Outside of Kilcrohane attitudes are frostier towards ‘Lord Ivor’

KILCROHANE in west Cork is the kind of place that makes you believe in God. With this week’s Mediterranean skies and glorious sunshine, it was somewhere that few would be capable of driving through without giving in to the urge to pull up at the roadside and drink up the view over Dunmanus Bay.

The village itself is centred around JF O’Mahony’s post-office, shop and, this being west Cork, wine bar.

With its blood red traditional shopfront, mounds of briquettes and gas bottles stacked outside and single petrol pump, it is the stuff of a Maeve Binchy mini-series. It being off-season, the village is quiet with the only sound the screech of swooping seagulls, distant waves and children playing in the nearby schoolyard. It’s the Ireland that the world fell in love with.