Old Head Golf Links

The headland runs more than two miles into the Atlantic below Kinsale, and there has been a fort on it since about the third century, when it was Dún Cearmna; Milo de Courcy built a castle around 1223. The lighthouse standing there now was first lit on 1 October 1853 and went automatic on 1 April 1987. On 7 May 1915 the Lusitania was torpedoed about eighteen kilometres offshore and sank in eighteen minutes, killing 1,197 of the 1,959 people aboard. The golf course, the work of the late John O'Connor and his brother Patrick, opened in 1997, and from then on the point was closed to all but golfers and guests. A campaign called Free the Old Head of Kinsale has argued for public access ever since.

Five par threes and five par fives leave only eight par fours, a card almost nobody builds. Nine holes play along the cliff tops, with the Atlantic about 300 feet below the fairway, and the club says all eighteen look at the ocean. From the black tees the course measures 7,150 yards to a par of 72, and the red tees play 5,494. Five men are credited with the design — Ron Kirby, Eddie Hackett, Joe Carr, Paddy Merrigan and Liam Higgins — while Haulie O'Shea built it. The lighthouse still works at the point, run by Irish Lights and not by the golf club, and when the Atlantic fog closes over the headland it is the only thing out there doing a job.