Go to bat and  batter in West Cork hotspot Rosscarbery

WEST Cork’s Rosscarbery has a hot new show on the road — the man behind one of West Cork’s highest-rated fish and chips businesses has taken over the former Landmark restaurant and cafe premises on the N71 at Tanyard Lane.

The one-time Calnan’s bar on the main West Cork N71 strip, later Landmark, closed after covid around 2020, having also previously traded as Longfellas.

Taking over now at the 4.300 sq ft roadside eatery for year-round service at particularly family-friendly pricing is local entrepreneur Roy Hawkins, wife Olwen, daughter Cassidy, and extended family, with a staff crew of 14 on board in the Hawkins family’s assertive new venture, called Nighthawks.

Mr Hawkins previously had a takeaway, Rocks, on the square in Rosscarbery, later moving to open the highly regarded Rosscarbery Traditional Fish and Chips by the Spar on the N71 at Cregane, winning a clutch of quality and service awards over the past several years en route.

The family’s new sitdown venture, Nighthawks, soft-opened just last weekend, with takeaway and ‘click and collect’. Mr Hawkins has just closed his award-garlanded previous takeaway outlet by Spar, and previously had overseen food ventures in Clonakilty and Timoleague for other operators.

And, on a related local ‘hook’, there’s a touch of ‘fish out of water’ about the design of this one-off Burgatia home, overlooking the lagoon, the water sports centre, Rosscarbery itself, and the Celtic Ross Hotel.

Built in the 1980s, it’s a C2-BER stamped, and brick-faced 2,628 sq ft three-storey home, on a third of an acre landscaped sloping site that manages to fit in up to seven bedrooms, under a pressed metal or zinc roof, mono-pitch, with all-brick external leaf and walls have been pumped with insulation.

It is topped with solar panels on its low-pitch roof, making it even more visually noticeable from the causeway/N71, with the west-facing hillside at Burgatia home to some of Ross’s top ‘Grand Circle’ detached family homes, with several new builds also joining the array of late.

Guiding at €950,000, estate agent Mark Kelly of Hodnett Forde is selling this ’80s one-off for a Cork family who’ve used it of late as a holiday home. 

He says there’s up to seven bedrooms in the two/three-storey home “presented in pristine condition, with high-quality fixtures and fittings, insulated to a high standard and has a layout to make the most of the stunning views”.

It has day/living rooms and kitchen at the lower ground level, a mid-level with four double bedrooms (one en suite) and main bathroom and a top floor with three en suite bedrooms, the principal one impressively double aspect.

The Burgatia townland is above a walking loop around the lagoon by Rosscarbery and “the location is both idyllic and convenient, you can stroll out for a beach walk, pier walk, swim, to the pubs, shops and school… and get a catch at the new Nighthawks too, ” says Mr Kelly.