With its deep water harbour and a population of a bit over 5,200, the town of Kinsale in County Cork has been an important sea port for more than 1,500 years. St Multose founded a monastery here in the 6th century, and the early Celtic settlement that grew up around the estuary was later supplanted by a Viking trading post. The Normans fortified the town in the 13th century, and over the next 200 years it developed as a centre for fishing and shipbuilding.

Read more in Tripatini contributor Anthony Toole´s post Kinsdale, Jewel of Ireland´s South Coast.