Walk of the Week: Barreragh/Abbeymahon, Courtmacsherry, West Cork

We set off from the pier.

The Courtmacsherry lifeboat will likely be moored in the channel nearby. From a population of less than 1,000, the hamlet still provides enough brave volunteers to man the boat. The first lifeboat in Ireland was at Courtmacsherry and village men have risked their lives for others since 1825.

From the pier, the old Coast Guard Station can be seen behind the village. The largest fortified Coast Guard Station in Ireland, it was built about 1869 and torched by IRA volunteers in 1922 when, it was said, “the Irish burnt everything British except their coal”. Leaving the pier, turning right, we pass the old Railway Station. Here, in former years, city folk arrived every summer Sunday on excursion trains from Cork. The train on August bank holiday, 1953, brought 600 day-trippers. In autumn and winter, the trains drew sugar beet from the rich farmlands of Timoleague and Barryroe. The railway was closed in 1961, and is still lamented.