Castletownbere () is a town in County Cork in Ireland. It is located on the Beara Peninsula by Berehaven Harbour. It is also known as Castletown Berehaven. A regionally important fishing port, the town also serves as a commercial and retail hub for the local hinterland. Located on the Wild Atlantic Way, tourism is also important to the local economy. The area is the setting for Daphne du Maurier's 1943 novel Hungry Hill named after the nearby mountain of the same name. History and name The Irish name of the town () originally referred to a MacCarthy dynasty castle which once stood in the area. This should not be confused with Dunboy Castle – two miles west of the town – which was the seat of the O'Sullivan Beare family. Donal Cam O'Sullivan Beare, together with other Gaelic lords and with Spanish aid, rebelled against the English Crown. During the Siege of Dunboy the castle was reduced by the forces of Elizabeth I in 1602. He then retreated with his followers to Leitrim. O'Sullivan Beare's stance was commemorated in 2002, and there is a plaque in Irish and English on the castle ruins commemorating those who died. In 1796 Theobald Wolfe Tone and his confederates sailed into Berehaven Harbour in French men o' war. They anchored off Ahabeg – a townland five miles east of Castletownbere – but the gales were so violent that they could not land. Wolfe Tone fulminated that he was so close to Ireland that he could almost have spat onto the shore – he reflected, "England has not had such an escape since the Armada" – perhaps an allusion to the fact that adverse winds frustrated England's enemies on both occasions. For his efforts in preparing the local defences against the French, Richard White, a local landlord, was created Earl of Bantry and Viscount Berehaven in 1816. In the 19th and early 20th century, Castletownbere and the Berehaven Harbour was an important anchorage and naval port for the Royal Navy. In 1885, the harbour was a testing site for the development of the Torpedo ram when the warship HMS Polyphemus undertook a simulated attack on a fleet at anchor off the town. The United States Navy established U.S. Naval Air Station Berehaven Ireland on 29 April 1918 to operate a Lighter-Than-Air (LTA) Kite balloon base during World War I. The base closed shortly after the