Coomarkane is the official passport-stamping station for the Adrigole to Glengarriff leg of the Beara-Breifne Way, Ireland’s longest waymarked trail – so if you’re walking it, this is where the book gets stamped. If you’re not, it’s still worth the turn off the road a few kilometres west of Glengarriff. The centre sits in the Coomarkane valley on the Beara Peninsula, whose hidden, rock-girt lakes feed the Mare’s Tail – reckoned the highest waterfall in Ireland. There’s a looped walk on site, the Atlantic Way runs past the gate, and Glengarriff Nature Reserve is a short drive off.
The building was designed to sit into the hillside rather than on top of it, modelled on the traditional Irish cottage and put up with local materials and low-impact methods.
Café, cabins and camping
Inside there’s a café, a gift shop and a tourist-information desk – a fair spot to break a walk or pick up a map. You can stay, too: the site has solar-powered glamping cabins and a campsite tucked into the valley.
It’s a small operation down a side road, not a big attraction, so ring ahead before you build a day around it on +353 27 63826, and book the cabins early if you’re coming in the summer walking season.
Nearby
Glengarriff is five minutes back down the road, with the shops, pubs and petrol station you’ll want, plus boats out to the Italian gardens on Garinish Island and the oak woods of Glengarriff Nature Reserve.
Keep west along the Beara and Adrigole sits under Hungry Hill, the highest of the Caha Mountains; Ballylickey marks the head of Bantry Bay in the other direction.