Is this west Cork’s best-kept secret?
A charming bolthole hotel and an exotic island idyll. Mary Carr was left to wonder...
Local legend has it that when George Bernard Shaw took leave of Garinish Island, the extraordinary family sanctuary located in Bantry Bay, he paid his hostess Violet Bryce the ultimate compliment. ‘I hope we will meet in the next life,’ said the pious Mrs Bryce to her famous guest. ‘I think we already have Madam,’ responded Shaw about the startlingly beautiful gardens and island paradise which the Bryces were in the process of creating with the help of eminent English architect and landscape designer Harold Peto.
Judging by Mr Shaw’s writings, Garinish Island was just one of an endless list of beauty spots, rolling Anglo-Irish estates and splendid establishments he had an open invitation to over the course of his life.
Just across the water from Garinish Island, at Glengarriff harbour, he took up residence in 1910 and 1911 at Eccles Hotel, one of the oldest hotels in the country and commanding equally stunning views of the blue and tranquil waters of Bantry Bay.
It’s not recorded what Mr Shaw thought of the imposing Victorian hotel whose striking facade was built specially for Queen Victoria’s visit in 1861. But Eccles Hotel’s reputation must have been outstanding because in the 1920s, another great literary figure WB Yeats (the hotel’s Presidential suite is named after him) was a regular guest.
Back to George Bernard Shaw standing on the jetty at Garinish after feasting his eyes on the riot of crimson and pink rhododendrons, the purple roses and subtropical plants and shrubs clinging onto romanesque pavilions giving way onto dramatic vistas over mountains and sea. It’s true he had a propensity to lavish praise on places that entranced him. He described Parknasilla on the next peninsula up, in Sneem, Co. Kerry, as ‘part of our dream world’ and rhapsodised about Skellig Michael as an ‘incredible, impossible, mad place... the most fantastic and impossible rock in the world’.
But for all his talent for waxing lyrical, I don’t think one could accuse Shaw of exaggeration regarding Garinish Island. For my money, the island is west Cork’s best-kept secret. The ease of access to Garinish offered by Eccles Hotel (one of the ferry services leaves from across the road) and to the breathtaking Beara Peninsula, not to mention the southern half of the ring of Kerry (Kenmare is less than a 30minute drive) help keep this charming old world spot on the map. The hotel, which changed hands in recent years and is in the process of refurbishment, has excellent sea-view bedrooms, some geared for families, a fine restaurant with an adjoining terrace for watching the dreamy sunset over a nightcap or two. It may not have a purpose-built leisure centre but what it has is far superior: on its doorstep there’s a fascinating range of walks and paths twisting around waterfalls, rivers and hillsides.
Bamboo Park, for instance, is close by and takes advantage of the area’s famous microclimate to grow countless species of exotic bamboo and palm trees amid stunning lake and sea views.
But the pièce de résistance is a day trip to Garinish which was gifted to the State in 1953 by Violet Bryce’s late son Roland and is run by the OPW who charge a visitor fee of €5 with concessions.
The short ferry trip passes a seal colony and an eagle’s nest high up in the trees. The island has a panoramic Martello tower, which was built to counter threats from the French following Wolfe Tone’s insurrection; an ornate Italian garden with pavilion, pond and classical sculptures; a kitchen garden with baroque entrance and a clock tower.
There are guided tours of the impeccably maintained Bryce house, a picturesque residence that’s part cosy cottage, part handsome mansion.
Originally Violet and Liberal MP husband John Annan Bryce, had ambitions to build a lavish sevenstorey pile on their island sanctuary but when they lost their fortune they made do with extend- ing what was always known as Mrs Bryce’s Cottage.
The family’s retainers, the Scottish gardener Murdo Mackenzie and housekeeper Margaret O’Sullivan, of local stock lived there after the Bryces died until their own deaths and seemed to have had the run of the place with Murdo growing sheltering pines while tending to the rare and delicate plants and Margaret keeping house.
In 1916 Violet Bryce temporarily upped sticks from Garinish, moving to Eccles Hotel, which she paid to be transformed into a rest home for English soldiers from the war. Today there is no trace of that chapter in its history although the hotel oozes character with its quirky nooks and crannies, chintzy furniture, old leatherbound books, portraits and decor that is admittedly quite dated in parts.
It’s testament to its picturesque location and special atmosphere that despite sweeping changes in the hospitality industry, business still flourishes today.