Killarney, Cill Airne, Co. Kerry

Cill Airne · Co. Kerry

A railway town with a national park out the back door.

Killarney is the package-tour town that earns its keep. The lakes are real, the park is Ireland's first national park, the castle is genuine 15th-century, and the abbey on the island has a yew tree older than most of the buildings on High Street. The crowds are real too - 1.1 million visitors a year for a town of 14,000 people. You learn to plan around them.

It exists because of the train. The Great Southern and Western Railway opened the line in July 1853, the Railway Hotel followed the next year, and Queen Victoria arrived in 1861 to a town that had reorganised itself around her visit. Everything from the jaunting-car rank to the cathedral spire dates from that fifty-year window. Pugin designed the cathedral; the famine paused construction; it opened in 1855. The whole town reads as a Victorian tourism experiment that never stopped working.

Don't let the coach traffic put you off. Walk away from High Street and the noise drops fast. Knockreer, ten minutes from the station, is empty most mornings. Innisfallen Island, where Brian Boru was reportedly schooled, you reach by hiring a boat from Ross Castle for the price of a few pints. The Gap of Dunloe is best on foot at seven in the morning before the jarveys turn up. Stay two nights. One is the postcard. Two is the actual place.

Population

14,412

Walk score

Town centre walkable in fifteen minutes; the park starts at the end of the high street

Founded

Town commissioners 1854; railway hotel and station 1853

Coords

52.0588° N, 9.5072° 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 The park

Ireland's first national park, 1932.

Ten thousand hectares of lakes, oak woods and the only native red deer herd left on the island. The Muckross estate was given to the state by the Vincent family. You walk in for free.

Walks & outings → 02 The train

Direct from Dublin Heuston since 1853.

The railway is the reason the town exists in its current shape. Three hours from Dublin, ninety minutes from Cork. Step off the platform, walk five minutes, you're in the park.

Getting there → 03 The Ring

Gateway to the Ring of Kerry.

Killarney is where the coaches stop. Hire a small car instead, leave at eight, drive it anti-clockwise. The 179km loop comes back here for dinner.

Tours from here →

02 / 10

The pubs.

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

Courtney's Bar

Tunes, tight room

Traditional pub & sessions

Plunkett Street. Small, low-ceilinged, sessions most nights from about half nine. The Killarney pub the locals will send you to when they get bored of being asked.

Tatler Jack

GAA, fierce loyal

Local & sport

Plunkett Street again. The Kerry GAA pub. On the day of an All-Ireland it is the only address that matters in the town. Decent pints any other day.

The Laurels

Tourist-friendly, holds up

Pub & food, O'Leary family since 1913

High Street, run by the O'Leary family for over a century. Yes, it's in the guidebooks. Yes, the food is genuinely fine. The trad sessions in summer are upstairs and they keep them honest.

Murphy's Bar

Family-run, steady

Pub & food, sixty-plus years

College Street. Three generations of the same family. Bacon and cabbage on the menu without irony. Trad on Friday and Saturday from 9:30pm.

The Danny Mann

Nightly trad, touristy

Music pub, since 1953

New Street. Flagstones, beams, a fire, music every night. It is a tourist room and it knows it is a tourist room - but the players are real and the craic some nights is the genuine article.

03 / 10

Where to eat.

Place	Type	€	Local note
Treyvaud's	Modern Irish	€€€	High Street. Brothers Paul and Mark Treyvaud have been at it since 2003. Pan-fried venison, Kenmare Bay scallops, organic Kerry beef. The Killarney room locals book for a birthday.
Bricín	Boxty house & restaurant	€€	High Street, upstairs over the craft shop. The boxty - a potato pancake stuffed with whatever is good that day - is the reason to come. Tom Brosnan ran it for thirty-odd years and his son keeps the kitchen straight.
The Mad Monk	Seafood	€€	College Street. Killarney is forty minutes from the coast and the seafood arrives like it. Whole grilled fish, a chowder that earns its keep, a wine list slightly longer than it needs to be.
Khao	Asian street food	€	High Street. The lunch escape on a wet Tuesday - chargrilled duck, pad Thai, fish curries, lunch specials around twelve euro. Owned by Mark Cribbin, run properly.
Petit Délice	French bakery & café	€	Main Street. A French baker in a Kerry tourist town and the croissants survive the journey. Coffee, almond pastries, a tartine at lunch. Closed by four.
Killarney Farmers Market	Friday market	€	New Market Street, Friday 10-2. Brown bread, smoked fish, Kerry rose veal, raw cheeses. Pick up a picnic and walk it out to Knockreer.

04 / 10

Where to sleep.

Place	Type	Local note
The Europe Hotel & Resort	Five-star lakeside resort	On the shore of Lough Leane, four kilometres out of town. ESPA spa, two restaurants, the lake view from every room. Gone through a fifty-million-euro refurb. Not cheap. Worth it once.
The Dunloe	Country-house hotel & gardens	Five-star, in its own valley near the Gap of Dunloe. Riverside walks, salmon fishing, gardens worth an afternoon. The Liebherr family own it and have done since the 1960s.
Aghadoe Heights Hotel & Spa	Hotel, on the ridge above town	Sits on the ridge with the postcard view of the lakes and the Reeks. Seventy-four rooms, a serious spa, the Lake Room restaurant if the bill of the day allows.
The Great Southern Killarney	Historic railway hotel, 1854	Beside the station. Ireland's first railway hotel. The Victorian bones are still there under the refurb. Good base if you arrived by train and intend to leave the same way.
Killarney Royal	Boutique townhouse hotel	College Street, town centre. Twenty-nine rooms, family-run by the Scally family. The version of "boutique" that means actual character rather than a magazine clipping.

05 / 10

Stories & lore.

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

How a country got a park

Bourn Vincent Memorial Park

In 1932 the Muckross estate - house, gardens, eleven thousand acres of lake and oak forest and mountain - was handed to the Irish State by Senator Arthur Rose Vincent and his American parents-in-law, the Bourns of California. They named it after Vincent's late wife Maud, who had died of pneumonia at thirty-four. It became Ireland's first national park. UNESCO added biosphere status in 1981. The country had no national park before, and afterwards it had this one.

The jarveys

The jaunting cars

A jaunting car is a two-wheel pony trap with a side-facing bench. Killarney has had them for queen-and-empire tourism since the 1850s and they have never been out of work. The drivers - jarveys - pass the licences down the family. They line up outside Muckross House and at Ross Castle. The good ones tell you the truth about the place. The other ones quote the brochure. Tip well; ask first.

The Annals

Innisfallen

St Finian the Leper founded a monastery on the island in the middle of Lough Leane around the year 640. It ran for eight hundred and fifty years. The monks wrote the Annals of Innisfallen - a year-by-year chronicle of Irish history that is one of the main sources we have for the early medieval country. Brian Boru, by tradition, was schooled there before he became High King. You can hire a boat at Ross Castle and be on the island in fifteen minutes. The ruins are roofless and free.

Queen Victoria, 1861

Muckross House

Henry Arthur Herbert built Muckross House in 1843 - Tudor Revival, sixty-five rooms, designed by the Scottish architect William Burn. In 1861 Queen Victoria came to stay for two nights. The Herberts spent six years preparing the house and gardens for the visit. The bill, in the end, was part of what bankrupted the family. The estate was sold, sold again, and eventually given to the State. The rhododendrons Victoria walked past are still there in May.

06 / 10

Things to do outside.

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

Torc Waterfall & the Old Kenmare Road Five-minute drive south of town to the Torc car park. The waterfall is fifty paces in - get the photo, then keep walking. The Old Kenmare Road climbs above it through oak woods to a stretch of moorland with the lakes laid out below. Empty by half four.

6 km loopdistance

2 hourstime

Ross Castle to Innisfallen Walk the lakeshore path from town to Ross Castle (40 min), tour the castle if you fancy it, then hire a rowboat or a small motor for an hour and pull across to Innisfallen Island. Bring a sandwich. The monks did not.

5 km + boatdistance

Half daytime

Gap of Dunloe Get a bus or a taxi to Kate Kearney's Cottage at the head of the valley. Walk the road south through the gap - five glacial lakes, hanging boulders, no cars allowed in summer. Boat back across the lakes from Lord Brandon's Cottage to Ross Castle. The classic Killarney day.

11 km one-waydistance

4 hourstime

Knockreer Ten minutes from the station on foot. Through the demesne gates beside the cathedral, down through the parkland to the lake edge with Carrauntoohil framed across the water. Do it before breakfast. Almost no-one else does.

4 km loopdistance

1 hourtime

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

Sustainable Ring of Kerry Rail Tour from Dublin

day trips

Take the train from Dublin to Killarney and join a full coach circuit of the Ring of Kerry - Dingle Bay, MacGillycuddy Reeks, Glenbeigh, Waterville and the Lakes of Killarney.

15 hours 30 minutes From €161

See tour → via Viator

3-Day Blarney Castle, Ring of Kerry, & Cliffs of Moher Rail tour

day trips

Three days by rail and coach from Dublin - Blarney Castle, the Ring of Kerry and the Cliffs of Moher, with B&B accommodation and a hosted train experience included.

72 hours From €1039

See tour → via Viator

4-Day Blarney Castle, Ring of Kerry, Cliffs of Moher & Connemara

day trips

A 4-day rail and coach tour from Dublin Heuston covering Cork, Blarney Castle, Ring of Kerry, Bunratty Castle, Cliffs of Moher, Galway Bay and Connemara.

96 hours From €1321

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

Rhododendrons at Muckross peak in May. The deer are calving. Park is full of light and almost empty of coaches until the bank holiday.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

Coach traffic on the Ring of Kerry is real. Book hotels two months out. The long evenings make the trade-off worth it; sessions in town go past midnight.

◐ Mind yourself

Autumn

Sep-Oct

The locals' season. Oak woods turn copper. Red deer are roaring up on the slopes. Coach numbers drop after mid-September.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Park is open year-round and is at its quietest. Plenty of pubs and hotels still open. Daylight is short - plan walks for the middle of the day.

◐ 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.

The two-hour jaunting-car loop around the lakes

Forty-five euro to be trotted in a circle behind a coach. Walk the same paths in an hour for nothing, or save the jaunting car for a one-way leg into the Gap of Dunloe where the road actually shines.

The Irish-themed bars on College Street with leprechaun signage

You came to Ireland. The pubs the locals actually go to are two streets over and don't need shamrocks bolted to the wall.

The Cliffs of Moher day-trip from Killarney

Eleven hours on a bus to spend forty minutes at a cliff. The cliffs deserve a night in Doolin, not a transit window. If you only have one day, drive the Ring of Kerry instead - it starts on your doorstep.

Driving the Ring of Kerry in your own coach

The road is the size of a small car. Hire a small car. Or take the Ring of Kerry tour bus and let someone else negotiate the bends.

Getting there.

By car

Cork to Killarney is 1h 30m on the N22. Limerick is 1h 45m. Dublin is 3h 15m on the M8/M7. Parking in town is metered; most hotels have their own.

By bus

Bus Éireann Expressway 40 from Dublin via Limerick (6h). Local 270 from Tralee, 280 from Cork. Killarney bus station sits beside the train station.

By train

Direct services from Dublin Heuston (3h 15m, change at Mallow on some) and Cork (1h 30m). The line opened in July 1853 and is the reason the town is shaped the way it is. The station is a five-minute walk from the high street.

By air

Kerry Airport (KIR) at Farranfore is 17km north - twenty minutes by car, fifteen on the train (one stop). Cork (ORK) is 90km. Shannon (SNN) is 130km.