The Ring of Kerry and the Dingle Peninsula

Two peninsulas facing the Atlantic

South-west Ireland reaches out into the Atlantic in long peninsulas. This trip covers two: Dingle, then the Iveragh, which the Ring of Kerry goes round in 179 kilometres. You start from Killarney, beside lakes surrounded by oak woods and mountains. You explore them by rowing boat or by jaunting car, the local horse-drawn carriage.

On Dingle, the Slea Head road skirts the tip of the peninsula, sometimes on a single lane, facing the Blasket Islands. You drive it clockwise, as the signs show. By car, you climb to the Conor Pass, at 456 metres, above glacial lakes.

The Ring is driven in the same direction as the coaches, from Killorglin towards Cahersiveen: that way you rarely meet a coach head-on. A bridge leads to Valentia Island, then the Skellig Ring passes near the Kerry Cliffs, about 300 metres high, and crosses a pass facing the Skelligs. The way back runs through Kenmare, Moll’s Gap and Ladies View, above the lakes.

About a dozen kilometres off the coast, Skellig Michael, on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1996, holds a monastery founded between the 6th and the 8th century. You climb 600 steps to stone cells shaped like beehives. The monks are thought to have left it around the 13th century for Ballinskelligs, where the ruined priory stands beside the beach.

The stone forts are often older than the monasteries. Staigue Fort, near Castlecove, is a round enclosure with dry-stone walls up to 5.5 metres high in places; it probably dates from the late Iron Age. On Dingle, Dunbeg is a promontory fort, part of which has already fallen into the sea.

The Irish language and the Blasket Islands

The west of the Dingle Peninsula is a Gaeltacht, an area where Irish is protected as the language of the community. Road signs there are in Irish: Dunquin becomes Dún Chaoin. In 2005, the English place names there lost all official status. The main town is the exception: after a local vote, it has had two official names since 2011, Dingle and Daingean Uí Chúis.

Opposite Dún Chaoin, the Great Blasket was home to fishing families. Several islanders, including Peig Sayers, told the story of their lives in Irish. Tomás Ó Criomhthain published An tOileánach, “The Islandman”, in 1929. The Great Blasket was evacuated in 1953. The Blasket Centre, in Dún Chaoin, tells their story.

What not to miss

1. 1MuckrossAn 1843 mansion beside the lake and, a kilometre away, a Franciscan abbey with a yew tree in its cloister.
2. 2Inch BeachA sandy beach five kilometres long, facing the mountains of the Iveragh.
3. 3Dún Chaoin pierA zigzag path down the cliff to clear water, facing the Blaskets.
4. 4ValentiaThe Fogher Cliffs, 180 metres high, reached by the Geokaun toll road.
5. 5Derrynane HouseThe home of Daniel O’Connell, the man behind Catholic Emancipation in 1829.
6. 6Moll’s Gap and Ladies ViewA pass facing the Macgillycuddy’s Reeks, then a viewpoint over the lakes, named, it is said, after Queen Victoria’s ladies-in-waiting.

The Ring of Kerry and the Dingle Peninsula in pictures

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Ross Castle and its reflection in Lough Leane.

The Kerry table

Kerry lives off farming and the sea: mountain lamb, and salmon, crab and lobster landed at Dingle and Portmagee. Chowder, a thick fish soup, is served in almost every pub. Kenmare has a name as a small town for good food.

In Dingle, Murphy’s makes its ice cream with milk from Kerry cows, a local breed. The Dingle Distillery, opened in 2012, makes whiskey and gin. In August, Killorglin’s Puck Fair crowns a goat “King Puck” for three days.