Fahamore, An Fhaiche Mhór, Co. Kerry

An Fhaiche Mhór · Co. Kerry

Last village on the sand spit. A working pier and a pub looking at seven islands.

Fahamore is the last village on the Maharees, the thin sand spit that reaches north out of Castlegregory and runs out of land at a small fishing pier looking at seven islands. Brandon Bay is on its west side, Tralee Bay on its east, and there is sometimes more dune than road between them. Around fifty houses, one pub, and a fleet of small boats that still works the bay for lobster and crab. The 1946 census counted three hundred and eighty-four people here. The 2011 census counted a hundred and twenty-two. The houses are still here; most of them are now holiday lets.

The reason to come is the geography. Whichever way the wind is blowing, one of the two bays is sending and the other is glass. That has made the Maharees one of the best kitesurfing and windsurfing beaches in Europe - long, shallow, sand-bottomed, no reef to drown you. The car park at Sandy Bay in July sounds like Munich. The pier itself stays a fishing pier; the boats go out at dawn whether the kites are flying or not. The Seven Hogs sit offshore in any weather, indifferent.

Don't come for choice. Come for one long walk on Stradbally Strand with nothing on it but your own footprints, a chowder in Spillane's after a wet afternoon, the famine cottage ruins in the dunes that the marram grass is slowly eating back, and the strange off-season feeling of a fishing village that lets surfers sleep in its spare rooms.

Population

~50 houses

Walk score

One pier, one pub, dunes in every direction

Coords

52.3031° N, 10.0400° W

01 / 09

At a glance.

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

01 The pier

Scraggane Pier - twenty boats and a chowder.

A working harbour at the very tip of the Maharees. Around twenty small boats, seven to fifteen metres, still go out for lobster, crayfish, spider crab, oysters and salmon. The pub is fifty paces from the slipway.

Stories & lore → 02 The wind

Brandon Bay one side, Tralee Bay the other.

The sand spit is barely a kilometre wide and one of those bays is always sheltered. Kitesurfers, windsurfers and surfers fly in from across Europe to ride it. The European Freestyle Tour stops here most summers.

Walks & outings → 03 The Seven Hogs

Magharee Islands offshore.

Seven low islands sit a mile off the pier - locally the Seven Hogs. The biggest, Illauntannig, holds a 7th-century monastic settlement built by Saint Senach. Beehive huts, an oratory, a stone cashel. Boats run across in summer if the swell allows.

Stories & lore →

02 / 09

The pubs.

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

Spillane's Bar

Surfers, fishermen, sea air

Pub & food, Fahamore

The pub of the village and one of the few buildings on the spit. Looks across the bay to the Seven Hogs out the front window. The kitesurfing crowd lands here after a session, the boats unload at the pier next door, and the locals never left. Food on through the day in season. The seafood chowder is the thing to order; the Maharees lobster comes in straight off the boats.

03 / 09

Where to eat.

Place	Type	€	Local note
Spillane's	Pub food	€€	The kitchen at Spillane's is the kitchen at Fahamore. Chowder, fish and chips, lobster in season, steaks if you've earned them. View of the islands from most tables. Hours stretch with the season - phone ahead in winter.
Eat in Castlegregory	Note - five minutes south	-	If Spillane's is shut or full, the village of Castlegregory is a five-minute drive back down the spit. Ashe's Restaurant on the main street and Ned Natterjack's pub between them cover most of what you'll need.

04 / 09

Where to sleep.

Place	Type	Local note
The Maharees Cottage at Fahamore	Self-catering cottage	Small cottage near Spillane's, let by the week or weekend. The kind of place where you can walk to the pier, the pub and the surf in different directions and be back in time for the kettle.
Maharees self-catering	Cottages along the spit	Cottages dotted between Fahamore and Castlegregory along the road through the dunes. Wake up to whichever bay the wind is letting you use. The windsurf and kitesurf crowd block-book them in spring; book early if you want one in July.
B&Bs around Castlegregory	Bed & breakfast	Family-run B&Bs spread along the road back toward Castlegregory village. Most are open spring through autumn for the watersports season. Five minutes from Fahamore by car, longer if you walk it on the strand.

05 / 09

Stories & lore.

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

A sand spit that should not exist

The Maharees

The Maharees Peninsula is a tombolo - a thin strip of sand and dune connecting the mainland to what was once an island. Fahamore sits at the very end, where the spit runs out into Scraggane Bay. The Seven Hogs offshore are what is left of the rest. Storms thin the spit a little every winter, and a community-run dune restoration project has been replanting marram grass for years to slow it. On a bad night the Atlantic comes over the road. The 1839 Night of the Big Wind is still spoken about. The 1890 wreck of the timber ship Charger is in the local history. The sea has not stopped negotiating.

Twenty boats, still going out

Scraggane Pier

The pier at Fahamore is a working fishing harbour with around twenty boats between seven and fifteen metres, still going out for lobster, crayfish, spider crab, edible crab, salmon and oysters. It is also the centre of currach building and racing on the peninsula - the regatta runs each July with crews rowing the traditional canvas-and-lath boats around a course out beyond the islands. The kitesurfers use the same slipway. The boats and the kites have worked out a quiet timeshare.

Saint Senach and the islands

The Seven Hogs

Seven low islands sit a mile off the pier - Oileáin Mhachaireach, the Magharee Islands, locally the Seven Hogs. The largest is Illauntannig, where Saint Senach built a monastic settlement in the 7th century. Beehive huts, a small oratory, a stone cashel and the ruined cells of the monks are still there. Currachs ran the crossing for centuries. Boats still go across in summer if the swell allows. Some days the islands are crisp on the horizon. Some days they are gone in cloud and you'd doubt they were ever there.

A village that was bigger than this

The famine cottages in the dunes

Walk the dunes between Fahamore and Stradbally Strand and you'll come on the low stone outlines of cottages half-buried in marram grass. They are pre-Famine, abandoned in the long emptying of the 1840s and 50s and never reoccupied. The 1946 census found eighty-four houses on the spit with three hundred and eighty-four people; by 2011 the spit had fewer than fifty occupied houses. Most of the rest are holiday lets now. The ruins underneath the dunes are the older layer of the same story.

06 / 09

Things to do outside.

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

Maharees end loop Out from Spillane's to Scraggane Pier, around the head of the spit through the dunes, back along the Tralee Bay side. The Seven Hogs sit offshore the whole way. Watch for famine cottage ruins half-buried in marram grass. Easy underfoot at low tide; harder when the storms have been at the dunes.

4 km loopdistance

1-1.5 hourstime

Stradbally Strand The big strand runs south-west from the spit along Brandon Bay for kilometres. Flat, firm sand at low tide, almost nobody on it most days, the mountain looking down from the far end. Walk until you can't see Fahamore, then turn around.

However long you havedistance

However long you havetime

Magharee Islands view The headland at the end of the pier is the place to sit and look out at the Seven Hogs. Best at the back end of an autumn afternoon when the islands go black against a low sun. Not a route - a stop. Bring a flask.

A standing-still walkdistance

As long as the light holdstime

07 / 09

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

The watersports schools open up from April. Days lengthen, the dunes go green again, the bay starts to fill with kites. Quiet enough to find a parking spot at the pier.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

The reason most people come. Long evenings, warm sand, the kitesurfing scene in full flight, and the currach regatta in July. Book a bed weeks ahead. The car park at Sandy Bay sounds like an airport.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

The locals' season. Big swells rolling into Brandon Bay, the kites still flying when the wind allows, and Spillane's back to itself. The light over the islands at four in the afternoon is the reason to come.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Most cottages closed. The spit gets the full Atlantic on a bad night and the road has been over-washed before. Spillane's may be the only thing open. If you don't mind that, the place is the most honest it ever is.

◐ Mind yourself

08 / 09

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

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

Driving onto the dunes

The marram grass is the only thing holding the spit together and a community project has spent years replanting it. Park at the pier or the village. Walk in.

Booking a boat to Illauntannig in any weather

The crossing to the Seven Hogs is short but the swell decides. Operators cancel often and they are right to. Build a flexible day around it; don't fly to Kerry for one boat trip.

Expecting Dingle nightlife

There is one pub on the spit. It does what a village pub does. If you want sessions and choice, Dingle is an hour away over the Conor Pass.

Getting there.

By car

From Castlegregory take the R560 a kilometre east, then turn north onto the L-road that runs the length of the Maharees. Five minutes to Fahamore at the far end. From Tralee it is 35 minutes via Castlegregory; from Dingle, 50 minutes to an hour over the Conor Pass on a fine day.

By bus

Local Link 275A serves Castlegregory from Tralee a few times a day. From there it's a five-minute taxi or a long walk up the spit. No bus runs to Fahamore itself.

By train

No train. Nearest station is Tralee. Then car, taxi or local bus to Castlegregory.

By air

Kerry Airport (KIR) is about 1 hour by car. Shannon is 2h 30m. Cork is 2h 30m.

Next on the tour

Co. Kerry

Castlegregory

Five minutes back down the spit. The village proper - chemist, chipper, more pubs, the watersports schools. Fahamore's parent.

Co. Kerry

Brandon

Across the bay on the far side, at the foot of Mount Brandon. A pier, a pub, a holy mountain. 30 minutes round the shore by road.

Co. Kerry

Dingle

An hour over the Conor Pass on a fine day. The harbour, the sessions, 52 pubs. Worth the drive when Fahamore feels too quiet.

Co. Kerry

Scraggane

One kilometre south-west, the lobster pier at the tip of the sand.