Kerry,
also known as "The Kingdom", is a varied county
stretching from the River Shannon in the north to the borders
of Co Cork in the south. The two counties meet quite
spectacularly at the Tim Healy pass on the Beara Peninsula and
further inland in a tunnel on the beautiful road between
Kenmare and Glengariff. Kerry is the 5th largest county in
Ireland, 51% covered by lowland mineral soil, 38% covered by
mountains and lakes and 11% covered by bog. The area of Kerry
is 1,189,786 acres with a population of 121,719 citizens.
Tralee, the county town, is perhaps best known for its
"Rose of Tralee" festival.
Apart
from the older rocks at the west of the Dingle peninsula,
Kerry was formed by great climatic changes and vast geological
upheavals between 400 million and 200 million years ago. In
the last 200 million years it has stayed above the sea,
gradually being worn away by sun, wind, water and ice. What is
left is no more than the "skeleton of a departed
country", but, let us say, a most attractive skeleton.
The highest mountain peaks in Ireland - those of the
Macgillycuddy reeks above Killarney and Mount Brandon above
Dingle range around 1,000 metres, but these are the worn
stumps of once great mountains.
One believes that the first man to
have lived in Kerry were Mesolithic, or middle stone age man.
There are a number of dolmens in Kerry that seem to be related
to the passage graves, so they seem to be Neolithic; but this
is not generally accepted.
The remains of the bronze age, dating
from some 4,500 years ago, are extraordinary plentiful in
Kerry and West Cork. Examples are smelting works, stone
signposts, and wedge tombs of the Spanish and Portugese miners
that had been sailing into Kerry at this time. Some gold was
also mined and a few beautiful examples of this gold work have
been found in Kerry. From the later bronze age and early iron
age can be seen many old roads, field systems, stone and
promontory forts and ring (or earthen) forts, as well as an
extraordinary body of legends. Kerry was a major focus for
these legends of invasions, voyages, battles and the rest.
Christianity came to Kerry in the 5th
century AD, and much of the remains of the past now to be seen
dates from the following centuries - monasteries, hermitage,
inscribed crosses, tomb shrines and much beside. During the
6th and 7th centuries there was an astonishing growth of these
religious settlements mainly along the coast and on the
islands, some 100 in all. The most spectacular is, of course,
the almost perfectly preserved monastery on the Great Skellig.
History deriving from contemporary written sources begins in
Ireland with the coming of Christianity. During the iron age
there had been various waves of Celtic invaders, but at the
dawn of Irish history the predominant groups were Gaelic
families, the Goidels, who established a strong kingdom over
the southern half of Ireland. Beneath this were Gaelic
sub-kingdoms, including that of west Munster, Killarney being
the main settlement.
In the struggles of the 11th and 12th
centuries to establish a single native kingdom of Ireland,
three of the Gaelic ruling families established themselves in
Kerry: MacCarthy south of Killarney, O'Donoghue around
Killarney and O'Sullivan around the Kenmare river - surnames
still dominant in the county.
Early in the 13th century the
Anglo-Norman Fitzgeralds established major strongholds in the
rich limestone areas of Castleisland and Tralee. They planted
their territory with tenants from abroad - hence such names as
Brown, Landers, Ashe, Ferriter. Until the end of the 16th
century they maintained a feudal independence. However under
Queen Elizabeth's reign the last earl lost his life and land.
The county, as we know it, was finally defined in 1606 when,
as part of the general post-Elizabethan settlement, the
northern and southern parts of the present county Kerry were
joined together. The wars of the 17th century saw the end of
the political and economic power of the great Gaelic families
and the establishment of the protestant ascendancy of the 18th
century.
However, Kerry was the birthplace to
"The Liberator and Catholic emancipator Daniel
O'Connell", who who in 1829 achieved for Irish Catholics
the freedom from the last of the penal restraints.
The great famine of 1847/48 and the
heavy emigration that followed reduced the county's population
over the next century by almost two-thirds. Yet throughout the
centuries the region remained strong on Gaelic culture,
largely in poetry and music.
A wave of "new" settlers
have come to Kerry in search of a new way of life which is
peaceful, private and yet propitious. Some have chosen the
artisan's life of painter and sculptor, others have looked at
the sea for their livelihood, many have opened their homes to
the journeying guest or become publicans and restaurateurs. It
is the compelling beauty of the landscape, intrigue of the
islands and uniqueness of its inhabitants that have drawn
people from far and wide.
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