Towering opportunity at Belvelly

History oozes from an unusual home, Tommy Barker reports

WHAT goes around, comes around, and glory days have come back again for a well-rounded building, erected almost 200 years ago, to keep Napoleon Bonaparte and his ships at bay.

Built as a stout defensive structure in 1813, one of five in Cork harbour, and one of several dozen in Ireland, the Martello Tower in Belvelly, Cobh, never came under attack, though it was also militarily primed for defensive purposes in World War 1.