Garinish Island & Derreen: Two Irish Garden Gems
On my recent scouting trip through Counties Cork and Kerry, I visited many wonderful gardens, but two have stayed particularly vividly in my mind: Garinish Island, in Bantry Bay, and Derreen Garden, on the Beara Peninsula.
They couldn’t be more different. One is a formal Italianate garden set on a small island; the other is a vast, atmospheric woodland of mature exotic trees. Yet both share something I find irresistible in a garden: a strong sense of place. Neither could exist anywhere other than Ireland
Garinish Island: an Italian garden in the Atlantic
Garinish Island — also known as Ilnacullin, meaning “island of the holly” — lies just off the coastal village of Glengarriff in County Cork. Regular ferries leave from the harbor every half hour, and the crossing takes about fifteen minutes.
On the morning of my visit, the water was as smooth as glass. The early boat ride across Bantry Bay, with the mountains and coastline emerging through the morning light, was rather magical. By the time we reached the island, I already felt that we had left the ordinary world behind.
It’s hard to imagine today, looking at the lush planting, that Garinish was once little more than a barren rock with a Martello tower. The tower had been built in 1805, as a defence against a feared Napoleonic invasion.
In 1910, the Belfast-born merchant and Liberal politician Annan Bryce (1843-1923) purchased the island. Bryce was passionate about horticulture and architecture and dreamed of creating a holiday home there. For the garden, he commissioned the eminent English garden architect Harold Peto (1854-1933).
Peto was an advocate of the Italian style and had already designed gardens for wealthy clients on the Riviera. At a time when the more naturalistic Robinsonian style was fashionable, his approach was quite different: formal, architectural and distinctly Italianate.
And yet, on Garinish, it works beautifully.
The island is only about fifteen hectares, so creating the garden was no small undertaking. Rocks had to be blasted away and soil brought in to create planting areas. Bryce planned a mansion incorporating the Martello tower, but his fortunes changed dramatically after the First World War and the collapse of the Russian market after the 1917 Revolution. The house was never built.
Bryce died in 1923, and his widow Violet (1863-1939), much younger than he was, moved to the island permanently. She lived in the cottage that had been built during the project and, together with the head gardener, continued to realise her husband’s horticultural vision.
The result is extraordinary.
At the heart of the garden is Peto’s Italianate garden, with its formal structures and strong architectural lines. But rather than standing alone, it leads the visitor through a series of wilder areas, planted with exotic species from South America, Asia and other southern continents.
And then there are the views.
Every so often, the planting opens and Bantry Bay appears beyond it. The formal garden, the wild vegetation and the surrounding landscape become part of one composition.
That, for me, is what makes Garinish so quintessentially Irish. An Italian garden might seem an unlikely choice for the south-west coast of Ireland, but here it feels entirely at home. The scale is intimate and human, and the formal geometry sits surprisingly comfortably within the wild Atlantic landscape.
On that sunny morning, with the water sparkling below and the garden almost impossibly lush, it felt as though we had been transported somewhere far away.
And yet we were unmistakably in Ireland.
Derreen: a garden of trees
From Glengarriff, the road winds south towards the Beara Peninsula, the long finger of land stretching between Kenmare and Glengarriff.
This is spectacular country — but driving here is not for the faint-hearted. The roads can be narrow and steep, and one occasionally encounters a sheep standing firmly in the middle of the road, apparently unconcerned by either geography or traffic.
And then there is Derreen Garden.
Derreen is sometimes described as a botanical garden, but I think the word garden can be misleading. This is not a place primarily about flowers, borders and seasonal colour.
It is a garden of trees.
Mature exotic trees form a woodland through which paths wind down towards the coast. As you walk, glimpses of the surrounding water suddenly appear between the trunks and foliage. You turn a corner and find yourself looking across the harbour; a little further on, the woodland closes around you again.
The effect is wonderfully immersive. You don’t simply look at the garden. You disappear into it.
The estate has belonged to the same family since the seventeenth century. In 1866, the 5th Marquess of Lansdowne, Henry Charles Keith Petty-Fitzmaurice, inherited Derreen. He is the person chiefly responsible for creating the garden we see today, transforming what was essentially bare rock and scrub oak into a luxuriant woodland garden.
He planted a shelter belt of trees across some 400 acres to protect his collection of shrubs and specimen trees. As Viceroy of India and Governor General of Canada, he also had access to plants from parts of the world that were then highly exotic to European gardeners, and he brought specimens home for Derreen.
The garden itself is about 60 acres. Today, enormous tree ferns — including many Dicksonia antarctica — thrive among the trees. But it is the maturity and scale of the planting that makes the greatest impression.
There is something deeply personal about Derreen. You can feel that this is a place that has been loved by several generations, and that the family’s attachment to it remains strong.
Keeping such a garden going cannot be easy. Mature trees in a windswept coastal environment bring their own challenges, particularly in a relatively remote part of Ireland. It takes dedication, knowledge and, above all, passion.
Fortunately, Derreen seems to have all three.
There is also a lovely café serving simple, delicious food, which turns a visit into more than a garden walk. You can spend an afternoon here — walking, eating, sitting, looking at the trees and waiting to see what view will reveal itself next.
Two very different Irish gardens
Garinish Island and Derreen could hardly be more different, yet both demonstrate something I love about Irish gardens.
They aren’t simply collections of plants. They are gardens shaped by place, climate, landscape and people.
At Garinish, Peto’s formal Italianate architecture creates a wonderful counterpoint to the wild Atlantic landscape. At Derreen, the landscape itself seems to have swallowed the garden, creating an extraordinary woodland that feels almost primeval.
Both are, in my view, essential visits when travelling through this corner of Ireland.
And, as you may have guessed from my recent scouting trip, I’m hoping I’ll have the opportunity to take you there in 2027.
Be the first to know about my Ireland tour here.
Sources:
A visitor’s guide to Ilancullin, OPW Ireland , 2016.
Derreen Garden, Visitor’s Guide.
Wikipedia.
Be the first to know about my Ireland tour here.
Sources:
A visitor’s guide to Ilancullin, OPW Ireland , 2016.
Derreen Garden, Visitor’s Guide.
Wikipedia.
