Ilnacullin, Garinish Island

After our visit to Bantry House we wanted to visit Garinish Island, one of the Office of Public Works’ Heritage sites. In the past we’ve made excellent use of the Heritage Card and would recommend it to anyone travelling in Ireland as it is excellent value for money – €21 gets you free entry into any of the Heirtage sites for a year. We didn’t get a card on this occasion as we have pretty much visited most of the Heritage sites on our travels.

The island is in Bantry Bay. You get there by ferry from the little harbour in Glengarriff and the reason for going the island is to see its gardens.

Be prepared for the ferry price (which is not operated by the Heritage people). We thought €12 per person was little expensive but as it was the only way to get to the island we had to cough up! Maybe they charge a premium for the seals you get to see on the way there and back – they seemed well used to having their photos taken by passing humans.

Entry to the gardens was a much more respectable €3.70. The ferry man told us that the return hourney was every half hour so we have ourselves an hour to have a good look around. A bonus was that it wasn’t very busy, which is just the way we like it. You can buy a booklet which has a map, but since the island is pretty small and well sign posted there isn’t much point. The Italian Garden, the Jungle, the Martello Tower (which, from its elevated position, gives an excellent view of the bay), the Temple and few other places kept us interested. Azaleas and rhodendrons were on display so it was very colourful. Can’t see anyone spending more that an hour there, unless you want to avail of the tea rooms after your walk.

All in all a very nice place to visit and that’s another Heritage site ticked off our list.