A walk for the weekend: Long view to Skellig and beyond

Today, I am visiting a Kerry island that was once the epicentre of world communication. An accident of geography made this the optimum place from which to transmit the first Transatlantic, electronic message in 1866. Vital communication between Britain and the USA came this way during the first World War with the location considered so crucial that it was heavily fortified by British soldiers.

This did not, however, prevent a surreptitious coded message being forwarded by local nationalists in 1916, informing Irish republicans in New York that the Easter Rising had begun.

The place lost some of its island mystique with the opening of the Maurice O’Neill Memorial Bridge in 1971, but the upside is that its austere beauty is now accessible to all. Immediately west of the bridge, postcard pretty Foilhommerum Bay gives little hint of its dramatic past as terminus for the telegraph cable connecting Europe with America.

The carpark above the historic bay makes a scenic start for my ramble on Valentia Island. Here, purple arrows convey me left along a stone path and over a stile. It is gently uphill now for about 30 minutes to reach the summit of Bray Head where a signal tower, built as a lookout during the Napoleonic Wars, is perched atop vertiginous cliffs. This tower was part of a series that formed an optical telegraph system, ironically made obsolete by the electronic telegraph, which allowed messages to be sent from tower to tower by a system of raised flags.

Bray Head, which marks Ireland’s southwest extremity, is classed a Discovery Point on the Wild Atlantic Way and well worth the small effort to reach. Rewarded with great views south over a sapphire ocean to the unmistakable silhouette of the Skellig Islands, I can just make out the bee-hive huts on the monastic site.

Skellig is, of course, a place where mysteries abound and I can’t help wondering why the monks chose such a godforsaken and inhospitable location for their settlement. If it was solitude they sought, wouldn’t the greater fertility of the nearby Puffin Island have been more amenable?

Unable to comprehend what motivated these saintly men, I follow the arrows from the tower and join an informal clifftop path.

From here an expansive view opens northwards to the Blasket Islands and the gaping mouth of Ventry harbour with Mount Brandon poking its head into mist beyond. At the highest point the vista is directly ahead to Geokaun hill, the famous cliffs of Fogher and the pilgrim mountain of Cnoc na dTobar beyond.

Markers now direct me away from the clifftop and downhill on a broad ridge to reach a stone wall. Swinging right here, I continue following the arrows to regain the stony path near the stile encountered earlier.

Later, enjoying homemade pastries in the Skellig Mist Café, Portmagee, I conclude that Bray Head is a place for all to make memories as it offers maximum scenic reward in return for minimum effort.