The voyage west
Saint Brendan the Navigator
Saint Brendan was born in Kerry around 484 AD, near Tralee, and founded a monastery at Ardfert before setting sail from Fenit - or so the tradition holds - on a seven-year voyage westward in the 6th century. The Navigatio Sancti Brendani, written down centuries after his death, describes islands of fire, a whale mistaken for land, and an earthly paradise to the west. Tim Severin built a replica currach of ox-hide and hazel frames in 1976 and sailed it from Kerry to Newfoundland in seventeen months, proving the route was physically possible. Whether Brendan reached America a thousand years before Columbus is a different question. The bronze on Fenit pier shows him in his monk's habit, looking out across Tralee Bay the way he sailed.
The lighthouse on the rock
Little Samphire Island
The white tower out in the bay was built in 1854 to mark the deepwater channel into Fenit. A keeper and his family lived on the rock for a century, raising children between supply boats. It was automated in 1954 and they all came ashore. The light still flashes every five seconds. The rock is two acres, the tower is twelve metres, and on a calm day you can kayak around it in twenty minutes.
Tralee Bay shellfish
Oysters out of the bay
Tralee Bay grows oysters - the deep, sheltered, brackish water that runs in past Fenit is exactly what they like. The trestles are visible at low tide off the village. Most of what is grown leaves on a refrigerated lorry; some of it stops at The Oyster Tavern up the road. Eat them where they came from. They will not taste like this anywhere else.