Clonakilty is a busy market town, but is only 3 km from one of the largest and most popular beaches in West Cork and is the centre for family holidays in this part of the county. It is about 40 km from Cork City and to the west of the town the landscape dissolves into a succession of bays and peninsulas along the coast or increasingly mountainous terrain inland. It is a prosperous and bright town today but was notorious for suffering in the Irish Famine (1845-47) and was also the home town of Michael Collins, Ireland's lost leader, who was killed in the civil war, after concluding the Treaty of Independeance with Great Britain in 1921. http://wikitravel.org/en/Clonakilty