almost entirely of exposed rock or peat. Soil and humus had to be brought in by boat and rocks blasted to create planting holes. Annan Bryce died in 1923 but his son continued to develop the garden until his death in 1953. It was then bequeathed to the people of Ireland.

The Italianate garden is a delight with its long rectangular pool, Italian temple and borders blazing with year-round colour. Playwright George Bernard Shaw was photographed here – he stayed on the island while writing St Joan.

The wild garden is a treasure trove for plant-lovers – there are prolific plantings of rhododendrons and other shrubs and specimen trees from around the world. But what will intrigue Kiwis is the number of New Zealand plants – tree ferns, manuka, even a flourishing kauri.

There's also a wonderful walled garden with a double herbaceous border, which as keen gardeners know, represents a pinnacle of the horticultural arts.

Non-gardeners can find refuge at the top of the Martello tower, the island's only original building. This was built in 1805 as part of Ireland's defences against a dreaded Napoleonic invasion.

What more could a gardener have wanted – an entire island to play with, complete with a romantic ruined tower and set in an idyllic bay with a backdrop of wild Irish mountains.