Other places in County Cork

Cobh Cork Midleton Rosscarbery West Cork Youghal

Grin and Beara it

We were sitting in the glory that is MacCarthy's bar in Castletownbere. 'You're going to change my life,' I announced to Deirdre Purcell.
It was early September in 1997, a week into filming her novel Falling For A Dancer, set on the wild and magnificent Beara Peninsula in Ireland's far South West. I had fallen in love.
It seemed to happen so quickly. I realised that this was going to be no casual romance. I had a need in me that had to be satisfied.
I was born in Cork but raised in London, where my work as an actor keeps me. London's fine, but I didn't want to just go back when the filming was over and never see this place again.
I think it was a combination of things that got me to such a love-sick state. Fortunately, my wife Suzanne was very understanding.
Deirdre's story, set in the Forties, tells the romantic tale of a city girl who, after a traumatic love life, ends up in a remote part of the Beara Peninsula.
Our producer, Peter Norris, had found some wonderful locations, the most spectacular being Claonach, a hidden valley in the mountains.
It's accessible only by four-wheel drive after a heart-stopping journey along the edge of a cliff overlooking Coulagh Bay.
We filmed for almost three months, getting to know the local people, most of whom were in the film or connected with it in some way, and experiencing the grandeur of the West Cork weather in all its unpredictable glory.
Long, lazy days with unimaginably blue skies stretching way out beyond the coastline, so clear you could see almost all the way to Boston!

Read more in our destination guide to County Cork.