My offspring have already been ridiculing me over this, so I'm innured now to the sneering looks and the incredulity that go with saying 'I saw an Elton John concert.' I mean, can it really be any worse than saying 'I've just seen another theatrical extravaganza with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber'? Obviously to the young much of what pleases their parents is ineffably naff, but playing my old Stones albums, or Dylan or Hendrix or J. J. Cale or Ry Cooder doesn't get the same response. These old masters are still accorded respect, whereas whatever cred Sir Elton may have possessed evaporated totally when he played at the British Queen's jubilee concert. And yet I still have a regard for an old trooper, someone who can stand in front of a rain-drenched GAA pitch in Killarney on a bleak, windy, wintry summer's evening and play for over two hours to an appreciative crowd. True professionalism.

Which means, of course, that we were in Killarney. If there's a dearth of tourists here, then it's hard to see how. Any more people than I saw would mean that Killarney can fit more than Benidorm on a Friday night in August. A quick tour of the town was sufficient to learn that like most tourist centres, it has its share of the picturesque and the unspeakably tasteless. Driving back from the concert was memorable for a couple of things. Demanding a burger from the golden arches, I was met with howls of protests from the other passengers. 'You want a what? Are you mad?' and a more philosophical 'if only your readers knew.' Oddly, as I was ordering my quarter pounder with cheese and chips, my carping detractors suddenly relented and ordered stuff of their own. Taking a scenic route back to Bantry that took us through the village of Kilgarvan we learnt that this was Jackie Healy Rae's town. You know - his garage; his supermarket; his pub; his illuminated, life-size, roadside cut-out. And his wheely-bins, which became the final resting place for our fast-food packaging rubbish.

The drive from there to Glengarrif was truly impressive. Striking mountains, lakes and forests mean that just about every view is dramatic, but nothing quite as surprising as when at its highest point, the road goes through a series of tunnels, cut through the rock in the famine years. Between Glengarrif and Bantry the road skirts the top end of Bantry Bay, and the Whiddy Island terminal was pointed out to me. The ecologist in me tried to get irate about an oil terminal placed amid such natural splendour, but with no success. You just can't see it, it's so well screened. If you want to get worked up over something though, let me suggest the abomination of salmon farms and mussel farms, which being close to shore and un-camouflaged are a seriously ugly offense to the eye.

Bantry is pretty place, the old is preserved and well-maintained while the new blends well with what's there. My wife Susie and friends Monica had Sarah had come for the seafood. To a pedant Bantry's square may be more of an oval, but it acts as a very pleasing frame to the sea. It's always been a bit of mystery to me why a country that's totally surrounded by the sea doesn't have more respect for seafood, perhaps it's a remnant of penitential fish on Fridays, but in West Cork things are very different. Here they treat their seafood with respect and wherever I tasted it, they did it well. O'Connor's have exactly what you'd expect to find in any Mediterranean seafood restaurant - a sea-water tank inside the door with a couple of forlorn lobsters awaiting their fate with elastic bands around their claws and more oysters than you could eat at a sitting.

Inside the place was absurdly busy, every table was taken, and some we noticed were filled more than once. On a mid-week night this can only be a good sign, I thought to myself. For non-smokers the front room is packed with tables, for smokers the back room is lined with booths which happily seat four on plush-covered benches. My three female companions were getting very happy at the prospect of a fish dinner, and it took a while to make choices from a fairly extensive menu plus a range of other specials on the blackboard. With a bottle of Chilean Chardonnay - reasonably priced at €20.50 - we sat back and awaited our fare.

We started with a tempura of prawns, half-a-dozen oysters, crab claws and mussels with garlic butter. The strength of these dishes was entirely their freshness. The mussels were farmed, but as it explains on the menu, this does have the plus point that there's no sand or grit in them. This simplicity of preparation was carried through to our main course choices, which were stuffed sole fillets, turbot, Dover sole and monkfish gratin. Of these the most elaborate was Sarah's monkfish, which had her passionate in her praise. 'I'd come to Bantry just to eat this again,' she enthused. Certainly it was a good dish, but a dish for someone with a big appetite. Monica's sole fillets were stuffed with shell-fish and were very good, and Susie's turbot, like my Dover sole, was simply prepared. In general I'm a fan of foods that are simply prepared - if you're starting with something as good as really fresh fish, then there's no need to infuse it with extraneous flavours, you can let the produce speak for itself.

Despite the large size of our main courses we did manage two desserts between us, a banoffi and a cheesecake, which were perfectly acceptable. What I liked about O'Connor's was that the food here is well-prepared and the fish is cooked properly. It may not be seriously haute cuisine, but then again I don't think it's aiming to be. I was delighted with its simplicity. The bill for the four of us was €202.84, including service.