Crookhaven
Encyclopedia
Crookhaven is a village in County Cork
County Cork
County Cork is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and is also part of the province of Munster. It is named after the city of Cork . Cork County Council is the local authority for the county...

, Ireland
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...

, on the most southwestern tip of Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

. A winter population of about forty swells in the summer to about four hundred with the occupants of the many holiday homes arriving.

History

The village was an important port of call for shipping
Shipping
Shipping has multiple meanings. It can be a physical process of transporting commodities and merchandise goods and cargo, by land, air, and sea. It also can describe the movement of objects by ship.Land or "ground" shipping can be by train or by truck...

 between Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, and many inhabitants were in the business of supplying the ships as they sheltered in Crookhaven after or before a long voyage. In 1959 Crookhaven was the subject of a film by English film maker James Clarke
Jim Clark (film editor)
Jim Clark is a British film editor and director.Clark was born in 1931, and grew up in Boston, Lincolnshire. Clark moved to London, and in 1951 he began work as an assistant editor at the legendary Ealing Studios. Subsequently, Clark worked as a freelance assistant editor on two films directed by...

 in his film Irish Village. At that time the film records the population of the town and local farms as being 69.

Crookhaven was one location where Guglielmo Marconi
Guglielmo Marconi
Guglielmo Marconi was an Italian inventor, known as the father of long distance radio transmission and for his development of Marconi's law and a radio telegraph system. Marconi is often credited as the inventor of radio, and indeed he shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand...

 did a lot of experiments with his interest in wireless communication and his experiments in ship-to-shore communication. In fact, most of his work was done between the Fastnet lighthouse, Crookhaven, and Cape Clear Island, since they were so closely connected. This was a great location for him because there was a telegraph line connecting Crookhaven and Cape Clear Island, which was located eighty miles away. Marconi did work here from 1901 until 1914, when he sold the rights. The station was ultimately destroyed in 1922.
.

Amenities

The village has three pubs. O'Sullivans faces the harbour and its walls are adorned with historical pictures of the village and notes about the area.

Nottages (or The Welcome Inn) is only open during the summer. The pub was once owned by a Mr Nottage - an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 gentleman who came to the village to work at the Marconi
Guglielmo Marconi
Guglielmo Marconi was an Italian inventor, known as the father of long distance radio transmission and for his development of Marconi's law and a radio telegraph system. Marconi is often credited as the inventor of radio, and indeed he shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand...

 signal station.

The last pub is The Crookhaven Inn. The pub building today was once the bottle store for the larger pub and hotel located across the road. When the original building was converted to flats, the bottle store was converted.

The village also has a shop and post office located next to O'Sullivans.

Places of interest

The road to the village comes from Goleen
Goleen
Goleen is a small rural village in County Cork on the south-western tip of Ireland. Farming and construction work are the main occupations of the local people. Many are involved with some aspect of the tourist business, looking after some of the many holiday homes which surround the village...

 and curves around the harbour. As one drives from Goleen, one passes a road to the left leading onto Rock Island
Rock Island (Ireland)
Rock Island is a promontory in West Cork, Ireland situated about 1 km west of the village of Goleen. Not a true island, Rock Island is surrounded on three sides by sea while a small strip of land with a road connects it to the mainland. It is notable for the Crookhaven Lighthouse which lights...

. Originally this was the site of a coast guard
Coast guard
A coast guard or coastguard is a national organization responsible for various services at sea. However the term implies widely different responsibilities in different countries, from being a heavily armed military force with customs and security duties to being a volunteer organization tasked with...

 station - which replaced an earlier station to its south. The "new" station was occupied from 1907 until 1921. During the height of the War of Independence
Irish War of Independence
The Irish War of Independence , Anglo-Irish War, Black and Tan War, or Tan War was a guerrilla war mounted by the Irish Republican Army against the British government and its forces in Ireland. It began in January 1919, following the Irish Republic's declaration of independence. Both sides agreed...

, British Marines were stationed there to protect the station and Brow Head War Signal Station. During their occupation, the I.R.A. destroyed Brow Head. Also on Rock Island was a fishery plant. From here most of the shellfish
Shellfish
Shellfish is a culinary and fisheries term for exoskeleton-bearing aquatic invertebrates used as food, including various species of molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms. Although most kinds of shellfish are harvested from saltwater environments, some kinds are found only in freshwater...

 of Ireland was exported to Europe. The ponds were open until the late 1970s, then it became a food processing plant packaging garlic butter and mussels but is now derelict.

Transport & communications

The village is located in south-western Ireland, 132 kilometres (82 mi) from Cork
Cork (city)
Cork is the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland and the island of Ireland's third most populous city. It is the principal city and administrative centre of County Cork and the largest city in the province of Munster. Cork has a population of 119,418, while the addition of the suburban...

 and 383 kilometres (238 mi) from Dublin. The nearest airport to Crookhaven is Cork Airport, and closest regional road is the R591
Regional road
A regional road in Ireland is a class of road not forming a major route , but nevertheless forming a link in the national route network. There are over 11,600 kilometres of regional roads. Regional roads are numbered with three digit route numbers, prefixed by "R" A regional road in Ireland is a...

.

See also

  • Lighthouses in Ireland
    Lighthouses in Ireland
    This is a list of lighthouses in Ireland. The Commissioners of Irish Lights are responsible for the majority of marine navigation aids around the island though a small number are maintained by local harbour authorities...

  • List of towns and villages in Ireland


External links

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