Before you go: it’s rarely open
The Old Head Lighthouse is not a turn-up-and-visit sight, and it pays to know that first. The 30-metre tower stands at the tip of the headland, inside the private Old Head Golf Links, and the club opens the grounds to the public only a few days a year – recent open days fell on weekends in spring, around early April and late May 2026. On an open day you park free at the Old Head Signal Tower car park and take a shuttle bus out to the tower, running every half hour from 9.30am to 5pm. You cannot drive or walk through the golf course to reach it any other time. If the dates don’t line up with your trip, this is a lighthouse you’ll admire from the cliffs rather than stand beneath, so check the Irish Lights website for the next open day before you build a day around it.
The tower itself
Black-and-white bands, a group of two white flashes every ten seconds, a beam that carries 20 nautical miles: that’s the light on the Old Head today, and it went up in 1853. It’s the third lighthouse on the spot. The first, a cottage-style tower with an open coal fire burning in a brazier, was built in 1665 under a patent Charles II granted Sir Robert Reading, who was entitled to collect tolls from passing ships. Oil lamps later replaced the coal fire, and a taller tower followed in 1814, but fog off the head kept defeating it. The 1853 tower solved the problem. It was painted white with red bands until 1930, when the switch to black-and-white made it easier to pick out in mist. Keepers ran it until it was automated in 1987; nobody lives there now.
The Lusitania, and the Signal Tower museum
The Old Head is the nearest land to where the RMS Lusitania went down – about eleven miles offshore, torpedoed by a German U-boat on 7 May 1915, with the loss of almost 1,200 lives. That story is told at the Lusitania Museum, opened in 2015 inside the Napoleonic-era Signal Tower on the headland. It holds artefacts, photographs and storyboards from the disaster, and the tower roof gives a wide view over the water where the ship sank. On open days the ‘Grounded at the Old Head’ café runs at the Signal Tower.
Seeing it without an open day: the loop walk
For the other 360-odd days of the year, the honest way to take in the headland is the Old Head Loop, a 6 km walk from the Garrylucas Beach car park. It takes about an hour and a half to two hours, passing medieval castle ruins and the Signal Tower, with the lighthouse in view across the golf course and the Atlantic breaking below. Puffins nest on the cliffs in early summer and grey seals haul out on the rocks. For most visitors this is the recommendation: you get the setting and the sea without waiting on the club’s calendar.
Practical information
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Address | Old Head, Kinsale, County Cork |
| Opening | Open days only – a few weekends a year; check Irish Lights for dates |
| Admission | Open-day ticket €15 adult, €40 family (includes museum and shuttle). The cliff walk and Signal Tower grounds are free. |
| Parking | Free at the Signal Tower car park. No vehicles through the golf course. |
| Shuttle | Open days only; every 30 minutes, 9.30am–5pm |
| Accessibility | Grounds accessible by prior request; guide dogs welcome |
| Contact | (021) 419 1285 • info@oldheadofkinsale.com |
Getting there and nearby
The headland is signposted off the R600 south-west of Kinsale, a short drive from the town. There’s no bus out to the Old Head itself, so from Kinsale it’s a taxi or a cycle. Back toward town you’ll find Kinsale’s colourful quayside, Charles Fort, and the restaurants the place is known for, and local operators run sea-kayak trips around the arches and caves under the head. If you’re here on an open day with a clear sky, the light on the tower’s stripes is best in the hour before sunset.