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.

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Bantry House & Gardens

After golf at Bantry Bay we decided to head for Bantry House & Gardens. I had picked up a leaftlet at the club and it seemed foolish to miss such a magnificent looking place while we were in the area, especially on a day like today.

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Bantry Bay Golf Club

We had perfect weather playing this course today - hot, sunny, calm - and it’s fair to say that, even without the weather, this course would still have impressed us.

It’s an 18 hole parkland course with stunning views into Bantry Bay. We got talking with Sheila last night when we arrived and she told us that the course was in the middle of a refit - holes 2, 3 and 4 were out of action - and we had to play 16, 17 and 18 twice. The newly remodelled holes are due to open in a few weeks and while it was disappointing that we didn’t get to play a full 18 holes, it did not spoil our enjoyment of this wonderful course one bit.

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