Camp, An Com, Co. Kerry

An Com · Co. Kerry

Where the Dingle road climbs onto Slieve Mish and the old railway used to fork in two.

Camp is a small village strung along the N86 where the road from Tralee climbs onto the foot of the Slieve Mish mountains. About 250 people, three pubs, a national school, a church from around 1830, and the rest is mountain on one side and Tralee Bay on the other. The Irish name is An Com - the hollow - which is what the village sits in. Stradbally, the next village west, shares the parish.

The thing to know about Camp is that it used to be a railway junction. From 1891 until 1953 the Tralee and Dingle Light Railway came through here on its way west, and a branch line peeled off north to Castlegregory. It was a three-foot-gauge, properly Victorian piece of engineering - gradients of one in twenty-nine, sharp curves, a viaduct over the Finglas river just east of the village at Curraduff. It was also one of the most accident-prone railways in Ireland. On the 22nd of May 1893 a cattle train ran away on the descent, derailed at the Curraduff curve, hit the bridge parapet and went into the river. Three men were killed, thirteen hurt. The Board of Trade inquiry was held in Tralee a fortnight later. Camp has never quite forgotten.

Below the village to the south sits Glenagalt - Gleann na nGealt, the Valley of the Mad. There is a holy well there, Tobar na nGealt, where for centuries people brought relatives suffering from mental illness to drink the water and eat the watercress that grew around it. When the spring was tested in the 2010s the water came back with unusually high lithium content. The folk memory was telling the truth. You can find the well off a small road south of Camp; it is not signposted in the way most things on the peninsula are signposted, which is part of the point.

Population

~250

Pubs

3and counting

Walk score

A bend in the N86 with the mountain at the back of it

Coords

52.2208° N, 9.9089° W

01 / 10

At a glance.

Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.

01 Slieve Mish

The mountain at the back of the village.

Caherconree (835m) and Baurtregaum (851m) sit straight behind Camp. Old Red Sandstone, purple in the right light, and a stone fort halfway up Caherconree where Cú Roí mac Dáire kept Bláthnaid before Cú Chulainn came for her.

Walks & outings → 02 The railway

Camp Junction, 1891-1953.

The Tralee and Dingle Light Railway forked here - main line west to Dingle, branch north to Castlegregory. Three foot gauge, gradients of one in twenty-nine, a viaduct over the Finglas. Long gone now. The alignment is still readable from the road.

Stories & lore → 03 On the road to Dingle

Halfway and uphill.

Sixteen kilometres west of Tralee on the N86. Most people drive through without noticing the turn. The ones who pull in tend to do it for the view back over Tralee Bay, then stay for a pint.

Getting there →

02 / 10

The pubs.

None of these are themed Irish pubs, because they don't need to be. A few that earn the trip:

Ashe's Bar

Old beams, low ceiling, view of the bay

Pub & coffee bar

The oldest of the three, a licensed grocery from the mid-1800s and a proper pub since 1900. Low timber beams, a turf fire in winter, and an elevated view out over Tralee Bay. The same building runs as a coffee bar by day - toasted sandwiches, homemade cakes - then opens as the pub from five.

Fitzgerald's Junction Bar

Working family pub, food the headline

Pub & restaurant

On the bend in the road. The Fitzgeralds farm sheep on the slopes behind the village and the Irish stew on the menu is from their own flock - a rare honest claim on the Dingle Way. Burgers, fresh-battered cod, big windows looking out over the bay. Live music and sport on a busy night.

Mike O'Neill's (The Railway Tavern)

Quiet, locals, occasional trad

Old roadside pub

Named for the line that used to run past the door. Smaller and quieter than the other two. Sunday-afternoon trad sessions in summer; a quiet pint the rest of the time.

03 / 10

Where to eat.

Place	Type	€	Local note
Fitzgerald's Junction Bar	Pub kitchen	€€	The kitchen most walkers on the Dingle Way end up in. Lamb stew from the family flock, cod and chips, big plates honestly priced. The view out the window is half the meal.
Ashe's Coffee Bar	Daytime cafe	€	Open 8.30 to 3.30 in the same building as the pub. In-house baker - scones, tarts, sponges - plus toasted sandwiches and decent coffee. Closes well before the pub opens. Don't expect dinner.

04 / 10

Where to sleep.

Place	Type	Local note
Camp Junction House	B&B, 10 rooms	A purpose-built B&B at the old junction. Front rooms over Tralee Bay; back rooms onto Slieve Mish. The most-booked accommodation in the village by a distance, mainly for Dingle Way walkers.
Finglas House	Family B&B	In the middle of the village, run by the same family for years. Views out to Caherconree and Tralee Bay. A few minutes' walk from all three pubs and the trail.
An Teach Tae	B&B	Small family-run B&B. Comfortable, properly Irish breakfast, popular with people walking the Dingle Way in or out of Tralee on day one or day six.

05 / 10

Stories & lore.

The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.

A three-foot-gauge with a temper

The Tralee and Dingle Light Railway

The line opened on the 31st of March 1891 and connected Tralee to Dingle by way of Camp, with a branch north from Camp Junction to Castlegregory. Three foot gauge - narrow even by Irish narrow-gauge standards - and a route that climbed straight onto the side of Slieve Mish at gradients steep enough to give the locomotives serious trouble. Passenger services ran until 1939; the famous monthly cattle trains from Dingle Fair to Tralee held on until June 1953. The track was lifted soon after. If you walk west out of Camp on the south side of the road you can still pick out the alignment in the field walls, and the stone abutments of the Glenagalt bridge are still standing where the trains used to cross.

The Camp tragedy

The Curraduff disaster, 22 May 1893

Two years into the railway's life a cattle special ran away coming down the gradient toward the village. The locomotive, the brake van and the trucks behind it were carrying farmers and pigs to Tralee fair. The driver lost control on the descent into the Finglas valley, the train derailed on the sharp curve above the viaduct at Curraduff, hit the parapet and dropped into the river. Three engine men were killed; thirteen passengers and crew were injured. A second train coming behind from Dingle was flagged down by the guard, who ran ahead waving a lamp; otherwise the death toll would have been worse. The Board of Trade held an inquiry in Tralee Court House the following month. The viaduct was rebuilt; the line ran for another sixty years. Locally the day is still called the Camp tragedy.

A well that tested positive for lithium

Gleann na nGealt - the Valley of the Mad

South of Camp, in the valley running down toward the bay, sits Tobar na nGealt - the Well of the Mad. The folklore is old and well-documented: for centuries people brought relatives suffering from what we would now call mental illness to drink the spring water and eat the watercress around it, and the cures were said to be real. The earliest written references go back to the sixteenth century. In the 2010s a chemist tested the water and found it carried 55.6 parts per billion of lithium - a lot, by any measure, and lithium is what we treat bipolar disorder with today. The well is small and unfussy. There is no visitor centre, no ticket. The road in is narrow.

A stone fort high on the mountain

Caherconree and Cú Roí

Two-thirds of the way up the western flank of Caherconree, the second-highest peak in the Slieve Mish, there is a promontory fort - a natural ledge defended on the fourth side by a stone wall. The mountain is named for it: Cathair Conraoi, Cú Roí's Stone Fort. The legend goes that Cú Roí mac Dáire kept the woman Bláthnaid up there against her will, that she signalled her lover Cú Chulainn by pouring milk into the river running down the mountain, and that Cú Chulainn followed the white river up and killed Cú Roí in his own fort. You can walk up to the fort from the south side. It is a serious hill day in poor weather.

06 / 10

Things to do outside.

Wear waterproofs. Bring a sandwich. Tell someone where you're going if it's the mountain.

Caherconree fort Up onto Slieve Mish to the promontory fort below the summit. Steep, exposed, brilliant views over Tralee Bay and inland to the Reeks. Start from the small car park on the road south out of Camp; do not attempt in cloud unless you are confident with a map.

7 km returndistance

3-4 hourstime

Glenagalt loop Quiet road and field walk south from the village down through the Valley of the Mad. Passes near Tobar na nGealt. Mostly tarmac, gentle, good for a wet afternoon when the mountain is in cloud.

6 kmdistance

2 hourstime

The old railway alignment West out of Camp on the line of the old Tralee-Dingle railway toward the Glenagalt bridge abutments. Not a formal trail; you are reading field walls and ditches. For people who like that kind of thing.

4 km one-waydistance

1 hourtime

The Dingle Way through Camp The first stage of the Dingle Way comes over the shoulder of Slieve Mish from Tralee and drops down into Camp. Most walkers stay the night here before pushing on to Annascaul the next day. Boots, layers, and the patience to do it slowly.

21 km stagedistance

Full daytime

07 / 10

Tours, if you want one.

The ones below are bookable through our partners - pick one that suits, or skip the lot and just turn up.

via Viator

4-Day Cork, Ring of Kerry, Dingle, Cliffs of Moher and Galway Bay Rail Tour

cultural

4 days by rail and coach from Dublin Heuston: Cork, Blarney Stone, Ring of Kerry, Dingle Peninsula, Cliffs of Moher, and Galway City - 3 nights and breakfast included.

96 hours From €1451

See tour →

We earn a small commission when you book through our tour pages. It costs you nothing extra and keeps the village hubs free. All Co. Kerry tours →

08 / 10

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

The Dingle Way starts coming alive. Lambs on the slopes, lengthening evenings, the bay clear of summer haze.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

Long days, busy pubs, Junction Bar packed with Dingle Way walkers. The best time for a proper hill day on Caherconree.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

Storms coming in over the bay, the mountain in and out of cloud, the Glenagalt valley going gold. Quiet pubs, no pressure.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

The pubs hold the line; the mountain does not. Caherconree in winter is no joke. Plan around the weather, not the calendar.

◐ Mind yourself

09 / 10

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.

Treating Camp as a drive-through on the way to Dingle

Most people do, and most of them never see the bay open up at the top of the hill. Pull in. Even ten minutes is worth it.

Caherconree without a map and a forecast

It is exposed sandstone, no shelter on top, and the cloud comes down in minutes. The ground does not forgive.

Looking for a restaurant in the village

There is a pub kitchen and a daytime cafe. That is what is here. Drive on to Dingle or back to Tralee for anything fancier.

Getting there.

By car

On the N86 between Tralee and Dingle. Tralee to Camp is 16 km, about 20 minutes. Dingle is another 35 minutes west through Annascaul.

By bus

Bus Éireann 275 (Tralee-Dingle) stops in the village, four times daily. Stradbally and the Castlegregory turn are a few minutes further west.

By train

Nearest station is Tralee. Then bus or taxi.

Next on the tour

Co. Kerry

Annascaul

Twenty minutes west on the N86. Tom Crean's home village - the South Pole Inn, the lake walk, and a quieter version of the same road.

Co. Kerry

Dingle

Fifty minutes west at the end of the N86. The peninsula's main town - fishing harbour, 52 pubs, music in most of them.

Co. Kerry

Tralee

Twenty minutes east. The county town - train station, the museum that holds the railway's records, and the gateway back inland.

Co. Kerry

Fahamore

North-west out the spit to the working pier and its seven islands.

Co. Kerry

Scraggane

North-west to the little pier at the very end of the sand.