The calm after the storm in Inchydoney

Rose Martin is refreshed after a weekend in the five-star Inchydoney Island Hotel and Spa, eating home-made breakfast, walking on the beach and dining to sea views.

THE Irish wedding season is in full swing and it took a West Cork hand-fasting to bring me to Inchydoney after many years. Amazingly, I’d never been there before — knowing the Clonakilty area like the back of my hand, I had been on automatic pilot: I had established favourite destinations and most of those were inherited.

You parent as you were parented, so the seaside meant the Long Strand and Warren Strand — my father’s Austin A40 Countryman never fancied the curved and congested road to the strand at Inchdoney. And when my own children were in their crab-fishing days, I trod the same old, rutted route.