Things to do in County Kerry
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Stone Chat
This secluded restaurant serves traditional and more cosmopolitan dishes, from Kerry lamb to Moroccan-style monkfish, and chicken wrapped in Parma ham. The great vegetarian selection includes spicy fajitas and a tagliatelle featuring coconut cream and chilli essence. Try the grilled salmon with crunchy sauté vegetables.
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Listowel Golf Course
Listowel Golf Course, on the banks of the River Feale, is about 2km west of the centre off the N69 to Tarbert. You can also walk through Childers Park and the 'Garden of Europe' to get there.
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Murphy's Ice Cream
The Killarney branch of this superlative Dingle ice cream maker, with wonderfully thick hot chocolates including chilli.
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Dingle Boatmen's Association
In the early 1980s, Dingle fishing crews began to notice a solitary bottlenose dolphin that followed their vessels, jumped about in the water and sometimes leapt over smaller boats. When an American tourist offered to pay a boatman to take him to visit the large, friendly dolphin, an industry was born. Eleven boats now go out every day in the summer, and the Dingle dolphin is an international celebrity.
Boats leave the pier daily year-round for one-hour dolphin-spotting trips; call Dingle Boatmen's Association. It's free if Fungie doesn't show, but he usually does. The association also runs a daily two-hour boat trip for enthusiasts who want to swim with Fungie.
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Swim with Fungie
In the early 1980s, Dingle fishing crews began to notice a solitary bottlenose dolphin that followed their vessels, jumped about in the water and sometimes leapt over smaller boats. When an American tourist offered to pay a boatman to take him to visit the large, friendly dolphin, an industry was born. Eleven boats now go out every day in the summer, and the Dingle dolphin is an international celebrity.
The Dingle Boatmen's Association runs a daily two-hour boat trip for enthusiasts who want to Swim with Fungie . Organise it in advance through Brosnan's, where you can hire wetsuits and snorkelling gear.
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Blasket Centre
The Blasket Centre is a wonderful interpretive centre in a long, white hall ending in a wall-to-ceiling window overlooking the islands. Great Blasket’s rich community of storytellers and musicians is profiled along with its literary visitors like John Millington Synge, writer of Playboy of the Western World. The more prosaic practicalities of island life are covered by exhibits on shipbuilding and fishing. There’s a cafe with Blasket views, and a useful bookshop.
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Carrigafoyle Castle
A lonely location on the Shannon Estuary adds to the romantic drama of this late-medieval castle. Its name comes from Carragain Phoill (Rock of the Hole); it’s built in a channel between the mainland and Carrig Island. Built by the O’Connors, who ruled most of northern Kerry, the castle was besieged by the English in 1580, retaken by O’Connor, and finally destroyed by Cromwell’s forces in 1649. You can climb the spiral staircase to the top for a good view of the estuary.
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Writers’ Exhibition
Kerry Literary & Cultural Centre, with its audiovisual Writers’ Exhibition, is an absolute gem that gives due prominence to Listowel’s heritage of literary observers of Irish life. Rooms are devoted to local greats such as John B Keane and Bryan MacMahon, with simple, haunting tableaux narrating their lives and recordings of them reading their work. There is a cafe and a performance space where events are sometimes staged.
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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.
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Kerry County Museum
An absolute treat, Kerry's county museum has excellent interpretive displays on Irish historical events and trends, with an emphasis on County Kerry. The Medieval Experience re-creates life (smells and all) in Tralee in 1450. Check out the deranged nights, a vision of horror right out of Monty Python. Children will love strolling the medieval streets and there's a commentary in various languages. The Tom Crean Room celebrates the local hero, an early-20th-century explorer who accompanied both Scott and Shackleton on epic Antarctic expeditions. It's housed in the neoclassical Ashe Memorial Hall.
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Out of the Blue
'No chips', reads the menu of this funky blue-and-yellow, fishing-shack-style restaurant on the waterfront. Despite its rustic surrounds, this is Dingle's best restaurant, with an intense devotion to fresh local seafood; if they don't like the catch, they don't open. Creative dishes change nightly, but might include steamed crab claws in garlic butter or pan-seared scallops flambéed in Calvados. Who needs chips?
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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…
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Prego
Prego's breakfast menu is long and varied, and the antidote to the black pudding you've avoided on your B&B plate (the crispy bacon sandwiches are a winner). Other specialities include great-value pizza and pasta.
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Gaby's Seafood Restaurant
Gaby's is a refined dining experience for those who want superb seafood served in a traditional manner. Peruse the menu by the fire before drifting past the wine cellar to the low-lit dining room to savour exquisite Gallic dishes such as lobster in cognac and cream. The wine list is long and the advice unerring.
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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.
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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.
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Dingle Oceanworld
Dingle's aquarium is a lot of fun. Psychedelic fish glide through tanks that recreate such environments as Lake Malawi, the River Congo and the piranha-filled Amazon. Reef sharks and stingrays cruise the shark tank; water is pumped from the harbour for the spectacularly ugly wreck fish. There's a walk-through tunnel and a touch pool.
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Mac’s of Main Street
With possibly the latest serving hours of a restaurant in Killarney, Mac’s is a big, buzzy, casual place that sees loads of traffic through the day. The menu isn’t long but features good renditions of standards like shepherd’s pie, fish and chips, and burgers. Pints are poured, there’s wine by the glass, and big booths to sit in; many can’t resist the special sundaes.
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Brícín
Interesting local craftwork, including jewellery and pottery, alongside touristy wares, plus a restaurant .
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South Pole Inn
The main reason to pause in Annascaul (Abhainn an Scáil), also spelled Anascaul, is to visit the South Pole Inn. Antarctic explorer Tom Crean ran the pub in his retirement. Now it’s a regular Crean museum and gift shop, as well as a cracking pub serving hearty dishes worthy of an explorer. Ask to have the ‘polar experience’.
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Genting Thai
It's the real deal here at this little bistro. The menu is actually Thai (without a lot of interloping Chinese dishes) and is both perfectly spiced and often spicy: if your tongue's deadened by Irish cooking, you'll love the many dishes rated with three chillies on the menu.
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Visitor Centre
The modern visitor centre at Blennerville houses an exhibition on grain-milling, and on the thousands of emigrants who boarded ‘coffin ships’ from what was then Kerry’s largest embarkation point. There’s also a database of the Irish émigrés who flocked to America. Admission includes a 30-minute guided tour of the windmill.
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Chapter 40
Popular with Killarney's stylish bounders (and chefs on their nights off), this beautiful dining room is all polished wood and cream leather. Starters like grilled polenta with wild mushrooms are followed by classy mains such as pork Wellington with pea and crab salsa. The wines by the glass show a deft hand in the cellar.
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Listowel Castle
Behind the Kerry Literary & Cultural Centre, this 12th-century castle was once the stronghold of the Fitzmaurices, the Anglo-Norman lords of Kerry. It was the last castle in Ireland to succumb to the Elizabethan attacks during the Desmond revolt. What remains of the castle has been thoroughly restored.
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Full Day Tour of The Ring of Kerry
6 hours 30 minutes (Departs Killarney, Ireland)
by Viator
An essential part of any visit to Ireland, this tour circles the magnificent MacGillycuddy Reeks, running through its many passes and valleys along the shore of…Not LP reviewed
from USD$31.35
