The best of the Irish seaside
The McKennas share their secrets of where to eat, drink, stay and visit
The Irish summer is here and whatever the weather it’s time to head to the Irish seaside, our ancestral home and source of our most potent childhood memories. In these exclusive extracts from their book, ‘Ireland the Best’, John and Sally McKenna celebrate the Irish seaside with this indispensable guide to eating, sightseeing, playing and staying by the sea
Who doesn’t love the seaside? We love the softly sifting sand between our toes, the sea smell of salty iodine, the elemental chemistry that happens when water meets the land — whether it be slack water in calm bays, ripples on pebble beaches, or crashing waves beneath soaring cliffs.
Houses with sea views command higher prices and the sea and sea air are known to release the body’s feel-good chemicals. The seaside stimulates our body’s natural medicine chest — the neuro-chemicals and endorphins, that make us physically feel better.
The conventional explanation for why we love the sea is that it’s our communal ancestral home. While never being the same twice, it is also a world that is as old as the Earth itself. It’s the place from whence we all came.
There is another, equally fundamental, reason as to why the sea courses through our veins. As children, heading to the beach for holidays, filled with high spirits, expectation hands us those moments when we create ‘happiness anchors’, the torrential memories that remain with us for the rest of our lives — 99s. Sliding down sand dunes. Sunburn. Sticking your head out the car windows, crab sandwiches.
Funny thing is, the memories don’t even have to be happy ones. Sally’s memories revolve around different craft, getting her hair caught in dinghy rigging, accidentally spinning kayaks and crashing over in wind surfers. John remembers how he ruined two holiday trips to the beach with his family. Once, when a grumpy donkey-for-hire with McKenna on its back, ran underneath a barbed-wire fence, while another was an attempt to open a packet of biscuits on the beach with a fork. His hungry zealotry meant that the fork opened the biscuits, and then swung upwards to lodge in his eye. Ouch.
But, good or bad, beach memories share a uniqueness: both are indelible.
Is it to do with the fact that sea water is what is known as a hygroscopic substance — or at least salt is the element here that constantly attracts moisture? That’s why you never really feel dry after a swim, and possibly why there is always sand in the sandwiches.
Best beaches
Ireland, being an island, has plenty of potential places in which to enjoy time at the seaside. We have no less than 7,500km of shoreline offering all types of beaches. We love Inch Beach in Dingle, which played a starring role in the movie Ryan’s Daughter, or Co Donegal’s
Ballymastocker Beach on the exposed North Atlantic where the “lazy wind” is said to go through you, not around you. There is a natural coral beach near Sneem in Co Kerry, and natural harbour beaches like
Derrynane Bay. The calmer Celtic Sea to the south gives us the dune beaches such as Owenahincha, or the causeway beaches of Inchydoney
Island. The relative shelter of the Irish sea offers fabulous white beaches on the east coast, such as Curracloe (where Saving Private Ryan was filmed) and dune and marram grass beaches such as Velvet Strand in Portmarnock.
Best lighthouses
Perhaps the most emblematic symbol of the seaside is a lighthouse,
and, thanks to the Irish Landmark Trust, there are many lighthouses to rent for holidays by the sea in Ireland. Be prepared to ascend a number of steps — Wicklow Head Lighthouse needs you to walk up 109 steps to get to the kitchen — but there is absolutely nothing more comforting than sleeping under a lighthouse beam. Our favourite is at Galley
Head, where the arc of the beam traversing the land is not blacked out, apparently due to the request of the Sultan of Turkey, who asked to be able to see it when visiting Castle Freke.
Best seaside hotels
If not staying in a lighthouse, then there are a number of sensational Irish hotels right on the sea. We been going for many years to Kelly’s Resort Hotel overlooking the sandy beach at Rosslare; Inchydoney Island just south of Clonakilty in Co Cork; The Armada overlooking Spanish Point in Co Clare and Renvyle
House Hotel overlooking Renvyle beach in Connemara, are all also old favourites. And a new favourite is the Garryvoe Hotel, Co Cork, where recent renovations have made this one of Ireland’s great escapes.
Best seaside camping
For the more adventurous traveller, there are plenty of camping spots on the beach or near the sea. Portsalon Luxury Camping has five luxurious Mongolian yurts, with king-size beds, carpets and a wood-burning stove close to Ballymastockler Bay. Eagle
Point Camping in Co Cork offers a fabulous location in the inner-waters of Bantry Bay. And, the only Gold Tier Dark Sky Reserve in the northern hemisphere is found in the skies over
Mannix Point Camping Park in Co Kerry.
Best beach shacks
Perhaps the most evocative and alluring seaside discovery is the beach shack. For us, the epitome of this experience can be found in the
Puffin Cafe near Castle Freke in Co Cork. Here architect Spencer Treacy and his partner Kate Zinkin produce some of the best pizzas in a wacky room overlooking the mesmeric Long Strand beach. Ireland’s most famous and celebrated beach shack has to be Harry’s Shack on the
Game of Thrones destination beach at Portstewart, Co Derry. There’s great coffee and good ice creams in the wooden beachside shack, known simply as The Shack in Dunfanaghy, Co Donegal, and the characterfully named Misunderstood Heron is definitely worth a detour from Leenane in North Connemara. Fine cooking, Cloud Picker coffee and jaw-dropping views. Another great, Gourmet Street Kitchen, is the food truck parked in Courtmacsherry Bay, Co Cork, and run by MasterChef
Ireland winner and cookery writer Diana Dodog. So, you’re driving to a seaside town, and what goes through your head? You are probably imagining a little cafe that serves fish straight from the boats, and serves it simply. These alephs of seafood are thin enough on the ground, but when they exist they are perfect.
Best casual seafood
Perhaps the most famous in Ireland is Fishy Fishy Cafe, Kinsale, Co Cork, where Martin Shanahan spends much of his time taking calls from fishermen, detailing their catch. We also love Randaddy’s recently renovated beachfront room, full of surfers at Lahinch, Co Clare, where Randy Lewis turns out eclectic and well-handled cooking.
Vasco in Fanore in Co Clare is a colourful, simple room, filled with sea light on the Coast Road.
Loop Head in Co Clare has a number of celebrated restaurants including the simplified and renamed BiaBaile
at Murphy Blacks, in Kilkee, who this year add pizzas to the menu. Also in Kilkee is the popular Diamond Rocks overlooking the bay at the beginning of the cliffside coastal path, and the famous pollock holes for swimming.
The Long Dock pub in Carrigaholt, is something of a seafood mecca. Cronin’s Pub and Mad Fish Restaurant is equally celebrated, where Denis Cronin cooks smart pub grub overlooking Crosshaven, Co Cork. One of our very favourite west Cork places is the simple
Coffee Shop in Union Hall (now with a second branch in Kinsale), where Jessie and Billy cook everything from scratch, including their famous panini and pizzas. Meanwhile, in Dublin, the expanding Klaw empire has every fishy temptation known to man, including poke bowls and lobster rolls. Bring it on!
If the beach shack is the epitome of beach cool, and the seafood cafe the aleph in which to enjoy a prime seaside location, then the ultimate seaside meal has to be fish and chips. We’re going to call it and say the best fish ’n’ chips in Ireland is served up in Reel Dingle Fish in Dingle, Co Kerry, but we also love The Saltee Chipper in Kilmore Quay, Co Wexford; The Galley in Annalong in Co Down. And how we love the monkfish scampi and fish and chips served in the Field Kitchen in the Blackbird Pub after a cliff walk in Ballycotton in Co Cork.
On the following pages are a selection of seaside activities, adventures and offerings from Ireland the Best.