West Cork

✨ Title: West Cork

🌎 Location Based: County Cork, Ireland

🍿 Format️: Serialized

⌛ Time Duration️: Long Episodes (30 minutes - 1 hour)

🕰️ Release Schedule: Complete

🧑 Host: Sam Bungey and Jennifer Forde

🎙️ Host Type: Male, Female, Two Hosts, Interview Format

ℹ️ Host Background: Journalist

🎩 Level of Formality: Formal

📢️ Commentary Style: All Case (no banter)

👐 Approach: Documentary Style, Investigative Deep Dive

🔔 Tone: Dark, Dramatic, Respectful, Serious

👻 Supernatural Element: No

West Cork is a critically acclaimed true crime podcast hosted by investigative journalist Sam Bungey and documentarian Jennifer Forde. The series investigates the 1996 murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier, a French television producer who was beaten to death outside her holiday home near Schull in County Cork, Ireland. Although police have a prime suspect, they were never able to make the charge stick, leaving him living under suspicion ever since. Across 13 deeply reported episodes, Forde and Bungey guide listeners through the case, the community, and the haunting questions that have lingered for decades. The series became Audible’s most listened-to podcast of all time, and it’s not hard to see why.

What makes West Cork truly special is how much firsthand material it includes. You hear from journalists, neighbors, investigators, and people who were close to the case, so the story feels less like a retelling and more like being there as it all unfolded. It doesn’t rush to conclusions, and it doesn’t try to make the story more dramatic than it already is. Critics praised it as “vastly more soulful than its true crime peers” and “a stellar true crime tale,” and it’s easy to understand why — the hosts let the mystery breathe and show all the twists, doubts, and deeply human sides along the way. If you like true crime that digs deep into one case and never takes shortcuts, West Cork is one that’s very easy to get pulled into.