Walkabout
We stayed at the Victoria, which sits with a view of Purple Mountain in Killarney National Park. It’s on Muckross Road, which winds beneath Purple Mountain. St. Mary’s Cathedral is the seat of the Diocese of Kerry. We found that Killarney lives up to its reputation as the most beautiful landscape in all of Ireland.
Kilarney National Park
Killarney National Park, Ireland’s first national park, was created when the Muckross Estate was donated to the Irish state in 1932. The park encompasses over 25,425 acres of diverse ecology, including the Lakes of Killarney, Oak and Yew woodlands, and mountain peaks. It has Ireland’s only native herd of Red Deer (seen below on Ross Island) and the most extensive covering of native forest remaining in Ireland.
Muckross Abbey
Built in 1448, Muckross Abbey is both an ancient Irish monastery and a modern Irish graveyard. The first monastery was reputed to have been built here by Saint Fionan sometime in the sixth century.
The ruins reflect a Franciscan friary which was founded between 1340 and 1448. It remains in good condition with the walls of the Cloister and its associated buildings in their original and complete state.
It contains the tombs of Gaelic Chieftains. In 1588 Florence McCarthy married his cousin in a secret midnight wedding here. Several of the monks were murdered when the abbey was looted and burnt by Cromwellian soldiers in 1652.
Killarney’s oldest yew tree (second row, left) stands in the center of the Muckross Abbey. At 400-years old, it may be the oldest of the species to be found anywhere in Ireland
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