With the latest trend involving townies moving to rural retreats, aided and abetted by the beauty of broadband, there seems to be a secret race on to find the most secluded spot in any countryside. The more remote the area the greater the kudos of the mover. And that’s possibly why there’s never a dull moment in Kilcrohane, West Cork, where all kinds of non indigenous inhabitants are found living with the local community. 16 miles from Bantry, and a whole world away from the somewhat self conscious Kenmare, the village sits firmly amidst the craggy beauty of the Sheep’s Head Peninsula.

It’s light years beyond the Pale, with one shop, one church, three pubs and a schoolhouse with spectacular views of the Atlantic. You arrive in Cork city, the erstwhile People’s Republic turned new-century-gourmet-capital of Ireland, and you think you must be nearly there. But more than two hours later you’re still driving, rounding one hairpin bend after another and convinced you can’t go any further without falling off the edge of the Irish coast. Isn’t this the island where you’re never more than a stone’s throw from the sea? The one in which you can drive the length and breadth in the time it would take you to get through security at Gatwick? Yet if you’ve come from Ireland's capital you’ve been in the car for six hours now, and the world is beginning to take on a glass cannister feel from the inside of a very stuffy vehicle. Then you pass the Tin Pub at Ahakista, round the final 90 degree bend, up over the hump in the road and you’ve arrived in Kilcrohane, the end of the world and the farthest point you can travel into the depths of County Cork.

If there was a last undiscovered letter from John B Keane, from a love-hungry farmer or a successful TD, it could have been written from Kilcrohane. On a regular Friday night in summer, in the heart of the very small village (blink while you’re driving and you might just miss it), you’ll find a crowd in Frank’s wine bar (aka The Grain Store). Farmers, still clad in muddy wellies and half-torn caps, rub shoulders and comment on shiraz with Canadian rocksters, half-crazed musicians and all manner of foreign bodies. The latter live the idyllic life of the ‘rurbanite’ - the town mouse happily settled in the ‘sticks’. It may be an old community, but it’s not totally removed from modernity, and to prove it Frank serves tapas to accompany the merlot.

Around the corner in Eileen’s Bar a small group of musicians, neo-hippies, and oddballs with a surprising amount of funds congregate amidst pints, balancing on torn black stools by the fire. At the Bay View Inn, across from Frank and his medley of grapes, there is music in the bar, and a gathering of extended family after a local christening, gone long past the original afternoon session and now settling in for the night. One mile to the west, in the newly reopened White House, more Guinness is served in wooden clad surrounds, and if there isn’t an official music arrangement there will always be someone banging out a tune in the corner.

The paparazzi don’t take the time to drive out this far, so anyone is safe to appear at will. The ‘properazzi’, however, (to use the latest term for cash rich house buyers with names worth mentioning) have come to town and Kilcrohane has its own special stash of celebrities. Graham Norton bought the nearby Ahakista House a few years ago, a run down mansion with film-set views of the bay. Ivory Callely lives here in summer, when not waxing lyrical in the Seanad. Christy Moore resides in the next village down. From infamous politicians to UK TV hosts, there are all types on this stretch of coast.

Not so long ago, a group of very pleasant English men, financial types from the City, did a brilliant job catching fish on an extended visit to the village. They had the boat, they had the SUV, they even had the wax jackets. And when they got the four wheel drive stuck in the ditch on the untarmacked road they were so grateful to the locals for helping them out. Even the fresh mackerel they caught was distributed amongst the neighbours. When they were discovered to have orchestrated one of the country’s largest drug hoists in recent years it was just one more local news item, except that this one also made it to the national evening news. There was so much to talk about in Kilcrohane that summer.

And lest its celebrity enhanced status be lacking, village legend has it that actor Ralph Fiennes got his primary schooling here in the 1970’s. Whatever about recent history, jumping back some hundreds of years begets pathos and tragedy when the children of Spanish Kings were entrusted to the Druids for a truly Irish education. Only to drown in the nearby Farranmanagh Lake.

This kind of mixed acivity comes with its own novelties. In recent years you could be ambling along the peninsula when you’d hear a low buzz emanating from beyond the fields, increasing in intensity as the minutes passed. You could have been forgiven for thinking of giant birds, or even lost planes. More likely that it was a local celebrity – loping home in a helipcopter after a busy week in the outside world.

Like all good Irish villages, a lot of it is owned by one man and his wife. Frank O’Mahony, unofficial King of the O’Mahony Clan, owns the wine bar, the restaurant, the post office and the shop. But he doesn’t just own half of the town – he has written the books about it as well. The Dalys, the Hegartys and the Arundels are all in the annals of Kilcrohane history, and still prop up the bars today.

The Sheeps Head Way, where walkers of the world have been known to unite, is an 88km route that runs from Bantry to Sheep's Head at the end of the peninsula, and back through Kilcrohane, Ahakista and Durrus. Close to the tip, The Sheep’s Head Café serves hearty soup and sandwiches, steely enough to brace you for the final drag. The road from the village is a six-mile thread of narrow concrete creeping through boggy terrain. Get your reversing skills into gear – meeting another car on the way means you’ll both have to be innovative if you want to go anywhere. From the narrow roads you’ll see landscapes and seascapes made for the next Jack B Yeats.

On the route into the village from Bantry, there’s a memorial garden commemorating the deaths of over three hundred people when a bomb exploded on an Air India flight in 1985. The plane crashed just off the coast, and every June locals and relatives perform a ceremony in remembrance. A sundial, designed by Cork sculptor, Ken Thompson, is the focal point of the garden and the sun hits the dial at the exact minute of the explosion.

Just beyond the village at the Kilcrohane Pier there’ll always be a healthy crew swimming in summer, be it in sunshine or drizzle, and in the winter there are a handful of diehards to continue the tradition. This Easter the Ceol on the Coast festival went ahead in the village as usual, where the lineup of bands, with names like Two Time Polka, One for the Road and Lo Lo, read like the programme at the Galway Races.

Recent building has been prolific - 75 holiday homes now line the exit from one end of the village. So more business for Frank, Eileen, the Bayview Inn and the White House, but less privacy for the locals – of both the foreign and indigenous variety. How long will it remain the last outpost of the south, where you can still get a good cappuccino? 

This article was published in Business and Finance Magazine in 2008.