DIRK COVE: it sounds like the sort of name given to a shady character in a trashy novel. In fact, Dirk Cove is a beautiful bay on the way to Galley Head in West Cork, and home to the somewhat ominously-titled Seagale Cottage.

TIMES change — 30 years ago, this beach-side field was the site for six small wooden chalets, frequented by visiting Dutch and Germans booking horse-drawn caravan holidays around West Cork.

A WEST Cork bungalow at Dundeady, on the approach road to the Galley Head lighthouse, has a west-facing vista over pounding surf on Long Strand to Rosscarbery Bay, with other visual highlights being Castlefreke castle (now being renovated by the Freke family) Glandore bay and points further west, with the Fastnet a distant sentinel.

JUST how do you price sites by the sea in West Cork, particularly following a couple of striking results in the Rosscarbery/Clonakilty area?

THERE’S land, and then there’s the sea, and there are few enough places on the Irish coastline where the two come together so prettily as at Galley Head in West Cork.