Qualla: Brandon, County Kerry

Brandon, County Kerry: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Ce Bhreannain - in English, Brandon - sits at the foot of a mountain people climbed long before they had a word for pilgrimage. Mount Brandon rises 952 metres above the village, the second-highest peak in Ireland, named for the medieval monk Brendan the Navigator who is said to have prayed on its summit before setting out across the Atlantic in a hide boat looking for the Land of Promise. Whether or not Brendan actually crossed the ocean - the question divides scholars - he certainly trained for the journey here. And on the last Sunday of July each year, the people of Brandon still climb the mountain in his honour, walking the same stone paths their ancestors walked, marking a festival older than Christianity itself.

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Brandon, County Kerry: Where the Atlantic Comes In

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Brandon sits on the northern coast of the Dingle Peninsula, directly north of Dingle town across the high ridge of the peninsula's spine. The harbour faces Brandon Bay, a wide curve of water that opens west onto the Atlantic. The bay is sheltered enough to anchor in calm weather ...

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Brandon, County Kerry: Feile Lughnasa

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The harvest festival held in Brandon and the surrounding parish every July is called Feile Lughnasa, the festival of Lugh, the Celtic god of light and harvest. It is older than Christianity in Ireland by a thousand years. When the missionaries arrived, they did not so much replac...

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Brandon, County Kerry: Wind and Wave

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Brandon Bay is one of the great wind-sport locations in Ireland. In 2000, 2001, and 2002, it hosted Professional Windsurfers Association wave-sailing events - international competitions on a coast that produces wave conditions as serious as anything in the country. The Maharees, ...

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Brandon, County Kerry: Twinned Across the Celtic Sea

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Cloghane and Brandon - An Clochan agus Bhreanainn, the two villages that share a parish on this stretch of coast - are jointly twinned with Plozevet in Brittany. The pairing is not arbitrary. Brittany is the other great surviving Celtic-language region on the European Atlantic se...

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Brandon, County Kerry: The Mountain Above

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

From the village, Mount Brandon dominates the view in every direction that is not the sea. The eastern ridge - the so-called Faha Ridge route - is the harder climb, a long ascent over loose stone past a series of paternoster lakes set in glacial corries. The western route from Fa...

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