by Sally Hammond (listen to Sally's 2GB podcast...)

Nadd Pub was almost full when we arrived. Although we'd come way out of town to what seemed like the middle of nowhere in the dark, amazingly there were dozens of cars parked around the small whitewashed building. A wave of noise and warmth, smoke and alcohol fumes hit us as we pushed into the brightness.

"This will be a  good night for craic," they told us. And ceol, too, they said, for tonight the musicians would be coming. Soon.

Craic, ceol and caint, Irish for fun, song and chat, is a combination that is almost irresistible to most people in this land of mists and magic. Mention there could be a story in it, mention a Guinness (or three) as a lure, sweeten the offer with a chance to mingle and sing, and no green-blooded Irish person can say no.

Cork, the largest Irish county, accounts for the south-western corner of Ireland, dangling several peninsulas like so many chilly toes into the warming Gulf Stream that curls up the west coast of Ireland. It brings with it a wash of palms and bamboo to places you would otherwise expect to see carpeted with pines and oaks.

County Cork is full of surprises. Narrow roadsides are hedged with red fuschias and blackberry vines. Some of the best cheeses in the land made in tiny farmlet enterprises, but then the coast shocks you with severe rockscapes plunging into the sea.

Dursey Island is the punctuation mark at the end of the Beara Peninsula. You reach it hours after you leave Bantry, not because the distance is so far, but it's just that there are so many places to explore on the way - Garinish Island with its strangely tropical gardens, the coast road from Eyeries to Ardgroom, and the township of Allihies scattered like a bright mosaic in front of a moonscape of old copper mines. Dursey itself is only reached by a 250-metre cable car ride that runs infrequently from the windswept point.

Here in Cork you will find many pretty little villages, crayola villages, bright and clean, with each of the tall and narrow houses painted a bright and different colour like a box of crayons. The shops are technicolour too, so meticulously trimmed and signwritten, you know there must be a whole industry out there, employed just to keep them that way.

And none of this fancy-pants naming of shops. Here you get it plain and simple: O'Cafferty's Butchers, MacCarthy's Hardware, O'Driscoll's Bakers, all beautifully gold-lettered on black, many in sensuous Gaelic script as well. The O'Sullivans feature often too, for Cork was their stronghold for hundreds of years.

One misty afternoon - they call it a 'soft day' in those parts - we passed a man propped on a stout stick, his bulk almost filling the narrow side road. "I'm fox hunting," he informed us (we hadn't asked) then went on to say, "We don't shoot the foxes here, of course, we just come out at the weekends and chase them out. Then we let them go again," and his eyes twinkled. "Until next weekend."

We could just as easily have come across a game of road bowling (some pronounce it disquieteningly as 'bowelling') as it was Sunday, the day when all over the west country you may find serious little groups of men flagging down cars so that the road is clear for them to heave a heavy ball as far as they can. It seems no one minds the occasional interruption, for this is Ireland, after all.

In fact the Irish see many things differently to others. It's important you understand this before you take their road signs too literally, or their directions at face value. Be prepared for a dozen spellings for each place you visit, and as many distances on the maps and signposts. There is a generosity that spills over into not letting the facts interfere with things too much.

You see that same largeness of spirit in their attitude to food and drink. Mary Burns makes Ardrahan, some of the best cheese in Cork, but she also concocts a wicked Irish coffee. Even after I pleaded for just a touch of whiskey, her hand must have trembled, for we sat together tasting cheese in her farmhouse kitchen in a relaxed and genial mist.

It is no wonder then that Kinsale, a picturebook fishing village south of Cork hosts an annual Gourmet Food Festival. Here hundreds of local and international visitors gather to dine each year, at various restaurants. They're members of the Good Food Circle, here to taste wines from around the world, and be entertained by food personalities such as local-boy Keith Floyd.

You could spend your whole time without even visiting the city that gives its name to the county, but it would be a shame. Cork-the-city is a gracious place, third city of Ireland after Dublin and Belfast, and comfortably looped by the River Lee. The city centre is old and confusing, but do spare an hour or two for the fascinating English Market crammed with foods from the area aas well as eating places. 

Cobh, cradled in Cork Harbour is worth a visit too. This island-town was the last sight many of our ancestors had of Ireland as they left. Today a moving display commemorates this in 'The Queenstown Story'. Cobh was also the last port of call for the fated Titanic, and the Lusitania sank off Kinsale in 1915.

Don't be misled by the atlas. County Cork may look small, but there is another dimension you need to take into account.

You must take time to experience places like Nadd Pub too. Yes, the musicians did come, finally, a half dozen of them shouldering in with their guitar, flute and tin whistle, fiddle, mandolin and button accordion.

Drinks all round for the boys, it was, and in no time the other drinkers turned songsters as the selections ran from ballads to bawdy, lubricated by the constant flow of  creamy-capped glasses of black Guinness - and, to be sure, craic, ceol and caint in full supply.