Outdoor Odysseys

Three days of discovery from Cork City: Excursions to West Cork, South Tipperary and Waterford

After Killarney had given so much, Cork had a hard act to follow. My reasoning for splitting my August 2022 between two places was to curtail accommodation costs; even in the midst of a tourism recovery, Killarney still got busy and very expensive at the weekends. The scheme also allowed me to see parts of Ireland beyond Kerry.

The contrasts between Cork and Killarney were more than apparent on this trip. Now that I have a place in the former, they resonate more intensely. Killarney has mountains and lakes on its doorstep, while Cork feels a bit further away from such delights. It is true that it has some coastline in its favour and greenways that follow that around Cork Harbour, as industrialised as that can feel in places. In summary, added effort is needed to get going to other spaces, especially when you have to travel from the suburbs to the city centre first.

With a city centre hotel base, that was less of an issue, so I got going to numerous places away from Cork city during my August 2022 sojourn. Such was the lure out from the city that even nearby Blarney Castle had to await a trip to Cork during February of this year before I ventured there. Cobh and Kinsale did better than this, and Bantry and Whiddy Island became the representatives of West Cork, a place of which I saw more during last summer. Venturing even further afield, I got as far as Clogheen and the Knockmealdown Mountains in south Tipperary.

Much like my treatment of the Killarney portion of this Irish escapade, I have given each full day its own trip report. That means that there is one each for the day around Bantry and Whiddy Island, another for the hike around Clogheen and the Knockmealdown Mountains, and the last full day spent traipsing around the Corkonian hinterland. Only recently did I get to realise that all this rambling in 2024 set the scene for much of what I had savoured in Ireland.

Once any gaps were filled this year, it let to a kind of inactive funk from which I am starting to emerge. Further Irish explorations could need new ideas. Meanwhile, a spot of brain hacking is in order to set me going again. Ironically, a few disappointing days could be what it takes to reignite motivation for me. We human beings can work in some very odd ways.

Travel Arrangements

Starting from Killarney, the Expressway service 40 conveyed me to Cork, from where I could embark on other day trips. Return journeys on Bus Éireann services 236, 245 and 226 facilitated trips to Bantry, Clogheen and Kinsale, respectively. A local passenger ferry got me between Bantry and Whiddy island, while a return journey on an Irish Rail commuter service got me to Cobh for a brief evening visit.

The return to Macclesfield from Cork used a few modes of travel and an overnight stay in Manchester city centre; the latter avoided some of the heat that was building and helped when a flight got delayed. A rail journey got me from Cork to Heuston Station in Dublin, from where a journey on a Dublin Express coach carried me to Dublin Airport for a Ryanair flight to Manchester. The latter was heavily delayed yet a train journey got me from Manchester airport to Manchester Piccadilly station. After spending the night in Manchester (finding the hotel took a little time, even if it were near to the train station), rail services conveyed me to Macclesfield to finish what I had made into a two-day journey.