Eating Scenery

'You can't eat scenery' is an old saying about making a living in beautiful but remote places. West Cork is such a place, remarkable for the many ways people make it work for them. Alannah Hopkin discovers a vibrant community of diverse people with compelling stories to tell. A multi-faceted portrait of West Cork.

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'You can't eat scenery' is an old saying about the difficulty of making a living in beautiful but remote places. West Cork, from Kinsale to the Beara Peninsula and from the Atlantic to the Lee Valley is such a place. No longer an impoverished, rural backwater, this is a popular holiday destination where second homes become main residences. It is remarkable for the many ways people make West Cork work for them: traditional farmers negotiating EU quotas; newcomers setting up restaurants; artists, writers and dot.com millionaires starting ventures to allow them to live where they want. Others work to enhance this unique landscape: from environmental activists on Cool Mountain to the hard-working Shelswell-Whites of Bantry House, wealthy castle restorers like Jeremy Irons and innovative farmers on Beara. In this first full-length book about all aspects of West Cork, the locals and blow-ins, Alannah Hopkin discovers the soul of West Cork among a vibrant community of diverse people with compelling stories to tell.