Bike Fest, Loch Leane, Muckross Abbey, Muckross House, Muckross Traditional Farms, Torc Waterfall
June 2-3, 2023
I enjoyed the scenic four-hour train ride southwest from Dublin to Killarney which is one of Ireland’s most visited towns. I knew to expect lots of tourists in the town but I had not expected the combination of a bank holiday weekend with a popular motorcycle festival (BikeFest) that has been known to draw up to 50,000 people to Killarney for a long weekend of free concerts, a fairground, and a motorcycle parade on the Sunday! Yikes! I arrived on Saturday afternoon, saw lots of bikers around town as I walked to my accommodation, and learned of the festival at the tourist information centre. I decided to stick to my initial plan of first visiting the nearby Killarney House. Killarney House is the visitor and interpretive centre for Killarney National Park which encompasses over 10,000 hectares of mountains, lakes, woodlands and meadows, and which features trails, historical sites, gardens, and museums as well.
I entered the grounds of Killarney House and had a wonderful view across expansive lawns and a distant field towards Loch Leane, also known as Killarney’s Lower Lake (just barely visible as a minuscule dot in the far distance (at the vanishing point)), and the McGillicuddy’s Reeks which are Ireland’s highest mountain range.
In the other direction, I walked along more expansive lawns and then through a small formal garden to arrive at Killarney House which was once the stable block for a grand house on the 137,000 acre Kenmare Estate which is now incorporated into the national park.
Killarney House features a series of fifteen rooms that provide information in a variety of formats about the national park’s many diverse habitats which include ancient oak woodlands and yew woodlands that are among the largest in Western Europe and contain trees that are over a thousand years old. Exhibits also described the human history of the area through the centuries and its impact on the land, as well as conservation efforts that are underway in the park to mitigate some of the damage caused by those activities which include the introduction of invasive species in the 19th century.
After my visit to Killarney House I decided that I would like to have a picnic supper down at the lake so I exited the park, visited a nearby grocery store, and then made my way to a wonderful riverside trail that would lead me several kilometres down to Loch Leane. It was a beautiful walk!
And once I arrived this was my view of Loch Leane with its small islands and the McGillicuddy’s Reeks in the background!
I found a nice spot in the shade under some trees to spread out my picnic and my tourist pamphlets. I had purchased dinner and my next day’s lunch and snacks for less than half the price of a restaurant dinner! The crisps were meant for the following day but of course I couldn’t wait – they were the perfect accompaniment to reading my pamphlets and revising my Killarney plans so as to best avoid the crowds. Happy with my new itinerary (and the crisps!) I explored the lake shore for a while, talked to some fishermen, and asked an American couple to take my photo after I took theirs. It was incredibly beautiful, quiet, and peaceful there and I was very happy with my first afternoon in Killarney.
I followed the river trail back for part of the way and then took a trail that led me across a picturesque meadow and toward the town. There were so many large and incredibly beautiful trees, and I saw a European robin, so pretty! He posed for me nicely and just before I snapped the picture he flew a few feet away to pose again, “No, I look better here”, and then again twice more until he was just a tiny silhouette but I snapped the photo anyways, thrilled to have seen him.
I walked past Killarney’s large St. Mary’s Cathedral, situated at the edge of town,
and then walked along quiet residential streets to my accommodation where I enjoyed some more quiet time in my lovely room and in the small kitchenette where I would help myself to breakfast items in the morning and where I could work on my iPad and have a coffee and biscuits, or heat up a meal, anytime I wished. This was to be my comfortable home for the next three full days in Killarney.
I slept well and woke early on Sunday ready to walk the first eight kilometres of the Kerry Way, from Killarney to Torc Waterfall, while also visiting three of Killarney’s top tourist sites, Muckross Abbey, Muckross House and Gardens, and Muckross Traditional Farms. I figured that many of the bikers and others in town for the festival would be sleeping in late on a Sunday morning and then attending the Motorcycle Parade at 11 a.m. and therefore I could safely stay away from all of the busyness.
There is no official sign in Killarney to mark the start of the Kerry Way built it does start at the beginning of Muckross Road which is also the N71 that is lined with shops, bed and breakfasts, gas stations and small hotels and inns, most of which had very shiny bikes parked in their lots.
It was not yet eight, and the N71 was thankfully still fairly quiet, but it was not the most scenic start to a national trail! I was looking forward to a section, after about two kilometres of road walking, where a gravel path used by horse-drawn jaunting carts would parallel the road, but that section had been turned into a bikers’ campground!
At first there were a lot of tents all in a row, and then a lot of RVs and tents, with a few people just starting to be up and about.
This was a simple yet effective set-up – two bikes, a double air mattress, some blankets and a tarp. What more do you need?
It was really quite fun to see the assemblage of bikes and bikers, but it was also wonderful to arrive at this point where the campsite and inns and hotels ended.
I turned onto the road to Muckross Abbey and later a Kerry Way path that took me through lovely woods,
and there were short offshoot trails that lead me down to the lakeshore more than once for new views of the lake and mountains. It was wonderful!
The path led me from woodland to meadow and then on to Muckross Abbey, a Franciscan Friary founded around 1445 by Donal MacCarthy who was a local chieftain.
I was the only one there and free to roam about the entire large, well-preserved, and beautiful ruins.
There was a small cloister with an amazing yew tree in its centre and I learned from a sign at the entrance to the ruins that yews are often planted in cemeteries and monastic settlements in Ireland.
There were spiral steps that led me up to the second floor where I could wander through various rooms and look down into the cloister, and then more steps that led me into the bell tower for a look way up to its wooden roof.
The monastery was surrounded by a cemetery that was filled with wild roses, red valerian, and green and golden grasses, and the lake and mountains were visible in the distance. I felt very grateful and quite moved by my early morning visit to this very special abbey.
I returned to the Kerry Way path with its lush vegetation, beautiful trees, and ever-changing views of the lake.
Then I reached Muckross House, a 65-room Tudor-style mansion which was built in the years 1839-1843 for the Herbert family. This elegant house is furnished in period style and visitors may tour through many of its rooms at their own pace. The house and its 11,000 acre estate were gifted to the Irish Free State (now the Republic of Ireland) in 1932 and later formed part of Killarney National Park along with the lands gifted from the former Kenmare Estate.
Here are photos of just a few of the upstairs rooms on display – the dining room, billiards room, library, entrance hall, and an elegant bedroom.
And this is the bedroom where Queen Victoria and Prince Albert stayed during their visit to Killarney and Muckross House in 1861.
The tour also includes multiple rooms “downstairs” that were used by the servants to keep the house in tiptop shape and its residents happy! The kitchen was huge and quite beautiful with gorgeous slate floors and gleaming copper pots.
I really enjoyed my visit to Muckross House and I would love to visit it again on a quiet day with nothing else on my agenda in order to more fully take in all of the wonderful antique furnishings and beautiful objects in the home, both upstairs and down.
From Muckross House I proceeded to the Muckross Traditional Farms, completing forgetting to visit the popular Muckross Gardens which are free to everyone. Oh well, yet another reason to return again! The Muckross Traditional Farms feature authentically-built replicas of three separate working farms (small, medium, and large) as they would have typically looked in Ireland in the early 1900s. On view as well are farm animals, traditional farm machinery, a labourer’s cottage, carpenter’s workshop, harness maker’s workshop, a blacksmith’s forge, and a schoolhouse. All of this is set on 71 pastoral acres and is accessed on a pleasant looped walk of 2 km.
The small farm had peat burning in the fireplace with bread baking in a pan above it. A lovely older woman in period dress offered visitors Irish soda bread with butter and answered their questions. A small farm usually would be a holding of about 20 acres with a mix of dairying and tillage.
The medium-sized farm would typically be a holding of 40 to 50 acres and have outbuildings for animals and equipment built in a continuous row parallel to the family home. Here too there was bread and butter on offer and a bit of storytelling as well. The musical instruments and extra seating in the main living area denote this as a “Rambing House” where neighbours would gather for evenings of conversation, storytelling, music and dancing, particularly during the long winter months.
A large farm of about 100 acres would typically have a home and connected outbuildings arranged in a U-shape around a rectangular farmyard. These farms would practice mixed farming with dairying, tillage, and the growing of grain crops such as wheat, barley, and oats.
In the kitchen of this farm a woman was rinsing freshly-made butter, “always three with fresh spring water.” Another woman working there mentioned to a visitor that she was a musician and I asked her if there was a place in Killarney where I could hear traditional music, “not too late in the evening.” She told me of a pub where up to 15 musicians gather on Sundays between 3 and 5, and also that she would be playing there at 8:30 p.m.
I finished my tour of the traditional farms and then carried on with my plan to walk to the Torc Waterfall. The two kilometre walk there from Muckross House, along the lake and through woods and across meadows, was stunning!
What an amazing day! By this time I was definitely getting tired and the bus from Torc Waterfall to Killarney was not due for another 40 minutes so I asked a couple that were heading to their car if they were going to Killarney and if yes could I catch a ride? They kindly said yes and were very happy to hear that I am from Vancouver because their son had moved there in February for a year of work, as many young Irish have been doing, and they had many questions about my fair city. Traffic into and through Killarney was slow, slow, slow, slow with the Bike Fest on so we had a good long chat!
That evening, after a lovely shower, rest, and dinner I roused myself to actually go out for the evening and I am so glad that I did! Sheila, the woman I had met at Muckross Farm, was playing and singing with her sister and another woman and they were fabulous! Fiddle, guitar, pipes, accordion, bodhran drums, and voice, in a crowded bar with an appreciative audience. It was fantastic! I sat with an American couple, an Irish couple, and an older Irish gentleman who was also a musician and singer and Sheila came over and greeted me like a long-lost friend even though we’d only met for five minutes that afternoon! (Shiela is centre in the photo)
So, that was my day, evening, and previous afternoon in Killarney! I think it is quite obvious to anyone who has managed to read through all of the above, rather lengthy post, that Killarney is most definitely worth a visit!
Killarney sounds wonderful ! gorgeous photos.
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