Grand Tour
The Wild Atlantic Three
Three days around the peninsulas of the south-west: Dingle, the Ring of Kerry and the Beara.
Ireland's south-west holds three peninsulas side by side, each with a road worth crossing an ocean for, and this tour gives each one its day. You cross the Conor Pass into Dingle, round the Iveragh shore on the Ring of Kerry, then save the quietest and best for last: the Beara, with its rock tunnels and the hairpins of the Healy Pass.
The roads are narrow and that is rather the point: stone walls, fuchsia hedges and the Atlantic filling the windscreen. Nothing here closes for winter, but the difference a quiet month makes is enormous. In July and August start your days early, before the coaches are out, and keep the afternoons for the pubs.
The Dingle Peninsula
Overnight: DingleFrom Tralee take the coast road to Cloghane and cross the Conor Pass, single file beneath the rock face with Brandon Bay behind you, dropping into Dingle for lunch. Run Slea Head clockwise, the way the buses go, because the road out west is too narrow to meet one coming the other way.
The Ring of Kerry
Overnight: KenmareCross to Killorglin and take the Ring of Kerry west and south, at its best where it climbs over Coomakista between Waterville and Caherdaniel. From Sneem the last stretch runs beside the Kenmare River into Kenmare, long the gourmet town of the south-west.
The Beara and Molls Gap
Overnight: KillarneySouth through the Caha Pass tunnels to Glengarriff, along Bantry Bay to Adrigole, then the Healy Pass over the spine of the peninsula, the best quarter of an hour of the trip. Loop back to Kenmare and finish over Molls Gap, past Ladies View and down through the lakes into Killarney.
