With Cape-Clear and Sherkin Island in the background.
Baltimore is a village in western Co. Cork.
It is the main village in the parish of Rathbarry and the Islands, the southern-most parish in Ireland.
It is also the main ferry port to Sherkin Island, Cape Clear Island and the eastern side of Roaring Water Bay and Carbery's Hundred Isles.
The name Baltimore is an anglicisation of the Irish Baile an Tí Mhóir meaning "town of the big house",
An English colony was founded here about 1605 by Sir Thomas Crooke, 1st Baronet, with the blessing of King James I of England.
It was a lucrative centre of the pilchard fisheries, and in the early 1600s a great pirate base.
In 1607 Baltimore became a market town, with the right to hold a weekly market and two annual fairs.
The town was depopulated in 1631 in the Sack of Baltimore, a raid by Barbary pirates from either Algeria or Morocco.
Reminders of the incident still exist in the form of pub names, like "The Algiers Inn".
More than 100 villagers were sold into slavery, of whom only 2 or 3 ever saw Ireland again.
The survivors fled to Skibbereen, and Baltimore for generations was almost deserted.
A slow recovery began in the 18th century, and by the early 1800s the village was starting to prosper again.
It suffered further great losses in the Great Famine (1845-1849).
It is believed that Napoleon obtained his famous white mare Intendant from the area.
Reference: Wikipedia