|
Things To Do & See |
|
|
|
Allihies has a lot to offer anybody that wants to get away from it all. There is miles of wild countryside, beautiful sandy beaches, high rugged mountains and the wild but beautiful Atlantic. It’s ideal for a summer holiday or just a short break. The village has four lovely pubs where you will find good craic and great Irish music or just a nice chat with some of the locals. There is a lovely restaurant at O’ Neil's Bar, while all the other bars do light snacks. You are close to a supermarket and petrol pumps, and the playground and pups are near by. You are situated roughly 1 kilometer from the beach and the old copper mines. You are also very centered for walking the beautiful and breath-taking Beara way, which has some spectacular sights. Just about 10 miles away you'll find the golf coarse, which is just outside of Castletownbere. |
|
|
The village itself is an old mining village
stipend in history of the old copper mines where over 1500 people worked
in the early 19th century.
This was the center of a rich copper-mining district. Cornish workers were brought over
during the 19th Century as technical experts and some remains of their 'Cornish Village' can still be seen. Around the workings you can pick up nice rocks glittering with pyrites - 'fool's gold' - but please be extremely careful if exploring here as there are dangerous unguarded mineshafts and other hazards. |
|
House is unique in Ireland and it is the sole remaining purpose built man engine house anywhere in the world. Like a lonely sentinel, the Cornish design Man Engine House stands guard over the village of Allihies, the surrounding valley, the bay below and the Atlantic ocean beyond. Erected in 1862, it is a potent symbol of the village, the valley and the community, and it is the primary surviving embodiment of what was once a thriving copper mining industry during the 19th Century. It is a monument to the life and times of those copper mines, of trade routes to Swansea, and along with Cornish immigrants, to the diaspora of people to other parts of the world, including |
|
 |
Butte, Montana, after the mines eventually closed in the 1880s. Conservation work is being done on the old mine engine house itself. It is still relatively intact, retaining not only the engine house per se, but also most of the chimney and very unusually, much of the boiler house, as well as a coal bunker. For these reasons of uniqueness and intactness it is of outstanding national and international heritage valve. The Engine House is well worth seeing and so is the view form up on the mountain. |
|
|
The fishing is wonderful with a wide variety of fish to be caught. The area is also renowned as a Bird watching paradise with many varieties of rare birds visiting the cliffs of Dursey Island and the cliffs around our shores. Dursey Island is linked to the mainland by a Cable Car, the only one of its kind in Europe (i.e. over the sea). On the island itself, the history and folklore is abundant. This island is also recognized as a Bird Sanctuary, with numerous species, such as the Bee-eater and the Ring necked Duck , regularly to be seen on Dursey Island and around the Dursey Sound |
|
|
| The beaches in Allihies are beautiful and sandy, they are great for swimming and other water sports. Ballydonegan Strand, opposite is one such beach. Other water sports that you can take part in is, Kayaking and sailing. |
|
|
For further information on things to do and see in Beara visit:
|
