Mizen Head and Barley Cove Beach – Wild Atlantic Way, Southwest Co, Cork, Ireland.
Mizen Head in County Cork along the Wild Atlantic Way, is often called the most southwesterly place in the Republic of Ireland.It’s not.
That honor actually belongs to Brow Head, a location nearby that is 9 more meters further southwest and located 3.8 km east of Mizen Head.
But it is Mizen Head, specifically the Mizen Head Signal Station, that is the major tourist destination. It is as far southwest as most tourists in Ireland will get.
The Mizen Head Signal Station – a former light house and radio beacon station for mariners and commercial shipping – has become a top-stop major tourist destination along the southern portion of the Wild Atlantic Way.
In 1992 the manned signal station and its crew were replaced with an automated beacon.A local tourism cooperative, the Mizen Tourism Co-operative Society, acquired the signal station site and buildings from The Commissioners of Irish Lights, Ireland’s light house authority. The property included a large section of Wild Atlantic Way scenic coastal palisades.
Using local and European Union funding, the tourism group created walkways that feature a spectacular bridge, a viewing platform, developed a visitor’s center and began charging admission for access to the walkways and viewing area.Mizen Head Signal Station quickly caught on as must-see for tourists visiting the County Cork portion of the Wild Atlantic Way.
https://mizenhead.ie/
Opening TimesJune, July and August
Daily 10am – 6pm
September, October, April, May
Daily 10:30am – 5pm
November – March Weekends 11am – 4pm
Entry PricesAdult: €7.50 | Senior/Student: €6Child under 14: €4.50 | Child under 5: Free
Group & Family DealsFamily (2 Adults and up to 4 Children): €25Groups (10 and over): Adults: €6.50 | Senior/Student: €5 | Child 5-14: €3.50
https://mizenhead.ie/about-mizen/
Accessibility
Accessibility for wheelchair users is good in the Mizen Head Signal Station visitor’s center. However, anyone with mobility issues should be very cautious on the walkways, especially when the weather is less than ideal.
The venue itself says to budget at least 1.5 hours for a visit using the walks ways to view the cliffs.Your experience at the Mizen Head will vary with the wildly varying Irish weather.
Thick fog and rain moved in during our Mizen Head visit in September 2022, reducing visibility to zero and making a €7.50 trip down the walkway unattractive.
However, the view from area immediately outside the visitor’s center is quite spectacular, as is the drive to the visitor’s center, even if you do not or cannot access the cliff-side walkway.
Near Mizen Head on the Mizen Peninsula to the south is Barley Cove Beach.
The beach is one of several Special Areas of Conservation in Ireland under the European Union’s Habitats Directive, due to the variety of wildlife and habitats in the sand dunes.
http://www.westcorkweb.ie/barleycove/
The wide beach and the bay it faces are popular in the summer.Barley Cove’s delicate dunes and an adjacent shallow lake were born in relatively recent times. An earthquake and tsunami on 1 November 1755 caused 15-foot waves at Barley Cove displacing the sand that created the dunes, the Cork Journal newspaper reported on 2 November 1755.
The same earthquake and tsunami destroyed Lisbon, Portugal.
Barley Cove Beach is a sheltered, south facing beach popular with swimmers and surfers. Lifeguards are on duty only during the summer months with dates and times displayed on the noticeboard on the beach.Barley Cove Beach, however, is on the Wild Atlantic way. Swimmers take extreme care due to dangerous currents and rip tides – especially during the off season.
Accessibility
Accessibility for wheel chair users is limited here. Boardwalks cross the sand dunes and a floating bridge, in use only in the summer months, connect to more dunes and the beach to the north of the main parking area.There is also beach access on the opposite side of the bay near the Barleycove Beach Hotel.
https://barleycovebeachhotel.com/