Sights in Ring Of Kerry
- Sort by:
- Popular
-
Skellig Experience
Immediately across the bridge from Portmagee, this distinctive building with turf- covered barrel roofs contains exhibitions on the life and times of the Skellig Michael monks, the history of the island's lighthouses and the wildlife. From April to September, it also runs two-hour cruises around the islands. If the weather's bad, there's often the option of a 90-minute minicruise in the harbour and channel.
In March, April, October and November the centre is open from 10am to 5pm five days a week, but the exact days change each year – check ahead.
reviewed
-
Kenmare Heritage Centre
Reached through the tourist office, Kenmare's heritage centre tells the history of the town from its founding as Neidín by the swashbuckling Sir William Petty in 1670. The centre also relates the story of the Poor Clare Convent, founded in 1861, which is still standing behind Holy Cross Church.
Local women were taught needlepoint lace-making at the convent and their lacework catapulted Kenmare to international fame. Upstairs from the Heritage Centre, the Kenmare Lace and Design Centre has displays including designs for 'the most important piece of lace ever made in Ireland' (in a 19th-century critic's opinion).
It's generally open Monday to Wednesday and Friday to Saturday…
reviewed
-
Kenmare Lace and Design Centre
The Kenmare Lace and Design Centre has displays including designs for ‘the most important piece of lace ever made in Ireland’ (in a 19th-century critic’s opinion). It’s run by lace-maker Nora Finnegan, who was taught by the Poor Clare nuns. Also interesting is the story of Margaret Anna Cusack (1829–99), the Nun of Kenmare and an early advocate of women’s rights.
reviewed
-
Kerry Bog Village Museum
On the N70 between Killorglin and Glenbeigh, the Kerry Bog Village Museum recreates a 19th-century bog village, typical of the small communities that carved out a precarious living in the harsh environment of Ireland's ubiquitous peat bogs. You'll see the thatched homes of the turfcutter, blacksmith, thatcher and labourer, as well as a dairy, and meet rare Kerry Bog ponies.
reviewed
-
Stone Circle
Signposted southwest of the Square is an early Bronze Age stone circle, one of the biggest in southwest Ireland. Fifteen stones ring a boulder dolmen, a burial monument rarely found outside this part of the country.
reviewed
-
St Brendan's Well
Out in the boggy west, with its lonely vistas worthy of some lost world, look for signs for this ancient religious site that still attracts a smattering of pilgrims. Legend has it that St Brendan sailed here from Dingle, scaled the cliffs (in the 5th century), found a couple of dying pagans and anointed them.
reviewed
-
Small Skellig
While Skellig Michael looks like two triangles linked by a spur, Small Skellig is longer, lower and much craggier. From a distance it looks as if someone battered it with a feather pillow that burst. Close up you realise you're looking at a colony of over 20,000 pairs of breeding gannets, the second-largest breeding colony in the world. Most boats circle the island so you can see the gannets and you may see basking seals as well. Small Skellig is a bird sanctuary; no landing is permitted.
reviewed
-
Skellig Michael
The jagged, 217m-high rock of Skellig Michael (Archangel Michael's Rock; like St Michael's Mount in Cornwall and Mont Saint Michel in Normandy) is the larger of the two islands and a Unesco World Heritage site. It looks like the last place on earth where anyone would try to land, let alone establish a community, yet early Christian monks survived here from the 6th until the 12th or 13th century. Influenced by the Coptic Church (founded by St Anthony in the deserts of Egypt and Libya), their determined quest for ultimate solitude led them to this remote, windblown edge of Europe.
The monastic buildings perch on a saddle in the rock, some 150m above sea level, reached by 600…
reviewed
-
Holy Cross Church
Built in 1862, this church has a splendid wooden roof with 14 angel carvings. Intricate mosaics adorn the aisle arches and edges of the stained-glass window over the altar. The architect was Charles Hansom, collaborator and brother-in-law of Augustus Pugin (the architect behind London's Houses of Parliament).
reviewed
