Ventry, Ceann Trá, Co. Kerry

Ceann Trá · Co. Kerry

A Gaeltacht crossroads with three kilometres of sand and a pub that built a county.

Ventry is the next stop after Dingle when you keep driving west. Seven kilometres of road that twists past Milltown and the harbour and then you arrive at a crossroads, a church, a pub and a beach. That is most of it. Pop. 420. Irish first. The signs say Ceann Trá and the locals do too.

The strand is the reason most people stop. Three kilometres of sheltered sand, Mount Eagle holding the western wind off it, Slea Head closing the southern end. It is shallow, clean, Blue Flag, and on a calm August Tuesday the only crowd is half the children of the parish and a few dogs. The Atlantic this far west does not always permit a swim. When it does, take it.

And then there is the GAA. Páidí Ó Sé - eight All-Ireland medals, two as Kerry manager, a Ventry man to his bones - ran a pub across from the church until his death in 2012. The pub is still open, still in the family, still the place the Kerry team end up after a final. Every February the village runs the Comórtas Peile Páidí Ó Sé in his memory and the parish fills with footballers and the pub fills with everyone else. If you arrive that weekend by accident, you have not arrived by accident.

Population

~420

Walk score

Pub, church, beach - fifteen minutes end to end

Coords

52.1264° N, 10.3608° 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 strand

Three kilometres of Blue Flag sand.

Ventry Strand curls between Mount Eagle to the west and Slea Head beyond. The bay is sheltered enough for a swim that won't kill you and shallow enough that the dogs go in too.

Walks & outings → 02 Páidí Ó Sé

The pub the Kerry team came home to.

Páidí ran a pub across from the parish church until he died in 2012. Eight All-Ireland medals as a player, two as a manager. The pub is still there. So is the photograph wall.

Stories & lore → 03 Cath Fionntrá

Where Fionn fought the King of the World.

The medieval saga has the High King's warriors land here to repel an invasion by Daire Donn, King of the World. A year and a day of fighting on this beach. The story is as old as the dunes.

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:

Tigh Páidí Ó Sé

GAA legend, family-run

Pub & restaurant

Páidí's pub, opposite the church. Run by the family since he died in 2012. Photographs of half the Kerry teams of the last fifty years on the walls. A pint here is a small pilgrimage if you know what football means in Kerry.

The Ventry Inn

Local, easy-going

Village pub

Known to everyone as The Phone Box for the red kiosk outside. The other pub. Quieter than Páidí's, friendlier still, the kind of place a stranger gets a nod and then a chair.

Quinn's Ventry

Crossroads stop

Pub & shop

On the road as you come in from Dingle. Pub, shop, petrol - the way village pubs used to do it. A pint and a loaf of bread on the same till.

03 / 09

Where to eat.

Place	Type	€	Local note
Tigh Páidí Ó Sé kitchen	Pub food	€€	Chowder, fish, a steak the size of an argument. The food is not the reason you come, but it is good enough to keep you here past one pint.
Sammy's at Inch Beach	Beach café & restaurant	€€	Twenty-five minutes back east, on the strand at Inch. Chowder by the window, the dunes outside, a proper dinner upstairs if you want one. The Slea Head Drive lunch stop nobody regrets.

04 / 09

Where to sleep.

Place	Type	Local note
Ballymore House	B&B	On the hill above Ventry harbour. Five rooms, sea views, breakfast in a room that looks out at Mount Eagle. Run by the same family for years; the kettle is on before you ask.
Ceann Trá Heights	B&B	Up the road toward Slea Head. Modern build, big windows, the bay below. Walk down to the beach in ten minutes. Walk down to Páidí's in fifteen.
A cottage on Slea Head	Self-catering	There are a handful of self-catering houses scattered along the R559 between Ventry and Dunquin. Drive a little further out, pay a little less, wake up to nothing but sheep and Atlantic.

05 / 09

Stories & lore.

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

Eight medals and a pub

Páidí Ó Sé

Páidí Ó Sé won eight All-Ireland senior football medals with Kerry as a wing-back in the great team of the 1970s and 80s. He came home to Ventry, opened a pub across from the church, and ran it for the rest of his life. As manager he brought Kerry to two more All-Irelands. He died in 2012, suddenly, at fifty-seven. The Comórtas Peile Páidí Ó Sé runs every February - county teams, club teams, women's teams, all in Ventry for a long weekend in his memory. The pub is still in the family.

The Battle of Ventry

Cath Fionntrá

In the medieval Fenian Cycle, an army led by Daire Donn, King of the World, lands on this beach to conquer Ireland. Fionn Mac Cumhaill and the Fianna meet them on the strand and the fighting goes on for a year and a day. Daire Donn is killed. The bones, says the saga, are still under the sand. The story was written down in the fifteenth century from oral tradition that was already old. The beach has not changed much since.

Ceann Trá, ní Ventry

An Ghaeltacht

Ventry is in the Corca Dhuibhne Gaeltacht and Irish is the working language of the parish. Caitlín Maude - poet, sean-nós singer, activist - taught here in the 1960s before she died young in 1982. The signs are in Irish, the school is a Gaelscoil, and a quiet ear in Páidí's on a Sunday will catch as much Irish as English. Speaking a few words back is welcomed. Everyone here has English. Almost nobody chooses to use it first.

Skellig week on Slea Head

Star Wars

When the Force Awakens and Last Jedi crews came to film the Skellig Michael scenes, they used the cliffs and slopes around Slea Head and Mount Eagle as a backup location and for additional shots. The road was closed for a week. The locals were paid to keep their sheep off the camera lines. The X-wing did not in fact land in Ventry. A film unit did, briefly, and the parish has been telling the story ever since.

October 1939

U-35 and the Greek sailors

On 4 October 1939, weeks into the war, the German submarine U-35 surfaced in Ventry Bay and put 28 Greek sailors ashore. They were the crew of the MV Diamantis, sunk by the same submarine the day before. The captain, in violation of orders, had decided to land them rather than leave them at sea. They were fed in the village and sent on to Dublin. A commemorative stone on the village green outside Quinn's pub, unveiled in 2009, remembers it.

06 / 09

Things to do outside.

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

Ventry Strand The whole beach, end to end. Park at the church or at the harbour. Sheltered swim if the day allows. Mount Eagle at your back the whole way.

3 km of sanddistance

However long you havetime

Mount Eagle 516 metres of headland behind the village. Up from the road past Dunbeg, the path softens, the view gets longer, and on a clear day you see the Skelligs across the bay. Boggy after rain. Bring boots.

8 km returndistance

3-4 hourstime

Slea Head Drive (west) The R559 west - Dunbeg Fort, the beehive huts at Fahan, Slea Head itself, then Coumeenoole and Dunquin. Drive it slowly, clockwise from Ventry, and stop at every layby that has someone parked in it.

30 km from Ventrydistance

Half daytime

Ventry Harbour Loop Down to the small pier, along the road past the boats, back up by the church. A pre-dinner stretch. The herons fish here on a falling tide.

2 kmdistance

30 mintime

07 / 09

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

Quiet, the beach is empty, the road is yours. Lambs everywhere on Mount Eagle.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

The Slea Head coach traffic is real and Ventry is on it. The strand stays calm; the road does not. Mornings before ten and evenings after seven are the trick.

◐ Mind yourself

Autumn

Sep-Oct

Big skies, big seas, almost nobody on the beach. The pubs settle back into themselves.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Most things shut. Páidí's stays open. The Comórtas weekend in February is the one time the village fills in winter, and it fills hard.

◐ 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.

Treating Ventry as a ten-minute photo stop on the way to Slea Head

Half the coaches do exactly this and miss the point. Park, walk the strand, have a pint at Páidí's. An hour minimum. Two is better.

Driving the strand at low tide

People do. The cars get stuck. The tractor that pulls them out is not free and the pub will hear about it before you do.

Asking loudly in Irish-speaking pubs which pub Star Wars filmed in

They didn't film in a pub. They filmed on the cliffs. The locals will answer politely once. The fifth time, less so.

Getting there.

By car

From Dingle, take the R559 west - Slea Head Drive - for seven kilometres. Fifteen minutes if the road is empty, half an hour behind a coach. From Tralee, allow 1h 15m via the N86 to Dingle then on.

By bus

Local Link 275A runs Dingle-Ventry-Dunquin several times daily in summer, fewer in winter. The bus stops at the church.

By air

Kerry Airport (KIR) is 80km. Cork is 2h 30m. Shannon is 3h.

Next on the tour

Co. Kerry

Dingle

Seven kilometres east. The town that anchors the peninsula - pubs, boats, sessions, the whole lot.

Co. Kerry

Dunquin

Twenty minutes further west. The pier with the zig-zag path and the ferry to the Blasket Islands when the sea allows.

Co. Kerry

Slea Head

The southern tip of the peninsula. Cliffs, beehive huts, the Atlantic doing its work. Drive the loop.

Co. Kerry

Ballydavid

North to the Gaeltacht pier that looks across the bay at a 1580 massacre.