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Breath taking scenery! Killarney
2 Reviews I have lived in Killarney all my life. I used to go back there practially every weekend when in college. The best thing about Killarney is the scenery, even if it is probably the most popular tourist...
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Dingle Peninsula Dingle
1 Review Michael Coilean, Sciuird Archaeological Tours We had an awesome tour of the Dingle Penninsula through a company called the Scuid Aracheology Tours. Our guide was wonderful and very friendly. We were a...
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Skellig Michael Great Skelligs
4 Reviews The information centre is ok, but it's nothing like the real thing. And the boat from the centre only takes you around (at best!), without landing... You can find boats that take you to the island in...
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Black Valley Killarney
1 Review It's a very pretty little village in the hills with little more than a B&B, a hostel, small church, school, and a few houses. The village is near the Gap of Dunloe, so you can use it as a staging...
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Fungie Dingle
2 Reviews So when my friend saw all of these people taking pictures of the Fungi statue she was really confused. "Out of all the pretty things here, why is everyone wanting a picture of the damn dolphin?" were...
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Dingle Peninsula Killarney
1 Review visit the peninsulas of Iveragh and Dingle. Both are equally beautiful, although Iveragh tends to get overcrowded in summer, when all tourists insist on driving along the Ring of Kerry together in a...
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Inch Strand Dingle
1 Review Unless you're there in the July/August "heat wave", I wouldn't swim here without a wetsuit - this water is COLD! But a more picturesque beach you will never find! This is a lovely spot to stretch your...
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Rossbeigh Beach, Glenbeigh. Three and a half mile (appx.) of uninterrupted sandy beach and dunes, as beautiful in Winter as it is on a Summer's day. There is a riding stable nearby, where you can ride on the beach. The people.Talk to the people. They love to engage in conversation with you, and will want to know everything about you too!
If I had to choose one place to spend time in out of all the gorgeous places here, it would be Ballyferriter. The countryside is a little less rugged, with loads of green boggy fields, speckled with wild flowers, wending their way down to the sea. There are no great big expanses of beach , just a series of secluded coves one more delightful than the next. In the distance the trio of headlands called The Three Sisters stand out and everywhere there are white cottages and the intense blue of the sea. The village of Ballyferriter is quite big ( as local villages go here ). It has several pubs and restaurants and a small regional museum. This whole area is a Gaeltacht where Irish is the first language of the local people. Because of this there is a huge influx of students who come to learn the vernacular at a whole host of Irish Summer Schools.This is also a very popular place for Irish...
The Blasket Islands are the farthest point west in Europe. After this the next stop is America. There are seven islands in the group as well as a few isolated outcrops of rock.The islands are now uninhabited, one of them being owned as a holiday retreat by former Taoiseach, the now deceased, Charles J. Haughey. It's possible to visit the islands by boat either from Dingle or Dunquin but this is always dependant on the weather and sea conditions. Like most people of my generation, I don't have a burning desire to visit the Blaskets. This is a direct result of compulsory study of the autobiography of the island woman Peig Sayers whose book was rammed into the skulls of generations of Irish Secondary School students. At Dunquin ( on the mainland) you can visit the Blasket Island heritage centre. Like most heritage centres it is of questionable value and in my opinion a boat trip over there...
When you stop to admire the view or vist the Fort at Dunbeg you will immediately notice the little stone structures in the fields on the other side of the road. These are Clochans or Beehive Huts and date from the Early Christian period. They really look remarkably like beehives and when you consider that they were built, like the dry-stone walls, without mortar, they become quite impressive feats of architecture and building techniques. These are the little huts used as retreats from the worlds by monks and hermits. Some are in perfect condition and others are in disrepair. Some are now used by farmers for other reasons and this is of course the traditional style of building for ouhouses and farm buildings in this area. (See the photo of the sheep dipping pen in my Off the Beaten Path section). You can photograph the huts qute clearly from the road but if you want to go inside you have...
Dumore head ( Photo 2) juts out to sea a few miles beyond Slea Head, a green and rocky headland, strewn with farmhouses and small holdings seperated by the traditional dry stone walls. Underneath the headland ( photo 3 ) is Coumeenole Strand, an idyllic little beach featured in the movie, Ryan's Daughter. If you do decide to get off the beaten path and swim here, be careful, as the sea currents can be dangerous. Photo 4 gives an idea of the sheer rock face of the cliffs and the main photo shows this dramatic rock face in detail.
Slea Head, underneath the slopes of Mount Eagle, is at the westernmost tip of the Dingle Peninsula. Once you pass the large Sculpted Calvary,the views are totally breathtaking. Breathtaking in the literal sense also because when you get out of the car, there is a brusque Atlantic breeze to cope with. But all this fresh air is intoxicating and this is one of the best spots to enjoy the first sight of the Blasket Islands, jutting up from the ocean . There's a Famine Cottage here that you can visit if you are interested in seeing a re-creation of living conditions during the Great Famine. In my view, this is just a tourist trap but many people find it quite fascinating.
The Coastal Drive from Dingle to Smerwick Harbour is, in my opinion, the most spectacular coastal drive in Ireland. I'm describing this under General Tips because these tips are not very detailed . This is somewhere I visit at least once a year, but we just do the drive, stopping at various points along the way to enjoy the scenery. For more detailed information on specific places I suggest using google and the Kerry tourism websites. So in this section I will just include very basic information as the photos speak for themselves quite eloquently.Ventry is the first large beach and village you pass on this journey and just a few km beyond this you wil see signs for Doonbeg Fort, an Iron Age Promontory Fort at the very precipitous edge of the headland.There's a parking area here and a restaurant. To get to the fort you have to go down a lane through the fields. Well worth the trouble if...
One of the things that I admired throughout our trip in County Kerry was the abundance of flowers, not only in private gardens, but also on country roundabouts or city lawns.There were masses of flowers in the wild too and many flowering shrubs, creating a real faerie of colours! They looked so picturesque against the background of the lush green grass of the meadows where you could see white or black sheep grazing. A real idyll!
When I browsed through my pictures taken during the trip to Kerry, I found a strange thing.If you look at this picture, what do you see? A road with a car and a man standing there admiring the view? Yes, but what else? My husband was like me and saw a face of an old man looking out of the coach window. The problem is that that man would have had to be sitting in the seat in front of me but I remember well there was a girl sitting there. So who could it have been - a leprechaun taking a ride in our coach to avoid trudging up in the rainy weather? This idea appealed to me very much - I do like to believe in supernatural creatures. On closer inspection of the picture though we think we have discovered the secret. The man's 'nose' is a bend in the road, the 'lips' and 'chin' - the hair of the girl in front. But of course we cannot be sure. Don't our pictures sometimes play tricks on us?
Ogham (pronounced 'oh-am') is a primitive alphabet, sometimes called the Celtic Tree Alphabet, which takes the form of linear strokes cut into stone or etched onto wood. We saw a group of Ogham stones at Dunloe, 8kms west of Killarney on the R562 near Beaufort village. The guide told us that they were important, but I didn't really catch what the importance of them was. We didn't get good pictures of them from the speeding bus.The internet information says: Seven of the eight Ogham stones in this group were discovered in a souterrain at Coolmagort in the nineteenth century and have been set up on this site close to Dunloe Castle. The tallest stone is 8 feet high. There is also a prostrate slab taken from the grounds of nearby Kilbonane church. These stones were originally the roof of a souterrain or underground passage which collapsed at the end of the last century. Using them as...
Europe Hotel Killarney
4 Reviews and 383 Opinions We spent our 25th wedding anniversary here and were satisfied beyond description. Our room...
Dingle Skellig Hotel Dingle
1 Review and 497 Opinions The Skellig is a lovely hotel. the staff are all nice and most of them are locals. Their is usually...
Kenmare Bay Hotel Kenmare
1 Review and 515 Opinions Stayed here as part of a vacation package. Very Recommended. Friendly staff, clean facilities. Very...
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