Killarney: what to see, where to stay and how to get around
Killarney has lived from visitors since the eighteenth century, when travellers came to see its lakes and mountains, the most romantic scenery in Ireland. The town sits at the edge of Killarney National Park, and you can walk straight from Main Street into the woods. Two hours; the jarveys with their horse carts will offer you a ride.
A short history of Killarney
Monks lived in the Killarney lakes area as early as the early Middle Ages, and in 1448 Muckross Friary was founded there; its ruins still stand. At the end of the 15th century the O'Donoghue family built Ross Castle on the lakeshore. The town itself grew up in the 18th century, and tourists were already starting to come then. The railway reached it in 1853, and in 1861 Queen Victoria visited, a visit that made Killarney a sought-after resort. In 1932 the Muckross estate was given to the state, and from it Ireland's first national park was created.
The ten best sights in Killarney
1Main StreetPubs, shops and the jaunting cars waiting
2High StreetThe other half of the town’s pub strip
3St Mary’s CathedralPugin’s cathedral, a hospital in the Famine
4KnockreerThe park gate from town, and red deer
5Ross CastleA tower house on the lake; boats leave from here
6InnisfallenA monastic island in the lake
7Muckross AbbeyA friary with a yew tree in the cloister
8Muckross HouseThe Victorian mansion of the park
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9Muckross Traditional Farms
Farms of the 1930s, with animals
10Torc WaterfallA short walk through the forest
Scan with your phone camera to open the map there
What is an audio walk?
Tours in Killarney →A guide in your headphones: open the walk on our site, walk from stop to stop, and at each one your phone tells its story. No guide, no group, and free. This is the first walk in Killarney:
Free walking tours in Killarney
The town and the lower lake
Killarney has lived from visitors since the eighteenth century, when travellers came to see its lakes and mountains, the most romantic scenery in Ireland. The town sits at the edge of Killarney National Park, and you can walk straight from Main Street into the woods. Two hours; the jarveys with their horse carts will offer you a ride.
- Main Street · Along the street wait the jaunting cars, two-wheeled horse carts driven by jarveys, who have carried tourists round the lakes since Victorian times and are licensed by the town. Their stories are part of the ride.
- St Mary’s Cathedral · Designed by Augustus Pugin, who drew the Gothic interiors of the Houses of Parliament in London, and begun in 1842. Work stopped when the Great Famine struck, and the unfinished cathedral was used as a hospital for the starving.
- Knockreer · The gate from the town into the national park, founded in 1932 as the first in Ireland when the Muckross estate was given to the state. The park holds the only native herd of red deer in Ireland, in the country since the end of the last Ice Age; they are often seen grazing here.
- Ross Castle · A tower house of the O’Donoghue clan on the shore of Lough Leane. A prophecy said it could not be taken until a ship sailed on the lake, and in 1652 the Cromwellian army brought boats overland; seeing them, the defenders surrendered — it was among the last strongholds in Munster to fall.
- Innisfallen · An island in the lake where a monastery stood from the seventh century. Its monks kept the Annals of Inisfallen, a chronicle of Irish history written over centuries, now kept in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Boats from Ross Castle go out to it.
- Aghadoe · On the hill above the lake, the ruins of a twelfth-century church and the stump of a round tower, the tall bell towers where Irish monks kept their treasures from raiders. From here the whole of Lough Leane and the mountains spread below.
Muckross and the upper lakes
South of the town the road runs between the lakes and the oak woods past a Victorian mansion, a ruined friary and a waterfall, climbing to the most famous view in Ireland. Half a day; by bike, by jaunting car or by car.
- Muckross Abbey · A Franciscan friary founded in 1448. In the middle of its cloister grows a great yew tree, said to be as old as the friary itself, its branches roofing the square. The poets of Kerry were buried here.
- Muckross House · A Victorian mansion finished in 1843 by the Herbert family. Queen Victoria came for two days in 1861, and the family is said to have spent so much preparing for her that it helped ruin them; before the end of the century they had lost the estate.
- Muckross Traditional Farms · Three working farms of the 1930s, before electricity reached rural Kerry, with turf fires, horses and hens, where staff bake bread on the hearth and work the land as their grandparents did.
- Torc Waterfall · A waterfall about twenty metres high in the oak and moss woods, a few minutes’ walk from the road. Legend says a man cursed to become a boar at night lived on the mountain above, which is named after him — torc is the Irish for boar.
- Meeting of the Waters · Where the upper lake pours into the two lower lakes, under the old stone Weir Bridge; boats shooting the rapids under the bridge are part of the lake trip from the Gap of Dunloe.
- Ladies View · The view down the valley over the upper lake to the lower lakes, named after the ladies-in-waiting of Queen Victoria, who admired it so much on her visit in 1861 that the name stuck.
The Gap, the Ring and Dingle
Around Killarney are the most famous drives in Ireland: the Gap of Dunloe through the mountains, the Ring of Kerry around the Iveragh peninsula, and the Dingle peninsula to the north-west. A full day each; drive the Ring anticlockwise, as the coaches do.
- Kate Kearney’s Cottage · Kate Kearney was a famous local beauty of the nineteenth century who, it is told, sold travellers her own poitín, a fierce illegal spirit she called mountain dew. Her cottage, now a pub, stands at the mouth of the Gap.
- Gap of Dunloe · A narrow pass about eleven kilometres long carved by glaciers between the mountains, with five small lakes linked by a stream. Cars are discouraged; people walk it, cycle it or ride through on a pony and trap, then return by boat across the lakes.
- Carrauntoohil · The highest mountain in Ireland, about one thousand and thirty-eight metres, in the range called MacGillycuddy’s Reeks. The usual climb is a hard day, and the weather turns quickly; it is no walk for trainers.
- Kenmare Stone Circle · On the edge of Kenmare, on the Ring of Kerry, a Bronze Age ring of fifteen stones around a central boulder burial, one of the largest stone circles in the south-west of Ireland, about three to four thousand years old.
- Inch Beach · A sand spit about five kilometres long running out into Dingle Bay, where surfers ride the waves and the film Ryan’s Daughter was shot. Nearby Annascaul was the home of Tom Crean, the Antarctic explorer who sailed with Scott and Shackleton and later opened a pub there, the South Pole Inn.
- Dingle · An Irish-speaking harbour town of painted pubs, many of them once also shops — a hardware store or a shoemaker by day, a pub by night. From 1983 a wild bottlenose dolphin, Fungie, lived in the harbour for over thirty-five years, greeting boats, until he disappeared in 2020.
Getting to Killarney and getting around
- Kerry Airport · Twenty minutes north; Cork and Shannon have more flights
- Killarney Station · Trains from Dublin, changing at Mallow
Cheap eats in Killarney
Kerry eats lamb from the mountains and fish from the bays: Irish stew, seafood chowder with brown soda bread, Kerry lamb, black pudding at breakfast, and Dingle’s small-batch ice cream in flavours like sea salt and brown bread. A bowl of chowder or stew in a pub is the cheap meal.
- Main Street · Stew and chowder in the pubs
- Muckross Traditional Farms · Soda bread on the hearth
- Dinis Cottage · Tea and scones by the lakes
- Kate Kearney’s Cottage · Lunch before the Gap
- Dingle · Fish on the harbour and local ice cream
Museums in Killarney
Kerry’s history is in its houses, abbeys and castles: Victorian gentry, Franciscan friars and the farms of the poor.
- Muckross House · The mansion and gardens
- Ross Castle · The tower house
- Kerry County Museum · Medieval Tralee rebuilt
- Muckross Traditional Farms · Rural life in the 1930s
Nature and day trips near Killarney
Killarney National Park holds three lakes, oak and yew woods, waterfalls and Ireland’s highest mountains, with native red deer in the woods.
- Torc Waterfall · The forest waterfall
- Gap of Dunloe · Walk or cycle the pass
- Ladies View · The view down the lakes
- Carrauntoohil · Ireland’s highest peak
- Knockreer · Red deer by the town
Things to do in Killarney with kids
With children: a horse-cart ride, farm animals, a boat to an island and a beach to run on.
- Muckross Traditional Farms · Farm animals
- Main Street · A jaunting-car ride
- Ross Castle · A boat on the lake
- Inch Beach · Sand and surf lessons
Holy places in Killarney
From early monastic islands and round towers to a Gothic cathedral of the Famine years.
- Muckross Abbey · The yew in the cloister
- St Mary’s Cathedral · Pugin’s cathedral
- Innisfallen · The monastery island
- Aghadoe · The round tower
Nightlife in Killarney
Killarney’s nights are pubs with live traditional music every evening of the summer; Dingle has some of the best sessions in Ireland.
- High Street · Trad music pubs
- Main Street · Live music every night
- Dingle · Sessions in the shop-pubs
Frequently asked questions about Killarney
What is there to see in Killarney?
The top sights in Killarney are Main Street, High Street and St Mary’s Cathedral. The full list on this page has 10 sights, each with a photo and a short note.
How many days do you need in Killarney?
Three to four days are enough to see the best of Killarney without rushing, including at least one walking tour.
Is there a free walking tour in Killarney?
Yes. sleepntrip has 3 free audio walks in Killarney, with no guide and no group: your phone tells the story at every stop. The first one: The town and the lower lake.
How do you get to Killarney and get around?
The main ways are Kerry Airport and Killarney Station. Full details are in the transport section on this page.
Where to stay in Killarney, and for how much?
sleepntrip shows only rooms in Killarney that meet nine conditions: a good location, high guest scores, cleanliness, and a price of up to $80 a night for two. Pick your dates and see what is free.
Looking for a hotel in Killarney for your dates?
Only rooms that meet nine conditions, up to $80 a night.