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Spa
An Sasa

The Wild Atlantic Way
STOP 09 / 09
An Sasa · Co. Kerry

A village named for a well, kept honest by the oysters next door.

Spa is what happens when a 19th-century health resort quietly becomes a 21st-century commuter village. The mineral spring that gave it the name is documented from the 1750s — Charles Smith wrote it up in 1756, Samuel Lewis listed it as the Spa of Tralee in 1837 — and for the better part of two hundred years, families of fashion came down to the south shore of Tralee Bay to drink chalybeate water and walk the strand. The Victorian houses they built are still here, scattered along the road.

Then the spa trade ended, the railway came and went (Tralee to Fenit, 1887 to 1978), and Spa settled into being a stretch of houses on the way to somewhere else. Now it is mostly people working in Tralee who wanted a sea view, and the Oyster Tavern, and a national school, and the Greenway running along the back of it where the train used to.

The trick with Spa is to recognise it for what it is — not a destination, more a five-minute detour off the Tralee–Fenit road. Stop at the Oyster Tavern. Walk a stretch of the Greenway. Look out at the bay. The Slieve Mish mountains rise straight up out of the far shore, and on a clear evening you understand why the Georgians stayed.

Population
443
Walk score
A pub, a school, a strand and a road
Coords
52.2800° N, 9.7850° 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 Tralee Bay

South side of the bay, Slieve Mish behind.

Spa sits on the R558 about five kilometres west of Tralee, midway out to Fenit. The water is on one side. The Slieve Mish range is on the other. The road goes between them.

Walks & outings → 02 The oysters

One of the last self-seeding oyster beds in Europe.

Tralee Bay grows native flat oysters — the original European one — and has done for as long as anyone has been counting. The Oyster Tavern in the village has been serving them since 1974.

Stories & lore → 03 The well

There really was a spa here.

The village is named for a chalybeate spring that drew Georgian and Victorian visitors to take the waters. The well is gone from the map. The name stuck.

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:

The Oyster Tavern

Family-run, fifty years
Pub & seafood restaurant

The reason most people stop in Spa. Started serving local seafood out of a home kitchen in 1974 and never looked back. Pints of Guinness, Tralee Bay oysters in season, chowder, a function room called The Barn out the back. Booked solid most weekends.

03 / 09

Where to eat.

PlaceType€Local note
The Oyster Tavern Seafood & steak €€ Same kitchen as the bar. Fresh oysters from the bay outside the door, seafood platters, mussels, and steak for anyone who came inland. Lunch and dinner. Book ahead — this is the one restaurant in the village and the one most of Tralee drives out to.
04 / 09

Where to sleep.

PlaceTypeLocal note
Shangri-La B&B B&B Set back on its own grounds, ten minutes from Tralee, views over Tralee Bay. The kind of country B&B that has been running quietly for years.
Brook Manor Lodge Guesthouse At Knockanish East, on the edge of the village toward Tralee. Larger than a B&B, four-star rated, doubles and family rooms. A short drive into town for dinner if the Oyster Tavern is full.
05 / 09

Stories & lore.

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

Why the village is called this

The Spa Well

Charles Smith, writing in 1756, described the chalybeate spring at Spa as already in high repute for fifty years past, with cures claimed for rheumatism, liver complaints and scurvy. Samuel Lewis, in 1837, called it the Spa of Tralee and noted a strong chalybeate that drew numerous visitors during the season. Georgian and Victorian families built houses along the bay to take the waters. The well itself is no longer marked. The name outlasted it by two centuries.

Older than the village

The oysters of Tralee Bay

Tralee Bay holds one of the last self-seeding wild native oyster beds in Europe — the flat oyster, Ostrea edulis, the original one. The Tralee Oyster Fishery Society was set up in 1979 as a fishermen's co-op and runs the bed sustainably. The Oyster Tavern, opened in 1974, exists because of what is in the water out front. When you eat them in Spa you are eating something that has been part of this shore for thousands of years.

A working coastal village

From spa to commuter belt

The 2016 census put Spa at 443 people. The school had 212 pupils on the rolls in 2020. There is no main street — the houses run along the R558, the local Gaelic football club is Churchill GAA up the road, and most working adults drive into Tralee in the morning. The village's quiet second life is the one it lives now: a place where Tralee gets its sea view, its Sunday lunch, and a place to walk the dog along the bay.

06 / 09

Things to do outside.

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

The Tralee–Fenit Greenway The old Tralee–Fenit railway, lifted in 1978, reopened as a Greenway in 2022. The 6.5km Spa-to-Fenit section opened first that June; the rest followed in October. Flat, off-road, the bay on one side the whole way. You can pick it up at the back of the Oyster Tavern.
13.6 km point-to-pointdistance
3 hours walking / 1 hour by biketime
The road to Fenit Before the Greenway opened, this was the only way to do it — the R558 along the south shore of the bay. Now mostly used by cars. Walk the Greenway instead unless you want the Slieve Mish view from the road, which is admittedly the better one.
5 km one waydistance
1 hourtime
The Spa slipway Down off the main road, a slipway and a bit of shore. Sea swimmers use it most mornings — has gone from a handful of regulars to a proper crowd in the last few years. Cold, sheltered enough, no facilities. Bring your own towel.
Shortdistance
20 mintime
07 / 09

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring
Mar–May

Quiet, the Greenway empty, the light coming back over the Slieve Mish.

◉ Go
Summer
Jun–Aug

Long evenings on the bay, oysters in season at the Tavern, the Greenway busy with families on bikes.

◉ Go
Autumn
Sep–Oct

Best season for the oysters and the cleanest light of the year on the mountains across the bay.

◉ Go
Winter
Nov–Feb

The pub stays open. Most other things do not. A Sunday lunch and a walk on the Greenway is the day.

◐ 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.

×
Looking for a 'main street'

There isn't one. Spa is a road with houses along it. The Oyster Tavern is the centre because it is the only thing that reads as a centre.

×
Driving the R558 when the Greenway exists

The road is narrow, hedge-blind in places, and shared with everyone going to Fenit. The Greenway runs parallel and you keep both knees.

×
Hunting for the Spa Well

It is not signposted, not preserved, and not marked on the map. The name on the village is the monument.

+

Getting there.

By car

About 5km west of Tralee on the R558 to Fenit. Ten minutes from Tralee town. Park at the Oyster Tavern or at the Greenway access point behind it.

By bus

Local Link runs limited services between Tralee and Fenit via Spa. Check the day's timetable — it is not a frequent route.

By train

Nearest station is Tralee. The Tralee–Fenit line ran through Spa from 1887 until 1978; the Greenway is built on its track bed.

Next on the tour

Co. Kerry
Tralee
The county town. Train station, the Rose festival, and a proper main street.
Co. Kerry
Fenit
End of the road. Working harbour, a Blue Flag beach, and a statue of St Brendan looking west.
Co. Kerry
Castlegregory
Round the bay onto the Dingle peninsula. Surf, kite-surfing, and Lough Gill behind the dunes.