We and Douce Mountain Farm
Renate and Gerd Neubeck moved to Douce Mountain Farm in the spring of 1995 from their native Germany. Their 2 children grew up here and have left by now.
Renate, born in 1958, trained as a social worker. She has been involved in organic farming and gardening for more than 30 years. Gerd was a teacher. He was appointed as a teacher in the Zen lineage of Fr Willigis Jaeger/Kyo-un Roshi in 2012.
Together they transformed a deserted small farm into a family home and a well attended guest house. Ever since they have lived here they have been growing their own organic vegetables, baking their own bread and keeping cattle, sheep, goats, horses and hens for their own supply and the well-being of their guests.
From 2024 they do not organise courses in the guest house any more, apart from Zen meditation retreats.
Gerd & Renate Neubeck
Douce Mountain Farm
Incharoe, Kealkill, Bantry
Co. Cork,
P75C921
Tel: 00353-27-66263
Mobile: 00353-86-3207561 or 00353-86-0565306
mail@doucemountainfarm.com
How to find Douce Mountain Farm:
There is no public transport to the farm. If you want to come to us with a group or family you need your own transport.
Eircode P75Y765 put into google maps takes you to the guest house.
If you travel from the Cork/Macroom direction our advice is to ignore google maps in Inchigeelagh and go straight towards Ballingeary instead of turning left. Follow the instructions again in Ballingeary.
Directions: Travelling by car from Cork on the N 22 turn left just before Macroom. Drive along the river Lee, through Inchigeelagh, Ballingeary past the turn to Gougane Barra National Park and through the Pass of Keimaneigh. Coming down the hill you see a little schoolhouse with a mosaic on the wall on your left after about 2 miles. Take a sharp left turn there and follow the little road past an old, small farmhouse and a newer house on the left. Take the next turn to the right, following the cycling route sign, going down, over a bridge and up again, passing a farmhouse on the right. Follow the road uphill and around a sharp bend. The second gate on the left after the sharp bend leads to the guest house.
The nearest airports are Cork (with buses from Cork City to Kealkill by private minibus or via Bantry to Ballilickey, see Bus 236 at http://buseireann.ie/inner.php?id=245#Cork ) or Kerry (with buses to Cork and then to Bantry.
Environment and Douce Mountain Farm
Douce Mountain Farm supports the principles of the Sustainable Tourism Ireland organization and supports responsible travel.
The guest house is part of a 20 ha organic farm that has been managed to strict organic principles since we bought it in 1993. It is certified by the Organic Trust (License no 613).
The 20 ha consist of fields for the cows, sheep and goats, a part of Douce Mountain and countless wild corners with little streams, small woodlnds, imcluding a Magic Forest, and enough space for wildlife, birds, fairies and leprechauns. The Ouvane River is at the bottom of the farm.
We have been growing our own food (and for our guests until 2023) in a large garden and 2 polytunnels.
The houses have been renovatd and extended according to sustainable principles. The new extension (2008) is a timber frame construction, built mainly with non toxic materials. Wooden surfaces have only been treated with natural oils.
We are looking for possibilities to replace the oil central heating with a more sustainable system.
The Best Place to Live in Ireland.
An Irish Times competition in 2012.
Douce Mountain Farm certainly was not the best place to live in Ireland in the 50ies and 60ies of the last century when all the McCarthys left their homestead for Australia, America and England, never to come back to live on the land of their forefathers. Douce Mountain Farm did not even have a name then as it was only a small patch of rugged land on a windswept mountainside in west Cork, not even big enough to sustain a very simple lifestyle. Subsequently Douce Mountain Farm went into hibernation – with the stone-built farm house boarded up, the trees and bushes growing wild and the land being used as grazing ground for the neighbours’ cattle.
In the mid nineties a couple with their one year old son bought the farm and over the years transformed it into a stunningly beautiful place, teeming with life in all its forms. Now they share their land with their 2 teenage children, a variety of animals and guests from all walks of life who come to Douce Mountain Farm to experience the natural beauty of the landscape and the tranquility of the unspoilt west Cork mountains. Douce Mountain Farm boasts now 49 acres of organically approved land where a wide variety of vegetables grow in abundance and are transformed into delicious food, shared by guests and family alike. Douce Mountain Farm is host to farm animals, including cows and milking sheep, chickens and ducks, horses, dogs and cats. Getting up early in the morning in the spring treats the listener to a dawn chorus of symphonic dimensions.
Douce Mountain Farm stretches up from the banks of the Ouvane River almost to the top of Douce Mountain. Only the chosen ones, on tiptoe at the very top, can see the tip of the Statue of Liberty on a fine day. Everybody else can clearly see, beyond the patchwork of small green west Cork fields the deep-blue water of Bantry Bay, contained by the rugged Sheepshead and Beara Peninsulas with their Old Red Sandstone cliffs. They can also see the peaks of Faill an Stuaicin, Sliabh Chom Seol, Starraic an Lolair or Lough Nambrackderg, names that go down the throat like Irish Whiskey. And that bit closer they could see the dazzling yellow of the gorse in the spring, the orange bog asphodel in the summer and the purple mountain heather in the autumn, all immersed in that clear, pink light that so pleases the Irish eye.
Douce Mountain Farm is a combination of picture-book country life, gorgeous home produced food, pristine spring water from the depths of the mountain itself, and a landscape honed by the ice ages and turned into lush fields by centuries of farming. Douce Mountain Farm is embedded in a wonderful community of small farmers and their families with a few artists thrown into the mixture – all shrouded in the peace and tranquility that is the essence of every rural existence.