Killarney town takes an hour to see. Everything else takes a week. Here is what we would prioritise, roughly in order.
1. The Gap of Dunloe
A glacial pass between two mountain ranges, eleven kilometres of single-track road, five lakes. Go by jaunting car and boat rather than by car. A full day and the best one.
2. Muckross House, gardens and traditional farms
Victorian mansion, lakeside setting, working nineteenth-century farms with people actually working them. Half a day.
3. The Ring of Kerry
179 kilometres around the Iveragh Peninsula. Drive it clockwise if you can — the coaches all go the other way. Nine hours with stops. See our private Ring of Kerry tour.
4. Torc Waterfall and the Old Kenmare Road
Five minutes' walk for the waterfall; three hours for the old road over the shoulder of Torc Mountain, which is one of the great walks in Ireland.
5. Ross Castle and Innisfallen Island
Fifteenth-century keep, and a rowing boat to a seventh-century monastery on an island in the lake.
6. Skellig Michael
An eighth-century monastic settlement on a pinnacle of rock eleven kilometres out in the Atlantic, 618 steps above the sea. Landing tours run from Portmagee between May and September, sell out months ahead, and are cancelled outright in poor sea conditions. Book the day you decide to come.
7. The Dingle Peninsula and Slea Head
Over the Conor Pass or around by Inch Strand. A full day, and arguably better than the Ring. More on Slea Head here.
8. Kenmare
A planned eighteenth-century town on the far side of Moll's Gap, with a stone circle, good restaurants, and a fraction of Killarney's crowds. Thirty-five minutes.
9. Ladies View and Moll's Gap
Roadside viewpoints on the N71 that require nothing of you but stopping the car.
10. Killarney House and Gardens
Free, in the middle of town, and a genuinely good introduction to the park's history. Start here on your first afternoon.
11. Inch Strand
Five kilometres of sand running out into Dingle Bay. Drive onto the beach. Used in Ryan's Daughter and The Playboy of the Western World.
12. A session in the town
Killarney's pubs run traditional music most nights year-round. Some of it is for the tourists and some of it is not; after about ten o'clock the difference becomes obvious.
Getting here: Killarney is three and three-quarter hours from Dublin Airport at a fixed €660 for up to three passengers. Once you are here, a car is genuinely necessary for anything beyond the national park — or a driver, if you would rather look at the Reeks than the road.
