Greenway

Another gorgeous day - we're having a staycation! This time we headed east towards Courtmacsherry. Courtmac, as it's usually known, is a single road village on a spit of land, accessible by a bridge. The brightly coloured houses (and their accompanying wellies, a distinct feature - see extra pix)  overlook a bay that got silted up in the 18C after a tsunami which started in Portugal caused havoc as far afield as Ireland. Today all was calm. We lunched at the Golden Pheasant café where all the women seemed to be discussing recent pregnancies and an elderly gentleman inquired if I was the beautiful Carmel.  Sadly not.
Fuelled we strode off across the strand (proper white sand) and then into some unexpected and ancient woodlands, across meadow and then down this little green lane- made so that the ladies Boyle (related to yer man who invented that law, the one we couldn't remember what it was about) could daintily trip down to the sea from their mansion. It was lovely - fuchsia and whitethorn and daisies, bunnies in the fields and choughs above. 
Back in Courtmac an ice cream was required before carrying on to Coppinger Court - a huge and magnificent 17c fortified house abandoned in a field and now home to black cattle. I caused havoc by abandoning the car in the tiny road. A car full of lads screeched to a stop - eek I thought, but they only wanted to know if there was any water nearby as they wanted a  swim - um, yes the ocean was approximately five minutes away!
We proceeded to the ruin, climbing over two German tourists who were blocking the route and making a great hoohaa about having stepped in some cow shit. We assured them that was entirely normal for around here. They were still pouring bottles of water over their feet and mopping up with huge amounts of tissues as we left.
Final destination Drombeg stone circle. The most well known in Cork and the most manicured. It's in a fine position and is famous for also including a really well preserved fiachta fiadh (!) - a sort of cooking area with big pits for boiling water. I liked the stone in the middle of the circle and its growing array of offerings - especially the apple.
Wrecked now. We might go north tomorrow and a ferry might be involved! The pace!
Extra pix: Coppinger's Court; and offerings at Drombeg