Discover Kenmare

A planned Georgian town at the head of the sea

Kenmare stands where the Roughty river meets Kenmare Bay in the south-west corner of Co. Kerry, ringed by the Caha and MacGillycuddy's Reeks. It is a planned town, laid out on an X-shaped street pattern with three main streets, Main Street, Henry Street and Shelbourne Street, meeting at a triangular market square. The name works two ways: Ceann Mara, head of the sea, gave the English name Kenmare, while Neidín, the little nest, is the affectionate local one. It is a Fáilte Ireland Heritage Town and a two-time national Tidy Towns winner, in 2000 and 2013, and it wears both lightly.

The reason to base yourself here is the eating and the position. Kenmare has a food scene that punches well past its size, from town restaurants to a smoked-salmon curer, a chocolatier out at Bonane and a good weekly market, and it sits at the meeting of two of Ireland's great coastal drives. The Ring of Kerry passes through on its way over Moll's Gap, and the quieter Ring of Beara runs out over the Healy Pass and around a peninsula that straddles Kerry and Cork. Add a complete Bronze-Age stone circle a few minutes' walk from the square, seal-watching cruises from the pier on the tidal bay, and the needlepoint lace the town has made since the 1860s, and a couple of nights here fill easily.