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We timed it perfectly, arriving atop Seefin, the highest point on the peninsula, just as the golden sun touched the sea. The neighbouring peninsulas faded to soft silhouettes and the western horizon, 180 degrees of the Atlantic Ocean, went from blue, to orange to red. It was a spectacular sunset to end a perfect weekend on the very edge of Europe.

Chris and I had come to the Sheep’s Head peninsula in the middle of winter to walk, think, drink and wrestle with the wild weather that familiarly strikes Ireland’s south western extremity. We were dressed to battle with mighty Atlantic storms, endure gales and get soaked by heavy squalls as they raced off the sea: And for two days, the sun had not stopped shining.

The Sheep’s Head peninsula is the least known of the five peninsulas that protrude into the Atlantic Ocean off south west Cork. It is a wild and beautiful place described in a 17th Century survey as “being all rocky and frequented only by eagles and birds – never to be inhabited by reason of the rough incommodities.” Though it is now well inhabited on the southern side, large parts of it remain remote and it is the perfect place for a long, lonely walk.

The Sheep’s Head Way is a 55-mile loop walk from the town of Bantry to the lighthouse on the point of the peninsula and back. The walk, established in 1996, was designed to be sampled as much as fanatically completed and on our first day, we drove to Tooreen, a small hamlet at the end of the road, and walked through the converging ribs of sandstone rock down to the point.

The lighthouse on the point is the defining feature of the walk as every step you take is either towards it or away from it. It is a wild place and in a storm, with combers growling in off the ocean and rain lashing the stout, white lighthouse, it probably feels like the edge of the world. When Chris and I arrived, the sun shone bright in a breathless sky. The sea was as calm as a meditating Buddhist monk and you could have dropped a feather vertically.

Walking away from the point, along the northern cliffs overlooking Bantry Bay, there was evidence underfoot of the rain which strikes the littoral of Cork 200 days in a year. The bogs squelched and wheezed beneath our boots. Often we would be admiring the view from a turn in the path, and suddenly find ourselves calf deep in the mire.

At Gortavallig, there are the remains of a short-lived copper mining venture. The row of roofless stone cottages and simple mine works were built by Cornish miners between 1845 and 1848. Exposed to the north west winds and 200 feet above the sea, they are testament to a futile attempt to extract a living from an inhospitable place. This was the time of the Great Famine in Ireland and reading the excellent ‘Guide to the Sheep’s Head Way’ we learnt that the population of the peninsula was 8,340 in 1844. Today it is only 1,300.

As our shadows got longer, we left the walk and the short Irish oak posts which mark its length, and crossed over the top to the more benign and settled south coast. The tiny village of Kilcrohane has three pubs and having secured a bed in the hostel, we set about rewarding ourselves for the hard day, with Guinness.

The Saturday night ‘craic’ was in the neighbouring village, so we gathered with most of the residents of Kilcrohane and headed to Akahista for the gig. It could only happen in Ireland, but when we knocked on the door of the ‘Tin Pub’, a lady poked her head out and said: “You can only come in if yer good lookin’. Ah, well, yer not, but we’ll let yer in anyway.” A honking blues concert was in full swing. Three weathered men, on guitar, a mandolin and the washboard, were belting out the tunes to a sardine-packed crowd of locals. Few could reach the bar so pints were relayed overhead and an old man yelled in my ear: “If there weren’t so many people, I’d be fallin’ down.” When the pub emptied sometime after midnight, he did.

In the morning, Chris and I swam in the sea to shake out the fog in our heads before striding up onto the ridge of the peninsula to find the Sheep’s Head Way again. For much of its length, the walk takes the high ground along the spine of the peninsula affording stunning views over the mountains, islands and rocks that make up this beautiful corner of Ireland. To the south is the Mizen Head peninsula and in the distance, the tiny Fastnet Rock with one of the world’s most dramatic lighthouses. To the north, you can see Bear Island, the broad, bare Caha Mountains on the Beara peninsula and behind, the outline of the Iveragh peninsula.

There is evidence of the ancient glaciers that formed these mountains in the ‘drumlins’ or rounded hills. Bronze Age man used these as sites for hill forts. We also walked passed burial grounds, cairns and holy wells on our way up, examples of the ancient human association with this landscape.

We put up hares and a snipe as well as the more common stonechats, which dipped in and out of the gorse around us. Plumes of reddish-brown smoke rose from heather fires at the point and on the Beara peninsula, curling gently through the azure sky.

As we approached the top of Seefin, the highest point on the peninsula, we looked hopefully out to sea, but there was no sign of rough weather anywhere. It would be a beautiful sunset and it was hard to be disappointed. We had probably enjoyed the finest January weather in years. That would be the luck of the Irish, then.

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