In the County Kerry, in the peninsular southwest region of Ireland

 "To be Irish is to know that in the end the world will break your heart." -- Daniel Patrick Moynihan

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(in the province of Munster, southwestern Ireland) County Kerry is bounded by Counties Limerick and Cork to the east and by the Atlantic Ocean to the south, west, and north. Tralee, in the west, is the county seat. Composed of sandstone, the principal highlands of Kerry are among the highest mountains in Ireland. Three, and part of a fourth, of the six Atlantic peninsulas of southwestern Ireland are in Kerry: the Kerry Head peninsula (the most northerly), the Dingle Peninsula (which extends from Tralee to the Blasket Islands), the Iveragh Peninsula (which continues the line of hills (Macgillycuddy’s Reeks) from western County Cork to Valencia Island), and the Beara Peninsula (the most southerly one, which Kerry shares with Cork).

+ Kerry’s Irish-language speakers are concentrated on the Dingle Peninsula. Approximately one-third of the people live in towns and villages, the largest of which are Tralee and Killarney. The county has many prehistoric remains. Church sites of antiquity include Ardfert Cathedral and medieval monastic churches at Aghadoe and Muckross. The remains of the monastery on Skellig Michael (a rocky island off the west coast of the Iveragh Peninsula) were designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1996.

+ Kerry was divided in 1127 between the O’Brien kingdom of Thomond (or North Munster) and the MacCarthy kingdom of Desmond (or South Munster), but with the coming of the Anglo-Norman invaders in the 13th century this area and a large part of Cork fell to the Fitzgeralds. After an unsuccessful revolt and the ruin of the Fitzgeralds of Desmond, Kerry fell within the scope of the plantation of Munster, begun in 1586. The Cromwellian and Williamite settlements further transformed the ownership of Kerry, which was modified again by the land acts of the 19th and 20th centuries.

+ As a region on the extremity of Ireland, the culture of Kerry was less susceptible to outside influences and has preserved the Irish language, as well as Irish traditional music, song and dance. The Sliabh Luachra area of northeast Kerry, which borders Limerick and Cork, is renowned for its traditional music, dance and song.

+ County Kerry contains some of Ireland's most iconic scenery: surf-pounded sea cliffs and soft golden strands, emerald-green farmland criss-crossed by tumbledown stone walls, mist-shrouded bogs and cloud-torn mountain peaks. With one of the country's finest national parks as its backyard, the lively tourism hub of Killarney (shown here) offers colorful shops, restaurants, and pubs lwith spirited traditional music. The town is the jumping-off point for Kerry's two famed loop drives: the larger Ring of Kerry skirts the mountainous, island-fringed Iveragh Peninsula. Dingle Peninsula is like a condensed version of its southern neighbor, with ancient prehistoric ring forts, and beehive huts, Christian sites, and sandy beaches.