Chasing the Light: New film tells the amazing tale of Dzogchen Beara in West Cork

Chasing the Light tells of the English couple who built a spiritual retreat in a remote part of Co Cork, and how the centre was rocked by revelations about its Tibetan spiritual leader, writes Esther McCarthy

Peter Cornish at the Dzogchen Beara Buddhist retreat centre that he founded in West Cork, the subject of Chasing the Light. 

It’s the West Cork spiritual retreat centre created by a young hippie couple who dared to dream big. When Peter and Harriet Cornish fell in love with the Beara Peninsula in the 1970s, they decided to build a spiritual retreat centre on its remote clifftops.

Dzogchen Beara would go on to become a much-loved Tibetan Buddhist centre - but for this place, the road to enlightenment would be paved with huge challenges.