REEKS OF GLORY
Johnnie Elliot reaches peak excitement as he scales Ireland’s largest mountains and takes in all the Reeks District has to offer
After three hours of hiking and scrambling through some of Ireland’s most gorgeous scenery in the Macgillycuddy’s Reeks, the country’s highest mountain range, we reach the summit of Beenkeragh, which at 1,010m (3,308ft) is Ireland’s second highest peak.
Out comes my phone for a selfie, ready to brag about my achievements to the folks back home. Snap taken, I try to connect to Facebook, already composing some witty words to accompany the pic, but my phone’s displaying a stark No Signal message.
“Switch off and switch on to what’s here,” says my guide Piaras Kelly of Kerry Climbing as he swings his arm in a wide arc.
He’s not wrong: the surrounding views are incredible. Ice Age glaciers melted away to leave an outdoor enthusiast’s playground – craggy peaks, huge boulders, rocky ridges and icy lakes still home to the coldwater fish Arctic char, trapped here as the landscape changed.
Piaras is leading a group of us on what’s known as the Coomloughra Horseshoe, Ireland’s three highest peaks in a single day. Ahead of us is the daddy Carrauntoohil at 1,039m (3,406ft), connected to Beenkeragh by a thin, spiky ridge, that from our vantage point looks more like the serrated edge of a carving knife than a walkable path. From Carrauntoohil a second ridge leads to Caher, which just joins the thousand-metre mountain club at 1,001m (3,284ft). Piaras jokes that the locals built a large cairn so it would make the grade. Whatever, it looks like another precarious walk to reach its summit.
The Macgillycuddy’s Reeks are packed with legend. Piaras fills our imagination with tales of ancient outlaws, crashed American planes at the bottom of one of the lakes, and the story of a member of the local clergy who tried to conquer Carrauntoohil in sandals and perished just before he got there.
His death was not in vain however – one of the routes up the mountain takes his name: Brother O’Sheas Gully.
The range is also significant for another reason – from this summer, the surrounding area around Kerry’s Castlemaine Harbour, from the Blue
I stayed in a Victorian manor that wouldn’t look out of place in Italy
Flag beaches of Rossbeigh to Inch, is being rebranded as the Reeks District, aping perhaps more famous tourism hotspots across the water back in England, but it’s still miles better than its former name of Mid Kerry, which sounded, well… a tad mediocre.
The new marketing push sees the Reeks as an adventure playground – and the next morning we’re over on Inch Beach donning wetsuits for a surfing lesson with Tim Allcutt of Kingdom Waves.
The beach is a three-mile stretch of long white sand. Over to the left, on the opposite side of the harbour, the Reeks loom like sentinels, the sky is dotted with the odd white candyfloss cloud and the swell of the waves is over a metre high as they crash from the Atlantic and beyond.
Surprisingly, there’s no one here taking advantage of it all, meaning we can catch every wave we want without question – but even better, there’s no one to see when we mess up and slam face down into the water. “It’s always like this,” Tim tells us. “Even in summer, there will be no more than 50 people in the water at one time – you’re never without a space, whether surfing, body boarding or swimming.”
After a refreshing pint of the black stuff at The Strand Hotel, a laid-back surfer hostel overlooking the beach, we’re back in the water that afternoon – or rather on it – at Caragh Lake, kayaking with Lorcan McDonnell, a cheerful instructor from the Cappanalea Outdoor Centre that offers everything from Bear Grylls-style bushcraft days to stand-up paddle boarding and white-water rafting.
The lake – some three miles long and two-thirds of a mile wide – is as still as glass as we paddle its length, spotting mountain goats en route. We pull up quietly, almost Bondlike, by the trim lawns of Ard Na Sidhe, a luxury country house hotel, originally built in 1913 by Lady Edith Gordon, one of the members of British aristocracy who built elegant mansions on the lake’s shoreline at the turn of last century. Converted into a hotel in the 1950s, it has an elegant air and serves a fabulous afternoon tea in a relaxed lounge with a fire flickering in the hearth.
Just down the road – or a short kayak ride away – is my not-sohumble abode for our stay: Carrig Country House, a mustard-coloured Victorian country manor that would not look out of place on Italian lakes.
Carrig also has grounds that lead to the shore and on one morning I decide to try some wild swimming before breakfast – I lasted no more than a minute, before running dripping wet and freezing back to the room.
The hotel is homely, more like a guesthouse than a hotel, and benefits from being run by Frank and Mary Slattery, both of whom have obviously kissed the Blarney Stone at some point. They regale us with local stories, offer restaurant recommendations and take a genuine interest in whether we’re enjoying our stay in the region.
In the evenings, we headed mainly for the Reeks District’s main town, Killorglin, home to the annual Puck Fair, Ireland’s oldest folk festival, and a surprising number of outstanding restaurants for a place with a population of just 2,000.
The Bianconi Inn is a buzzy brasserie, Jack’s Coastguard is Ireland’s current seafood restaurant of the year, and very good it is, and Sol y Sombra is a magnificent fusion tapas bar in a converted Church of Ireland property.
Owner Cliodhna Foley tells us it almost never opened when we meet up with her later in the evening at Falvey’s Bar And Lounge, one of the town’s busy pubs. Apparently, the locals, having never heard of tapas before, thought she was opening a topless bar.
If the Reeks District is somewhat a surprise – a colleague aptly describes it as the Lake District meets Cornwall without the crowds – a final one comes on our last morning when we visit Aloha House, a retreat on the banks of the River Caragh in Killorglin.
Owner Louise Kleu McEvoy is the leading European proponent of a mindful massage technique called Lomi Lomi. She takes us through a yoga session from her studio where picture windows look right over the river.
It certainly stretches out some of the aches and pains from three days of heavy activities before our hourlong flight back to Britain.
At the end of it, it’s time to switch the mobile back on... I just wish I could leave it off a little while longer.