The Old Head of Kinsale () is a headland near

Kinsale Kinsale ( ; ) is a historic port and fishing town in County Cork, Ireland. Located approximately south of Cork (city), Cork City on the southeast coast near the Old Head of Kinsale, it sits at the mouth of the River Bandon, and has a populatio ...

County Cork County Cork () is the largest and the southernmost Counties of Ireland, county of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, named after the city of Cork (city), Cork, the state's second-largest city. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

. A castle has been on the headland since at least the 3rd century, with the current iteration built in 1223. An early

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lens (optics), lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Ligh ...

was established here in the 17th century by

Robert Reading Sir Robert Reading, first and last Baronet Reading, (c. 1640 – c. March 1689) built several privately owned lighthouses in Ireland under letters patent from Charles II of England. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, receiving a BA i ...

. The area is the nearest point of land to where the was sunk in 1915, from the site of the sinking. Currently, access to the Old Head is restricted as it is on the site of a private golf course, which has proven to be controversial.

Castle

The Old Head Castle is made up of a long wall with several towers along it, which closes off the headland of the Old Head from the rest of the mainland. It is reported to have been built around the 3rd century AD by the Irish chieftain Cearmna. It was originally named ''Dún Cearmna'' (Cearmna's fort). The land was given to

Milo de Cogan Milo de Cogan (fl. 1170–1182) was an Anglo-Norman knight from Glamorgan who played a significant role in the Norman conquest of Ireland under Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke; a man better known to Irish history as ''Strongbow''. Origins T ...

by King Henry II. Following de Cogan's death, ownership passed to his son Richard, whose daughter married Milo de Courcy. De Courcy built a new castle around 1223. Consequently, the castle is sometimes called De Courcy Castle. In the 16th century, ownership of the castle passed to Owen MacCarthy, seizing it from the de Courcys. The English regained control of the castle in 1600, ahead of the Spanish invasion of Kinsale.

Lighthouse

The Old Head has hosted "lighthouses" for millennia, with references to a beacon of light being maintained on the headland dating back to pre-Christian Ireland. On 13 November 1665 Charles II granted

letters patent Letters patent (plurale tantum, plural form for singular and plural) are a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch, President (government title), president or other head of state, generally granti ...

to Sir

to construct six lighthouses around the coast of Ireland. One of these was established on the Old Head of Kinsale, and constituted the first lighthouse on the peninsula as would be recognised as such today. The lighthouse constituted a brazier on the roof of a cottage. There had been earlier beacons, but this was the first proper building which is still extant. Some time after 1683 the light was discontinued, and a petition presented to the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

for its reinstatement. In 1804 the

Revenue Commissioners The Revenue Commissioners (), commonly called Revenue, is the Irish Government agency responsible for customs, excise, taxation and related matters. Though Revenue can trace itself back to predecessors (with the Act of Union 1800 amalgamating ...

replaced the brazier with a temporary lantern lit by oil lamps. Eight years later it was recommended that the temporary light be replaced by a permanent tower lighthouse with keepers' cottages at its base. The new light opened on 16 May 1814. This tower was tall, and rose above sea-level at high water. This proved to be too tall, as the light was often hidden by fog and low-lying clouds.

Trinity House The Corporation of Trinity House of Deptford Strond, also known as Trinity House (and formally as The Master, Wardens and Assistants of the Guild Fraternity or Brotherhood of the most glorious and undivided Trinity and of St Clement in the ...

recommended a new lighthouse lower down right at the point of the Old Head. Construction started on 20 March 1850 and was completed three years later and first shone on 1 October 1853. Between 1855 and 1907 a red sector covered Courtmacsherry Bay. In 1893 a fog signal was established which was maintained until 2011. A new lantern was installed in 1907 with the current character of "Gp Fl(2) W 10s" (a group of 2 white flashes repeated every 10 seconds). In 1972 the paraffin lamp was replaced by electricity and the range increased to . Between 1974 and 1992 a radio beacon was transmitted. In 1987 the lighthouse was converted to automatic operation. In 2005 the range was reduced to . In January 2009 an AIS station was established.

'' Lusitania''

On 7 May 1915, , a passenger liner operated by the

Cunard Line The Cunard Line ( ) is a British shipping and an international cruise line based at Carnival House at Southampton, England, operated by Carnival UK and owned by Carnival Corporation & plc. Since 2011, Cunard and its four ships have been r ...

, was travelling from New York to Liverpool, when she was torpedoed by a

German U-boat U-boats are naval submarines operated by Germany, including during the First and Second World Wars. The term is an anglicized form of the German word , a shortening of (), though the German term refers to any submarine. Austro-Hungarian Nav ...

, around from the Old Head of Kinsale. The liner sank in 18 minutes, killing 1,197 of the 1,959 passengers and crew. The bodies were subsequently transported to Queenstown. In 2015, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the sinking, a museum opened at the signal tower of the Old Head lighthouse. The owner of the wreck of the ''Lusitania'' lent various artefacts to house in the museum, which were recovered by Eoin McGarry four years earlier during an authorised dive.

Golf

Today, the Old Head of Kinsale is visited by golfers who come to play on its 18-hole

golf course A golf course is the grounds on which the sport of golf is played. It consists of a series of holes, each consisting of a teeing ground, tee box, a #Fairway and rough, fairway, the #Fairway and rough, rough and other hazard (golf), hazards, and ...

that opened in 1997. Since the golf course opened, access to the Old Head of Kinsale has been restricted to golfers and guests only, and there has been a long-running campaign for the restoration of public access organised by the "Free the Old Head of Kinsale" campaign. This has mainly taken the format of "people's picnics", some of them involving "incursions" onto the headland and holding the picnics at the Old Head lighthouse.

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