Ireland - Mizen Head continued, Three Castle Head

The buildings at the end of the point had info about lighthouse keepers and about Marconi who sent the first transatlantic wireless morse code signal from here.

There wasn't much to see of the lighthouse as it is so high up on the cliff that there is no need for a tower and the light is now LED rather than the big, cut glass ones.

We walked back over the bridge

seeing only a solitary seal this time.

Nicola explored another path down to the cliffs but I had had enough of stairs and walked back to the car to get a granola bar and a drink of water.

We drove back to O'Sullivans in Crookhaven for lunch. It was a different place now, packed with people looking for a meal and a drink, especially at the tables outside. We were sunburned so stayed inside and had the best fresh crab sandwich ever. The server described it "as plain as can be, just our bread and the crab" but that didn't do it justice. Fresh crab, and I mean fresh, is like having the lobster in Maine that you see being taken out of the holding cage in the sea and put in the boiling water, so flavourful.

We had seen on the tourist info map, a castle, so we set out to find it. There was only one sign and 3 or 4 points at which we had to make a choice of direction. At the last one we had to decide if we would go on a road only as wide as the car, with grass growing in the middle (Dad used to love those, Mum used to hate them) on the off chance it would take us where we wanted to go. We are our father's children! Luckily we met no cars coming the other way and

at the end of the road

was a parking lot and a closed gate that said the castle was on private property and to please be respectful, closing gates etc.

We walked up through a couple of fields (carefully closing gates behind us) and then there was a sign about the castle. Dun Lough (Fort of the lake) is the oldest of the O'Mahoney castles built in 1207, soon after the Norman invasion.

then it was up into the moors,

over a couple of hills

and there it was!

The lake at one end of the wall and three towers

and shear cliffs down to crashing waves at the other end.

On our way up we had passed a couple of groups leaving and shortly after we arrived another group left.

We had the place to ourselves.

We sat on a rock, for about 20 minutes, just drinking it in. It was so quiet that we could hear the ducks splashing down in the lake.

We wandered around and took way to many pictures,

awed by the history, the location, the isolation, having it to ourselves and the wonderful walk over the moors to find it.

We drove home, tired but saying, again (we seem to say it most days) what a wonderful day it had been.