Rinn an Scidigh · Co. Cork
A fishing village turned deepwater port: the place most of the world's Viagra is made, the gateway to France by sea, and one pub left standing.
Ringaskiddy is not a village in the postcard sense, and it does not pretend to be. It sits on the western shore of Cork Harbour, one of the largest natural harbours in the world, about fifteen kilometres south of Cork city. The Irish is Rinn an Scidigh, Skiddy's headland. The 2022 census counted 575 people in Ringaskiddy-Loughbeg. It was a fishing village within living memory; in the twentieth century it became a port and a pharmaceutical capital, and the fishing is long gone.
The plants do the talking now. Pfizer, Novartis, GSK, Hovione, Recordati - this is one of the densest clusters of pharmaceutical manufacturing in Europe, and the commonly repeated claim is that most of the world's Viagra is made here. More than 3,800 people work in the industry locally. The Port of Cork has built a deepwater container and ro-ro terminal on the point, and the Brittany Ferries boat to Roscoff sails from the same stretch of water. Come in off the ship from France and the industrial estate is the first thing you see.
There is no Main Street to speak of and no tourist trade. The Ferry Boat Inn is the last pub standing - there were once three - and it does a decent plate of bar food to dockers, sailors, college students and ferry passengers killing an hour before the crossing. Beyond that, the village has a primary school, a church, a community centre, and the National Maritime College on the water.
If you have an hour to spare before a ferry or after a shift, walk up to the Martello tower above the harbour for the view back across the water to Cobh and Spike Island, and acknowledge Barnahely Castle, the medieval Warren tower-house, near the industrial road. Then go. Cork city is twenty-five minutes back up the N28, and that is where the evening is.