Qualla: Bantry Bay

Bantry Bay: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Zairon, CC BY 4.0. Wolfe Tone, the revolutionary lawyer who would become the founding figure of Irish republicanism, sat on a French ship anchored in Bantry Bay in December 1796 and wrote in his diary that he was close enough to toss a biscuit ashore. Behind him stretched a fleet of forty-three French ships carrying 15,000 troops sent to drive the British out of Ireland. In front of him stretched the Irish coast, less than a biscuit's throw away. Then the weather turned. The fleet broke up in one of the worst Atlantic storms of the 18th century, scattered back to France, and Tone's rebellion died on the water before it could begin. Bantry Bay has been swallowing armies and ships for centuries. It is also, on a quieter day, a 35-kilometre inlet of extraordinary beauty.

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Image: Zairon | CC BY 4.0

Bantry Bay: The Drowned River Valley

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 4.0. Bantry Bay is a ria - a coastal valley flooded by rising seas after the last Ice Age. The bottom is deep, about 40 metres in the middle, which is why it has become Ireland's principal petroleum harbour. The bay runs roughly northeast to southwest into the Atlantic, three kilometr...

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Image: Andreas F. Borchert | CC BY-SA 4.0

Bantry Bay: 1689 and 1796: Twice the Wrong Direction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kith, CC BY-SA 2.0. Bantry Bay's first famous battle came in 1689, during the Nine Years' War, when English and French fleets clashed at the bay's mouth - a Jacobite-era engagement that ended inconclusively. The more consequential moment came a century later. In December 1796, the French Republic se...

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Image: Kith | CC BY-SA 2.0

Bantry Bay: 8 January 1979: Whiddy Island

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NicholasH, CC BY-SA 4.0. On the night of 8 January 1979, the French oil tanker Betelgeuse was discharging her cargo at the offshore jetty of the Whiddy Island oil terminal when she caught fire, exploded, and broke into three pieces. Fifty people died - 42 French crew members, seven Irish dockworkers, and...

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Image: NicholasH | CC BY-SA 4.0

Bantry Bay: The Supertanker on Television

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ben Brooksbank, CC BY-SA 2.0. In a strange footnote to all this maritime drama, Bantry Bay turned up on American television screens during the most-watched moments in human history. In 1969, around the time of the Apollo moon landings, a Gulf Oil commercial featured the supertanker Universe Kuwait at the Whid...

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Image: Ben Brooksbank | CC BY-SA 2.0