How far west is the most westerly point in Europe?

The Cross at Slea Head, Co Kerry … but is this the most westerly place in Europe? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Patrick Comerford

When I was a teenager and spending a summer in Ballinskelligs, Co Kerry, I was told that the Skelligs Rocks off the Kerry coast formed the most westerly point in Europe and that it was the next stop before America.

Later, when we spent many summer weekends and weeks on Achill Island, Co Mayo, we heard the islanders boast that Achill was not only Ireland’s largest offshore island but also the most westerly point in Ireland and the next parish to America.

Mayo and Kerry are good at setting up contests like this. After all, John Millington Synge set his play, The Playboy of the Western World (1907) in Co Mayo, but he wrote it after visiting the Blasket Islands, and the movie was filmed in 1962 on the Dingle Peninsula.

Then, as we headed west along the Dingle Peninsula in a family group two weeks ago, we were told that Dingle was the westerly town in Europe, and that a point on Slea Head, facing the Blasket Islands was the most westerly point in Europe.

Most of the tourists on the bus risked life and limb as they hopped off at a blind twist on the road to be photographed beneath a wayside crucifix, willing apparently to risk their own deaths to be photographed at the point the bus guide told them was Europe’s most westerly point.

Where was my certificate to prove I was here?

Google Maps were telling me there were a few places further one that jutted out a little further into the Atlantic, albeit by a metre, or a kilometre, or a fraction of something.

Is Cabo de Roca at the most westerly end of Europe? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Is the territory of Saint Pierre and Miquelon part of Europe? It is, after all, part of French sovereign territory. The Overseas Collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon is in the north-west Atlantic, near the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada, but uses the Euro as its currency.

Guadeloupe is an insular region of France in the Leeward Islands, part of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean. Administratively, it is an overseas region consisting of a single overseas department, and the largest and most populous EU territory in North America. It too uses the Euro.

But Iceland is also European, even though it is not a member of the European Union, while Greenland, which may be part of the North American continental land mass, is still technically part of Denmark.

Is Greenland in Europe or in North America?

The other claimants to the status of the most westerly extreme of the European continent include Monchique Islet in the Azores Islands, which is part of Portugal, and could be considered part of Europe, although it sits on the North American Plate. The Capelinhos Volcano on Faial Island is also in the Azores Islands, but claims to be the westernmost point of the Eurasian Plate above sea level.

I suppose it all depends on how you define the European continent.

It must be a peculiar part of speech in both England and Ireland to speak of the ‘Continent’ or ‘Continental Europe’ as a landmass that includes all of Europe apart from the islands of Britain and Ireland, but including islands that are part of Spain, Italy, Greece and the Swedish archipelago, while excluding the Azores and French islands in places far flung and beyond – and with some additional questions about Cyprus, if only because geographically it lies off the coast of Turkey … as, indeed, do many Greek islands I have visited, including Rhodes, Kos, Kalymnos, Pserimos, and especially Kastellorizo.

Which leaves me without any proper definition of Europe or the Continent, and most certainly still without a clear definition of either Europe or a way of defining the limits of the European Continent.

Cabo de Roca is the western-most point in Europe (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I suppose I am going to have to settle for Cabo da Roca in Portugal as the western-most point on European landmass. This cape forms the westernmost extent of mainland Portugal and continental Europe, and, by definition, the Eurasian landmass. The cape is in the Portuguese municipality of Sintra, west of Lisbon, and forms the western-most extent of the Serra de Sintra.

And I have the certificate to show I was there three years ago, without risking life and limb crossing a narrow, twisting road overlooking the Blasket Islands and looking out to Skellings.

But, just to be clear, the westernmost point on the island of Ireland is Dunmore Head, at the tip of the Dingle Peninsula in Co Kerry but north-west of that wayside crucifix at Slea Head, and the most westerly point in Irish sovereign territory is the Foze Rocks, also in Co Kerry, but out in the Atlantic Ocean, 17.1km to the west-south-west of Dunmore Head, marking the westernmost point in Ireland as a whole.

An unusual certificate in a remote outpost of Europe (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Going to the ends of the earth … or to the remote ends of Ireland

Mizen Head …at the south-west tip of Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

I went to ends of the earth – or at least, to the south-west extremity of Ireland – yesterday [21 May 2016] to visit Mizen Head, one of the extreme points of the island of Ireland and a place with dramatic cliffs and scenery.

Mizen Head is not actually the most southerly point on the mainland of Ireland – the honour goes to nearby Brow Head. But generations of Irish schoolchildren have been taught by generations of geography teachers that the length of Ireland is measured from Fair Head to Mizen Head, or from Mizen Head to Malin Head.

In Ireland, this is the equivalent of Land’s End.

We drove west from Bantry to Mizen Head through the villages of the Mizen Peninsula, including Ballydehob, Schull, Goleen and Crookhaven. At the end of the peninsula, the cliffs of Mizen Head rise high above the Atlantic Ocean, where the currents from the west and south coasts meet and waves from the mid-Atlantic crash into the craggy rocks and headlands.

For many, Mizen Head was their first – or their last sight – of Ireland and of Europe (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Mizen Head was once on one of the main transatlantic shipping routes and for many seafarers this their first – or last – sight of Ireland and of Europe.

A series of paths and viewing platforms lead out to the tip of the peninsula, which is almost like an island, cut off from the tip of Mizen Head by a deep chasm. The deep gap is spanned by a bridge that is breath-taking in its construction and location.

A deep chasm separates the tip of the peninsula from the rest of Mizen Head (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

We crossed over the bridge to the old signal station, the weather station, and the lighthouse at the end of the world – we were told the US is the next stop.

The signal station, once permanently staffed, is now a museum with exhibits on the strategic significance Mizen Head once had for transatlantic shipping and communications, and on the pioneering work of Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937).

The Marconi Radio Room tells the story of radio communications at Mizen Head Signal Station. Marconi was nearby in Crookhaven during his search for a suitable site to send the first transatlantic message. He had masts at Brow Head and put a telegraphic transmitter on the Fastnet Rock Lighthouse. A recent storm took all the sand out of Galley Cove and exposed the huge cables that once connected Fastnet with his radio room in Crookhaven.

In 1931, Mizen Head Signal Station had the first radio Beacon in Ireland – it spanned the whole gorge at the Bridge. This room is dedicated to this fabulous story.

There we could only but imagine the solitude of the keepers who worked here and lived with the fresh salt-laden sea air above the restless Atlantic and the swirl of the ocean currents.

A view under the bridge from the old Derrick platform (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

We walked back down the path to the old Derrick platform to look under the bridge, where we could see seals and their pups in the swell below as we listened for the sound of kittiwakes, gannets and choughs. The Derrick stand was used to supply the station from boats before the first bridge was built in 1909.

Having crossed back over the bridge, we returned by the “99 steps” that once formed part of the original access route to the visitor centre for two double espressos.

Crookhaven … now peaceful, but once a haven for pirates (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Earlier, we had lunch in the village of Crookhaven, which Marconi used as his base when he worked there from 1901 until 1914. The village was an important port of call for shipping between Europe and North America, and in the past many villagers made their living by supplying ships that sheltered in Crookhaven before or after a long voyage.

Crookhaven has three pubs. We had lunch in O’Sullivan’s, which faces the harbour. Its walls are decorated with old bank notes, signed rugby shirts and historical pictures of the village and notes about the area. Outside, the painted gable wall proclaims that the pub serves “the most southerly pint in Ireland.”

O’Sullivan’s pub in Crookhaven claims to serve “the most southerly pint in Ireland” (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The Welcome Inn or Nottages is only open during the summer. The pub was once owned by a man called Nottage from England who came to the village to work with Marconi. The Crookhaven Inn was once the bottle store for a larger pub and hotel that have since been was converted into apartments.

Crookhaven has a winter population of about 40, but this swells in the summer to about 400 when the families who own holiday homes arrive back in the area.

The earliest record of the area is found in 1199 in the Decretal Letter of Pope Innocent III, where Celmolaggi is listed and this has been identified with Crookhaven. There is also reference to the church being dedicated to Saint Molaggi, who came from Fermoy in the seventh century. He was the Patron Saint of Tegh-Molagga, now Timoleague, between Dunmanway and Bantry. A 15th century O’Mahony castle in Crookhaven was later used as a prison.

By the late 1500s and early 1600s, the village was a base for piracy. But the Dutch attack on the area in 1614 put an end to the activity of pirates.

The village takes its name from the Crooke family, who were granted large estates in West Cork in the early 17th century. Sir Thomas Crooke also founded Baltimore, Co Cork, ca 1610 at the same as Crookhaven. However, the Crooke family’s association with the area ended around 1665 with the death of Sir Thomas Crooke’s son and heir, Sir Samuel Crooke.

Barley Cove, where the best beach in West Cork was formed by a tsunami in Portugal (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

On our way from Bantry and Schull to Crookhaven and Mizen Head, we stopped for a while at Barley Cove, which must have one of the best beaches in West Cork – and it challenges Curracloe in Co Wexford for being best beach in Ireland.

The area around Barley Cove is one of natural beauty and is popular throughout the summer months. Because of the variety of wildlife and interesting habitats in the sand dunes, the EU has designated the beach as a Special Area of Conservation.

But the story of Barley Cove and its sand dunes must be one of the most fascinating stories in the annals of Irish environmental and conservation efforts.

Almost two and a half centuries ago, Lisbon was devastated by a catastrophic earthquake on 1 November 1775, and the coast of Portugal was hit by a destructive tsunami. A day later, according to reports in the Cork Journal, 15 ft waves hit the coasts of Co Cork on 2 November 1775. As a side-effect, the sands of Barley Cove were displaced and the dunes and unusual coastal features were formed as a consequence of the tsunami.

The beach is nestled in between two cliffs and is fed by a meandering river coming down from the hinterland. A boardwalk and a floating bridge lead from the car park to the beach, where the large dunes are surrounded on three sides by water.

The Portuguese link with this extremity of Ireland should not have surprised me. It brought back memories of a visit to Cabo de Roca in Portugal, which is the western-most point in Europe, while I was staying in Lisbon about 18 months ago.

Click on images to view in full screen

Going to the ends of the earth … or at least the end of Europe at Cabo da Roca

Cabo de Roca is the western-most point in Europe (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

The Shipping Forecast on the BBC is part of my childhood and cultural memories. Although as a boy I had no interest in maritime weather conditions, I was fascinated by the repetition of the names of the sea areas during the night-time broadcast.

Where were places such as Fisher, Dogger, Heligoland, German Bight, North Utsire and South Utsire, and whatever happened to Finisterre?

Finisterre was to the west of Biscay, and was renamed FitzRoy in 2002 to avoid confusion with sea areas of the same name used in French and Spanish marine forecasts.

I could understand Land’s End … but Finisterre? Was there somewhere at the end of the world?

There is a place called Finistère at the extreme west of Brittany, and there is also Finisterre in Spain, or Cape Finisterre, a rock-bound peninsula on the west coast of Galicia, believed in Roman times to be the end of the known world.

However, I found yesterday [6 November 2014] that the westernmost point of the Iberian Peninsula and of continental Europe is Cabo da Roca in Portugal.

The cape is part of the Sintra-Cascais Natural Park, 42 km north-west of Lisbon.

Taking the funicular from Praca dos Restauradores to the viewpoint at Sao Pedro de Alcantara (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

The original plan was to visit either Sintra or Estoril to see the places, the gardens and the pretty town in either location. Two of us had spent the morning sight-seeing in Lisbon, including visiting the local church dedicated to Saint Sebastian and taking the Gloria elevator for funicular from Praca dos Restauradores to the viewpoint at Sao Pedro de Alcantara for views across the city.

Early in the afternoon, we caught a train from Rossio, Lisbon’s central station, to Sintra. The place looked pretty, but we missed the hop-on, hop-off bus, and were waiting for the next one when the bus to Finisterre arrived and decided to go the ends of the earth.

Cabo de Roca … at the ends of the earth … or the end of Europe (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

It was a further 18 km by bus along a twisting narrow road lined with vineyards and through pretty villages with windmills, whitewashed houses with terracotta tiled roofs and plenty of rooms to rent.

When we got there, apart from looking over the precipice and the rocks, or looking up at the lighthouse, there was little else do at the this point, except to note our location (38°47′N, 9°30′W) which is inscribed on a stone plaque.

An unusual certificate in a remote part of Europe (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

We had a glass of wine in the only café nearby, received an unusual certificate in the small tourist office nearby, and caught the next bus, which was going to Cascais.

The mist was coming in from the west, and it was like a drive along any part of the Atlantic coast of Ireland. We could have been in Achill, where they say if you cannot see the sea it must be raining, and if you can see the sea it is either about to rain or has just been raining. You hardly need the BBC shipping forecast to know that.

By the time we got to Cascais it was dark and raining. We caught the train back through Estoril and Belém along the coastal route to Lisbon, where we had dinner close on the Rua Augusta.

I return to Dublin this morning.

Dinner on the Rua Augusta at the end of a visit to Lisbon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)