Enjoy hiking in the rugged beauty of Ireland's Beara Peninsula.
Three hundred and sixty million years in the making and occupied by humans for only the last nine and a half thousand, the Beara Peninsula is one of the wonders of Ireland.
The
old red sandstone rock of Beara formed over millions of years - long
before animals emerged from the seas.
Borne north by immense tectonic forces, the sandstone desert buckled into huge mountains as continents collided.
For millions of years wind and sun weathered these alps and then as
the great ice-ages tightened their grip glaciers gouged vast swathes
through the high valleys, crumbling rock into rubble and sweeping it
into the sea, leaving behind a land of craggy rocks, boulders, mountain lakes and plunging streams.
.
.
As the ice retreated plants took hold between the stones and over thousands of years tundra gave way to forest.
Animals ventured through the shadows of the trees and their grazing created glades.
Humans followed and lived for four and a half thousand years by hunting and gathering before they eventually adopted agriculture.
The human population expanded and people took to burning the upland pine forest for further grazing. Without trees the soil grew wet and sour; bog took hold.
As centuries passed the traumas of war, famine, pestilence and disease laid their dark imprint on the land.
Yet after nine and a half thousand years the people of Beara remain as resilient as the rock itself and face each day with a warmth and cheerfulness that even the weather’s most violent assaults cannot dampen.
So come and explore the natural splendours of Beara.
Discover Ireland's wildest landscape.
Experience the beauty.
Learn the history.
Savour the stillness.
Marvel at nature's abundance.
Enjoy the humour and inventiveness of the people.
Experience gentle rural ways that have prevailed in harmony with nature for thousands of years.
Roam free in the natural stillness.
View the world from a new perspective.
See the past in the present set out before you like a living map.
End your day enriched with the inner peace that engagement with nature bestows.
Return fulfilled.
... and treasure your memories.
See the best of Beara on your walking holiday in West Cork.
All walkers are welcome. Whether you want the challenge of more strenuous mountain hiking or prefer hill-walking on designated trails or opt for walking on short forest paths, we will meet your requirements.