Muckross House - 4 Things to Know Before Visiting

The Traditional farms at Muckross offer an experience of what life was like in the Irish countryside during the 1930s and 1940s prior to rural electrification and widespread mechanisation. This is not a museum tour in the traditional sense. It is a working farm that utilises the tools and practices of the time to re-enact a way of life that is slowly fading from memory.

Killarney National Park, was the first national park in Ireland, created when the Muckross Estate was donated to the Irish Free State in 1932It contains many features of national and international importance such as the native oakwoods and yew woods together with an abundance of evergreen trees and shrubs and a profusion of bryophytes and lichens which thrive in the mild Killarney climate.

Muckross Abbey was founded for the Observatine Franciscans about 1448 by Daniel McCarthy Mor. The present well-preserved ruins include a church with a wide, square tower and fine windows, and a vaulted cloister with an arcade of arches around a square courtyard. In the middle of the courtyard grows an ancient yew tree, said traditionally to be as old as the Abbey. Today the abbey is largely roofless although, apart from this, is generally quite well preserved.

Muckross Lake is one of the deepest lakes in Ireland and is home to many types of fish. It is one of the three famous Lakes of Killarney, along with Lough Leane and Upper Lake. It is also a habitat for the critically endangered blunt-snouted Irish char.

A superb waterfall located at the heart of Killarney National Park in Ireland, in one of the numerous wild forests of the park. It is one of Killarney’s most well known tourist attractions and a traditional stopping point for bus and coach tours. As a result it can get busy and congested around this area in the peak summer months. The waterfall and its cascades are among the most impressive due to their height

Torc Mountain is the 329th–highest peak in Ireland on the Arderin list. It is a popular mountain for hill walkers as it has a stone or boarded path from its base at Torc Waterfall to its summit, which has views of the Lakes of Killarney. Torc Mountain is part of the Mangerton Mountain Group range in County Kerry, Ireland. A good trekking destination with stunning views.