The Bars, Lord Kingsale, Kinsale, Co Cork, Ireland. B&B accommodation

At 4 Main Street, this pub has served ale in Kinsale for 250 years. Leased by John Sarsfield from his brother Thomas for the staggering sum of one penny per annum in 1778, the premises was sold on the wonderfully sounding Anastasia Constanta Quinn who died in 1880.

Just 100 years later, after a number of owners, the Mortimers purchased the property from Mrs. Anna Allen in 1984. Retaining all it's "olde worlde" atmosphere, full of charm and character, the Lord Kingsale with its cosy bar, restaurant, stone-walled function room and its fireplace of Kinsale brick, and new ten-bedroomed extension en-suite, is all set to serve Kinsale for another 250 years.

Kinsale, in the south of Ireland, is known for its sheltered, scenic anchorage and as a gourmet centre with annual festivals.

But the packed history of this village goes back beyond the 12th century when the church of St Multose was built (currently requiring £30,000 for restoration), through eras when the community could boast two dockyards (one Royal), the most westerly naval port in Europe and silversmiths of a high order. Its "Star Fort" is now a national monument. Kinsale had its own giant, a plaster by the name of Patrick Cotter O'Brien, 8 feet tall, who died in 1806. It boasts a Holy Stone, a Whit Lady ghost with a ghoulish past and three victims, one an unknown woman, from the Lusitania. They were buried in the churchyard in 1915.

The sea has now given up three cannons from an early English warship, possibly the St Alban. These are being restored for showing in the Museum, which is housed in what was the Old Courthouse, incorporating the earlier market house of 1600

(built the year before Kinsale was subject to a 100-day siege with the English caught between the Spanish and Irish). The lower, cobbled rooms are now being converted to reveal realistic displays including working scenes from a forge and smithy, a shipwright's, harness maker and fish cooper. This addition will include a fire engine, old city water pipes, a vapourised oil lighthouse from Bantry Bay around the early 1900s, and a figurehead from the Atlantis. There is also the macabre dog's skin used as a marker buoy 200 years ago.

Wireless internet access is available throughout the building.