Explore Killarney National Park
For Ireland’s first national park, we have to thank Californian William Bowers Bourn, who bought the Muckross estate in 1911 and, with his son-in-law Arthur Rose Vincent, presented it to the nation in 1932. The park encompasses three island-spotted lakes: Lough Leane (or Lower Lake), Muckross (or Middle Lake), and Upper Lake. For a breathtaking overview, visit Ladies’ View to the south. Macgillycuddy’s Reeks, rising to 3,408 feet (1,039m), loom to the west, and the Gap of Dunloe is a deep cleft in the mountains that splits Purple Mountain (2,729 feet/832m) from the long range of Macgillycuddy’s Reeks. A rough road winds through the ravine and over the pass between the mountains, through the park’s wildest scenery, and it’s not hard to believe that the last wolf in Ireland was killed up here in 1700. On the journey through the mountains there are stone bridges dwarfed by sweeping mountains, dark pools (including the Black Lough, where St Patrick is said to have drowned the last Irish serpent), and magnificent views to the north and south.