County Kerry
Ciarraí
- IrishCiarraí
- ProvinceMunster
- County townTralee
- Local governmentKerry County Council
- Area4,805 km²
- Population156,458 (2022)
- Highest pointCarrauntoohil, 1,038.6 m
Kerry held on
Kerry was one of the eight counties scheduled in 1891 under the Congested Districts Board. Its congested districts came in at one pound one shilling and sevenpence a head, under the line of thirty shillings.
The county had 293,880 people in 1841 and 112,772 in 1971. That is 38.4 per cent of what it had been, and the smallest fall of the eight.
Kerry also broke the pattern. It grew between 1871 and 1881, and it grew again after 1971.
Cormac Óg
Skellig Michael
A rock in the Atlantic with Saint Fionán's monastery on its summit, one of the earliest in the country. The monks lived in stone beehive huts, many of which still stand.
They left in the thirteenth century. It became a place of pilgrimage, and in the penal times a refuge for Catholics.
The climb is 618 steep steps. Little Skellig beside it holds the second largest gannet colony in the world. It is one of two World Heritage Sites in the State.
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Tomás Ó Criomhthain
Born on the Great Blasket in 1854 or 1855, the youngest of eight. He lived all his life on the island.
Scholars came to learn Irish from him, Robin Flower among them. Brian Ó Ceallaigh persuaded him to write.
Allagar na hInise came out in 1928 and An tOileánach, his autobiography, in 1929. Flower's translation, The Islandman, followed in 1934.
He died in his own house on the island at seven in the morning on Sunday the seventh of March 1937.
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Read further
One of the eight congested counties of 1891, and the one that fell least. Kerry reached its lowest point in 1966 and then recovered.