Ilnacullin

Ilnacullin Review

One of the jewels of Bantry Bay is Glengarriff, the "rugged glen" much loved by Thackeray and Sir Walter Scott. The descent into wooded, sheltered Glengarriff reveals yet another landscape: thanks to the Gulf Stream, it's mild enough down here for subtropical plants to thrive. Trails along the shore are covered with rhododendrons and offer beautiful views of the nearby inlets, loughs, and lounging seals. You're very much on the beaten path, however, with crafts shops, tour buses, and boatmen soliciting your business by the roadside. Many are heading this way because of that Irish Eden, Ilnacullin. On Garnish Island, about 10 minutes offshore from Glengariff and beyond islets populated by comical-looking basking seals, you can find one of the country's horticultural wonders. In 1910 a Belfast businessman, John Annan Bryce, purchased this rocky isle, and, with the help of famed English architect Howard Peto and Scottish plantsman Murdo Mackenzie, transformed it into a botanical Disneyland. The main showpiece is a wisteria-covered "Casita"—a rather strange-looking half-shed, half-mansion Peto cooked up—which overlooks a sunken Italian garden. A touch of Japan is supplied by the bonsai specimens lining the terrace. In fact, Ilnacullin has a little bit of everything, from a Grecian temple to a Martello tower (from which the British watched for attempted landings by Napoleonic forces) to a Happy Valley, all bedded with extraordinary shrubs, trees, and many unusual subtropical flowers. You get to Ilnacullin by taking a Blue Pool ferry, which departs for the island from Glengarriff. George Bernard Shaw found Ilnacullin peaceful enough to allow him to begin his St. Joan here; maybe you'll find Garnish inspiring, too.