Cycling the Beara Peninsula
August 14, 1999

Distance: 145 kilometers/90 miles
Elevation: 1,205 meters/3,952 feet
Difficulty: 7/10
Scenery: 9/10

Route: Kenmare-Caha Pass-Glengarriff-Adrigole-Healy Pass-
Lauragh-Kenmare-Moll’s Gap-Muckross-Killarney

I wound up in Kenmare at the end of yesterday’s ride around the Ring of Kerry. The choice of Kenmare was deliberate; the next day, I had planned on riding Beara, the next peninsula south of the Iveragh, and Kenmare sits conveniently at the mouth of a bay that divides Beara and the Iveragh. Beara appears deceptively small and one is tempted to try and ride around it in one day. But when I added up the kilometers, the total was more (much more!) than I wanted, so I decided to concentrate on its eastern half.

(Above and Below: Leaving Kenmare in the early morning)

I was a bit put off by my experience riding the Ring of Kerry the day before (too busy, and interesting scenery was few and far between); I was anxious lest this one turns out to be the same. But I was reassured by Alan from Killarney that the Beara is more remote and its roads too narrow for buses to spoil its scenery.

And indeed the Beara Peninsula turned out to be far and away the more interesting of the two from a cyclist’s perspective. The roads are narrow(er), the scenery more varied, and the terrain an enjoyable combination of sustained, Alpine-style climbs and spectacular seaside settings.

(Above: The colorful main street of Kenmare)

In retrospect, the regret was not having planned my trip to accommodate a more thorough exploration of this area. Along the spine of the Beara run two mountain ranges—the Caha Mountains on the eastern half, and the Slieve Miskish on the western. Considering its narrow profile, the peninsula appeared to offer a tantalizing combination of mountainous riding dropping off into the edge of the waters.

My route was a clockwise circuit on the eastern half of Beara Peninsula, crossing Kerry into Western Cork then back again. I started from Kenmare, then headed south to Glengarriff before I headed north again up and over the wonderful Healy Pass, then completed the circuit back to Kenmare. The final stage of the ride took me over Moll’s Gap on the way to Killarney.

On this, my second day in the area, I have come to expect the fickle Irish weather to continue. There was little in the uniformly grey skies that suggested it would be otherwise.

The first notable feature of the ride came approximately eight miles from Kenmare. Up to this point, most of the riding had been through pleasant, if a bit rough, stretch of nondescript roads. It was thus a surprise when I reached the base of the 250-meter climb to Caha Pass.

(Below: Approaching Caha Pass above Glengarriff)

The climb was magnificent, and offered a close approximation of what riding Alpine passes are like—the views were panoramic and the road twisty and narrow (with tunnels yet!). The climb was wonderfully strenuous, with a strong headwind thrown in for good measure.

(Below: Successive tunnels just before the Caha Pass summit)

(Above: Caha Pass summit, between Counties Kerry and Cork)

(Below: The breathtaking descent down the south side)

Last Updated: December 05, 1999