We were staying at Castletownbere on the Beara Peninsula, a remote part of south west Ireland stretching out into the Atlantic Ocean.
The town itself reminded me of an English town in the 1950s. There were plenty of B & Bs but no hotels. The shops on the High Street were ancient, the draper shop sold everything from ladies’ big knickers, shoes, outerwear, workwear to hats, Wellington boots and everything in between. The shop had been owned by the same family for the past two hundred years. The local bar doubled up as a grocery store and the garage dispensed fuel from two fuel pumps mounted beside the pavement. There was plenty of town centre parking and no-one seemed to mind that we stayed by the quay for two days.
