Skibbereen and West Cork shines in Graham Norton's Holding

Skibbereen and the surrounding towns and villages has had a starring role in ITV’s murder-mystery Holding. Based on Graham Norton’s 2016 novel Holding is about a sheepish police officer in a sleepy village in West Cork, who reluctantly finds himself solving his first murder case. 

‘West Cork is the Wild West of Ireland’, says executive producer Dominic Treadwell-Collins. ‘It’s right down in the south-west and cut-off from the rest of Ireland because it is so hard to get to. A lot of artists, writers, poets and musicians move there, and a lot of people go there to escape.’

Graham Norton grew up in West Cork and has a house there – on Sheep’s Head, an unspoilt peninsula with a wild coastline and lovely loughs. He and Treadwell-Collins were determined that the drama should be filmed in West Cork, despite the cost of taking the whole cast down there.

The pretty coastal village of Castletownshend, the sailing village of Baltimore, and of course the West Cork’s cosmopolitan capital town of Skibbereen features heavily in the series. The beautiful beaches just outside of Skibbereen as well as Toe Head also feature heavily in the series. 

When it comes to things to do in West Cork a trip to West Cork to visit it's wonderful towns and villages is a must!