Journey into Kinsale's colourful past

LEAVING the tourist office, we go left, along the waterfront. Scilly hamlet, with its imposing old buildings on the shore, is seen across the water or exposed mud flats of the Inner Harbour.

In earlier centuries, the area to our right was under water, with knuckles of quays protruding into the harbour at right angles. In the 17th century, and again in the 19th century, Kinsale was an important fishing port. For the spring mackerel season, fleets of boats from Cornwall and the Isle of Man assembled, and fish, salted or packed in ice brought from Norway, was shipped to the English markets.

At the Trident Hotel, we reach World’s End, as it is called locally, said to have been thus named by Viking longshipmen wintering there, far from home. We follow the pavement west along the water.