Allihies Copper Mine Tour

The Allihies Copper Mine Tour, run by Beara Baoi Tours, is a guided walk through one of the most significant historic mining landscapes in Ireland, set around the village of Allihies on the Beara Peninsula in County Cork. Copper mining began here on an industrial scale in 1812, and the surrounding countryside still carries some of the finest surviving evidence of nineteenth-century mining anywhere in the world.

On the tour you explore this post-industrial landscape at close hand, taking in disused mine workings, a gunpowder house, dressing floors, man-made reservoirs and the tall stone engine houses that once held the steam engines used to pump water from the shafts and drive the winding gear. Along the way your guide brings the story to life, from the daily lives of the mining families to the Puxley family who owned the mines and shipped ore across to Swansea in Wales.

The tour ends at the Allihies Copper Mine Museum in the village, housed in a building dating from 1845 that originally served as the Cornish miners’ Methodist church. Nearby, the pale sands of Ballydonegan Beach were formed from quartz particles washed down from the mine workings above.

Tours are family-friendly and go ahead in most weather, with free parking available. For current tour times and booking, contact Beara Baoi Tours through their website at bearabaoitours.com.