This small rocky inlet at the western end of Valentia Island is where the cable brought ashore in 1866 made the first lasting telegraph connection with Heart’s Content, Newfoundland. After that, a message that once took ten days by ship crossed the Atlantic in minutes. Come for the history, not for the bay itself, which is a modest rocky cove rather than a beach. After the story, the cliffs of Bray Head that frame the cove are the reason to stay.
What happened here
By the 1860s, linking Europe and North America by wire had defeated several well-funded attempts, including a short-lived link in 1858. The cable that finally held was laid in 1866, run from Foilhommerum Bay across to Heart’s Content, and Valentia stayed a working link in the global network until the cable station closed in 1966, almost exactly a hundred years later. The cable itself was a serious piece of engineering: a copper core sheathed in gutta-percha and armoured with iron wire and hemp to survive the North Atlantic seabed.
The Valentia site is part of the Transatlantic Cable Ensemble on the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List. There is no visitor centre at the landing itself. The full story is told at the Valentia Transatlantic Cable Station at Knightstown, and Foilhommerum is the place where the wire actually met the land.
The ground above the cove, known as the Telegraph Field, is a small patch of private clifftop land. Stay on public routes, keep field gates clear, and stay above the rocky cove rather than going down to the shore.
Bray Head and the cliffs
The headland above the bay is the better part of a visit. Follow the marked Bray Head route and the signs at its entrance. The route climbs towards the ruins of an observation tower built in 1815, one of the chain of Napoleonic-era lookouts along this coast, and the view takes in the Skelligs out to sea on a clear day. Dogs are prohibited on the trail. There was once a copper mine near the bay, recorded in a 1922 Geological Survey, and the warm air of the Gulf Stream keeps wildflowers going on these slopes well into the autumn.
There’s an aviation footnote too: in 1927, Charles Lindbergh crossed over Valentia and Foilhommerum on the Spirit of St Louis, making his first European landfall here on the way to Paris, the same narrow stretch of Kerry coast marking another shrinking of the distance between the continents.
Practical information
Valentia Island is reached by the bridge at Portmagee off the Ring of Kerry, and a car ferry also links Reenard Point with Knightstown. Check the ferry’s current season and times before you travel, and check the cable station’s own page for its opening details.
Keep back from cliff edges, wear proper footwear because the ground is rough, uneven and slippery when wet, and expect the walk to be unsuitable for anyone with limited mobility. Plan an hour here, and pair it with the cable station at Knightstown to make sense of the whole story. The headland above the cove will repay the climb.