June 5-6, 2023
On my third day in Killarney I headed off on a three kilometre walk to visit Ross Castle on the shore of Lough Leane. I took a path through a lovely meadow where I saw a herd of Sika deer grazing. Sika deer were brought into the area in the 19th century and are considered invasive as they can overgraze and destroy native woodlands.
A little further along, I saw two other deer that I thought might be the native Red Deer as they were larger and had darker coats, but I’m not sure!
This one was certainly a Sika deer and she looks like she may be pregnant. A few moments later, on the other side of the path, I saw a mother and her very young fawn but they quickly disappeared into the forest.
I soon noticed that I was walking through a “wet woodland” that I had learned about in the Killarney House interpretive centre. This ecosystem on the Lough Leane floodplain is dominated by alder trees and also supports ash, birch, and willow trees as well as thick areas of rushes, sedges, and grasses. I also saw many foxgloves, and yellow flag irises which are very beautiful but also very invasive. Also invasive throughout Killarney National Park are rhododendrons which thrive here in Kerry and outcompete native plants. Extensive conservation efforts are undertaken to eradicate them but it is a huge challenge.
Soon I arrived at Ross Castle and I headed to the stone pier of the Killarney Rowing Club to photograph the castle from across a small bay.
My plan was to do the 4.5 kilometre hike on the Ross Castle peninsula which would pass by a 4000 year old copper mine, as well as other points of interest, but on impulse I decided that I wanted to do a boat trip to Innisfallen Island instead.
The trip was not on my itinerary but the lake was so beautiful that suddenly fifteen Euro did not seem like too much to pay for a boat ride across the deep blue water to visit Lough Leane’s largest island and the ruins of Innisfallen Abbey. I was the only guest on the boat and the twenty minute ride out was wonderful with lake, island, and mountain views all around.
All too soon we were docking at Innisfallen, directly in front of the Abbey.
Innisfallen Abbey was founded on the island in 640 by Saint Finian and was known as a great centre of learning. Lough Leane means “Lake of Learning” and it is said that the Irish High King Brian Boru was educated here. The abbey was occupied for over 900 years until the monks were forced to abandon the island by order of Queen Elizabeth I in 1594. Today, the buildings still on site date from the 10th to the 13th centuries.
The giant yew directly if front of the abbey is thought to be at least 800 years old!
I loved walking around the ruins and what caught my eye the most today were all of the tiny plants clinging to the stone walls. In the perfect little mini garden below, the foxglove plant was only about five inches tall! It brought to mind part of a lovely quote from the Irish poet Thomas Moore in which he described the nature to be found in Killarney, “…the little gardens that every small rock exhibits, the romantic disposition of the islands, and graceful sweep of the shores; – all this is unequalled anywhere else.”
As well as lichens, mosses, and tiny ferns, some of the plants clinging to the stones were flowering naval worts (top two photos below) and Ivy-leaved toad flax (bottom left).
I had to search for a while to find the face of Saint Finian finely carved from a block of Red Sandstone. The building stone of the abbey is primarily limestone, which underlies much of Killarney National Park, and some Red Sandstone which was transported into the area by ice age glaciers and deposited as glacial erratics.
After viewing the abbey ruins I decided to walk the trail that circles the 21 acre island. The path travelled through bracken and open forest,
with easy access to the shore.
This view from a high bank clearly shows the limestone bedrock, sculpted by the water,
and here is a large Red Sandstone erratic beside the trail (it looks white because it is almost completed covered by lichen). I learned at the Killarney House interpretive centre that yews prefer to grow on limestone while the oaks prefer to grow in areas of Red Sandstone.
There were few people on the island while I was there and it was blissfully peaceful, and again I was the only passenger on the return boat ride. Here is a view of Ross Castle as we headed to the pier. I was going there next!
Ross Castle was initially built in the mid 15th century by an O’Donoghue chieftain as a tower house which included the tall centre portion of the castle you see below as well as the defensive outer walls with their rounded towers.
By the late 1500s the castle and its lands had been seized by the English crown and then had a succession of owners, chiefly the Browne family, over the ensuing centuries. A British military barracks was added onto the tower in the early 1700s and alterations were made, such as removing interior tower walls, that weakened the structural integrity of the castle. By the Victorian era, the castle had deteriorated into a Romantic ruin on the shores of Lough Leane, very popular with tourists of the day.
The castle has since been extensively restored and is managed by the Ireland’s Office of Public Works (OPW) (as was Trim Castle). I took their excellent and inexpensive guided tour that visited each of the three levels of the tower. The principal rooms, like the Great Hall on the third floor, were furnished as they might have been in the 15th century (interior photos were not allowed) and we learned what life would have been like then for the castle’s first inhabitants. I was so impressed by the tour and also impressed by the restoration work that was done by the OPW at great expense and with the use of local materials and medieval building techniques (as much as possible) to preserve authenticity.
Ross Castle is definitely a “must see” for visitors to Killarney!
On my last full day in Killarney I booked a “Gap of Dunloe” tour which is also a “must see” for many if not most visitors. The Gap of Dunloe tour is a 12 kilometre journey that begins at Kate Kearney’s Cottage where a single-lane road climbs its way up through a narrow valley, past five small lakes connected by the River Loe to a pass (the “gap”), and then steeply down into the beautiful Black Valley. It then travels to Lord Brandon’s Cottage where boats are moored on the river that leads into Killarney’s Upper Lake, ready to take travellers on a ninety-minute boat ride across Killarney’s three lakes to end at Ross Castle, with a bus ride back to Killarney.
I was very excited to do this tour but also a bit apprehensive because I was going to walk the 12 kilometres and the time allotted for the trip is 2.5 -3 hours maximum in order to meet the boats on time. That’s a walking speed of 4 km per hour which is fast for me. Most tourists choose to travel the 12 kilometres in a pony and trap jaunting car, clip clop clip clop!
There were not many of us walking and I headed off at a good pace behind a French family of three and soon passed them as the road climbed steeply away from Kate Kearney’s Cottage,
and we quickly reached the first lake.
The road would level off somewhat as it passed alongside the lakes and then rise again, always aiming for the deep V between the mountains in the distance.
Some sections ahead looked a little daunting!
It was a beautiful walk and I wished that I could take more time to explore and enjoy the vistas.
We climbed up,
and up,
until the very top of the pass.
From there, the road swept steeply down a series of S curves and then straightened out for a long descent into the Black Valley.
But I could see that the Killarney Upper Lake was far in the distance behind me, and where did everybody go? The jaunting cars had long since passed me but there were no more walkers that I could see either behind or in front of me. Had I missed a turnoff somewhere?
It was very bizarre, so quiet, and it felt like every single person had disappeared off the face of the planet! I looked ahead, and behind, and down the mountainside as I kept walking at a quick pace downhill, and then finally I could see the French family below me (they had passed me earlier), in the middle of an S-curve that reversed the road’s direction so that it would lead towards the lake. Phew!
I relaxed and continued along in front of the few homes and church of the Black Valley (I would walk here again on the Kerry Way), then the road paralleled the lovely Owenreagh River for the last kilometre or so before arriving at Lord Brandon’s cottage where I had just a few minutes for a quick snack and a five minute rest before heading across a wide path to the moored boats on the river. I took a quick photo back towards Lord Brandon’s cottage and the mountains that I had crossed,
and then climbed into the boat with eleven other excited passengers. What a beautiful day! We travelled down the river,
until it widened and then we were crossing Killarney’s Upper Lake.
On the other side we rejoined the river as it narrowed dramatically and flowed in fun curves around rocky points for some distance as it headed towards Muckross Lake (the middle lake).
We reached the narrowest and shallowest part of the river and had to disembark and then walk across a stone bridge and along a forest trail for probably about 100 metres to where the river joined the middle lake (Muckross Lake) and where a new boat was waiting for us. This manoeuvre is necessary when rain has been scant and the river level is low. One older American fellow was rather disgruntled with this but I heard him quip, as we boarded the bus at the end of our adventure, his good humour restored, “That’s the most hiking I’ve ever had to do on a boat trip!”
We crossed Muckross Lake, with views of Muckross House on a distant shore, and then passed under this bridge!
Here is one of my favourite photos of the day.
In the middle of Lough Leane, the largest of the three Killarney lakes, we had to do another, very strange maneuver and I still don’t understand exactly why. In the middle of the large lake we had to take off our life jackets, board another boat that came to meet us and was held directly alongside, and then put on new life jackets to finish the journey in that boat! There was lots of nervous laughter, excitement, and a rather pale and serious face on the American fellow! Here is our view of Ross Castle as we neared the end of our wonderful Gap of Dunloe boat trip.
Boat trips, Innisfallen Island, Ross Castle, the Gap of Dunloe, mountains, meadows, lakes and spectacular vistas all around. More reasons to visit Ireland’s wonderful town of Killarney!