Good enough for Ralph Fiennes...

Tommy Barker uncovers Cois Cuain, a West Cork coastal spot where the actor, and his many talented siblings, learned to run wild.

BUILT day one as a dream home, away from the rat race for the artistic Fiennes family, is Cois Cuain, a West Cork coastal find that does exactly what its name implies — it’s bayside, as well as beautiful and bounteous. And, it’s the spot where actor Ralph Fiennes, and his many talented siblings, learned to run wild, and fish for free.

On the same peninsula where TV’s Graham Norton has a shore-fronting holiday home, Cois Cuain was built in the early 1970s, in hands-on style, by celebrated British photographer Marcus Fiennes, and his wife the writer Jini (Jennifer Lash); they were a couple who ensured that creativity coursed through their brood of children, actors Ralph and Joseph, movie-makers Sophie and Martha, Magnus, a composer, Jacob, a gamekeeper, and a foster son, Michael.) Cameraman, Marcus Fiennes came to Ireland to photograph a house (he went on to work for Country Life), fell in love with West Cork and bought several acres by a shingle beach on Dunmanus Bay and Fernamanagh Lake, and started to build a family home.