Qualla: Glenbeigh

Glenbeigh: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sebb, Public domain. Diarmuid and Gráinne, the lovers of Irish myth, are supposed to have hidden in a cave in this valley while fleeing the wrath of the warrior Fionn. A few miles away, at Rossbeigh strand, Oisín and Niamh rode a white horse into the surf and disappeared into Tír na nÓg, the land of the young. Glenbeigh sits at the foot of the valley where both stories begin, a small village on the Ring of Kerry between the Behy River and the Atlantic. Its Irish name, Gleann Beithe, means valley of the birch tree, and the village is the kind of place where myth, archaeology, and weekend tourism all stand in the same intersection.

Read more: Glenbeigh on Qualla

Image: Sebb | Public domain

Glenbeigh: Rock Art on the Hills

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Graham Horn, CC BY-SA 2.0. The hills around Glenbeigh hold one of the highest concentrations of prehistoric open-air rock art in Ireland. The carvings belong to the Atlantic tradition: simple cup marks pecked into bedrock, sometimes surrounded by concentric rings, sometimes joined by radial grooves running...

Read more: Glenbeigh on Qualla

Image: Graham Horn | CC BY-SA 2.0

Glenbeigh: Wynne's Folly

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rauenstein, CC BY-SA 3.0. Near the village stands the ruin of Glenbeigh Towers, also known as Wynne's Folly. It was built in the nineteenth century by the local landlord, the Wynne family of Glenbeigh, and it is one of those grand Victorian piles whose name now sums up its fate. The Record of Protected St...

Read more: Glenbeigh on Qualla

Image: Rauenstein | CC BY-SA 3.0

Glenbeigh: Rossbeigh and the Land of the Young

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Graham Horn, CC BY-SA 2.0. Rossbeigh strand stretches out into the bay just below the village, a Blue Flag beach with a sandy spit running northeast almost to the Inch peninsula on the far side. At low tide the mudflats expand. Across the bay you can see Seefin Mountain on the Dingle side. The Behy River r...

Read more: Glenbeigh on Qualla

Image: Graham Horn | CC BY-SA 2.0

Glenbeigh: A Stop on the Ring of Kerry

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JoachimKohler-HB, CC BY-SA 4.0. Practically speaking, Glenbeigh is what local-area plans call a service centre, with a Garda station, a community centre, a church, two hotels, and the kind of small high street that empties out at six on a Tuesday and fills up at eleven on a Saturday. It sits where the N70, the ...

Read more: Glenbeigh on Qualla

Image: JoachimKohler-HB | CC BY-SA 4.0