Town rides wave of high standards
“THAT’LL add an extra nought to the value of houses around here, not that they need it” – so said a Kinsale acquaintance last week as the picturesque Cork town was listed as ‘one of the best places in Europe to retire’ by the influential Travel & Leisure magazine.
Another honour added to the dozens of similar accreditations accumulated over the past 50 years, this latest laurel will certainly impact favourably on property values in a place where even a two-bed apartment can reach seven figures.
Walking around the ancient cobblestone streets in dazzling April sunshine, I got to wondering how towns like Kinsale, Kenmare, Adare, Roundstone and Westport become global passwords for success, while other equally pretty places don’t quite make the same A+ grade. The factors are many and various, but ultimately funnel down to one common element – people. Towns become beacons of success through the driving force of visionaries, individuals whose determination and foresight lift a population to realising a common goal they might never otherwise have imagined. Peter Barry was one of Kinsale’s earliest visionaries.
A man whose lifelong dedication to pulling his birthright from depressed backwater to international playground merited him a statue in the town’s most prominent square. Having lived through the dark and dreary 1940s and 1950s, Peter witnessed the decades of emigration and economic decline – but still saw the stars from the gutter. “In 1963, the town’s total available accommodation consisted of 10 bedrooms, yet there was the potential here to create something wonderful and unique – and that’s what we did,” he said.
Many a famous Irish chef got their start as teenagers peeling spuds at The Spaniard and The Man Friday during Peter’s ownership, as his vision and drive led to making Kinsale the ‘jewel in the crown’ of Irish tourism. “Everything changed from 1965 onwards, the town got up a head of steam, there was a buzz in the air, the momentum had begun and we caught the crest of the wave.”
Where once the only diversion available might have been beer and mouldy sandwiches, Kinsale and its food had now become the essential foreplay for a new generation devoted to life, love and the perfect pate de fois gras. Prosperity now poured forth in magnums of Dom Perignon as Ireland made a reservation for eating out as an entertainment. “The key to everything was creating a high standard everywhere from the humble takeaway to the fivestar restaurant – if the general tenor is high, it forces every operator to rise to that level.”
Peter may have long passed on to the top table in the sky, but the inscription on his plinth in Market Square remains a fitting epitaph: ‘A man for all seasons.’ But fine dining wasn’t going to be Kinsale’s only game. When owner John O’Connor first saw the Old Head peninsula in 1989, golf was the last thing on his mind. “Creating a world-class golf course wasn’t on my radar, but the idea of doing something impossible slowly began to take hold,” he explained of the mission to which he devoted the final years of his life.
When the Old Head went on to become what one sportswriter termed “a course where golfing angels will congregate and legends will be born”, it brought Kinsale a whole other element of affluent tourism – the type who fly a Gulfstream G700 from New York for three days of golf and big spending. “We planned on spending a million pounds to make the Old Head unique, only later realising it’s a task that never ends.” The phrase stands as another suitable epitaph in a town where high standards are the only measure of greatness.