Qualla: Tralee Bay

Tralee Bay: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Maoileann, CC BY-SA 4.0. On Easter Sunday morning in 1916, three days before the Dublin Rising began, a German freighter called the Aud sat off Banna Strand on the north side of Tralee Bay with twenty thousand rifles in her hold. The rifles were for the Irish Volunteers. The Royal Navy intercepted her. Her captain scuttled the ship rather than surrender the cargo. The same week, the Irish republican Roger Casement was put ashore from a German U-boat on the same beach and was arrested within hours. He was tried for treason in London and hanged in August. The rising went ahead, much weakened, without the rifles. Tralee Bay - this wide sheltered sweep of water that looks so peaceful from any of the surrounding hills - has been the entry and exit point for many of the most consequential moments in Irish history. Saint Brendan left from here. Famine emigrants left from here. Modern container ships still come and go.

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Image: Maoileann | CC BY-SA 4.0

Tralee Bay: The Shape of the Bay

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Maoileann, CC BY-SA 4.0. Tralee Bay sits between Kerry Head on its northern shore and the Maharees peninsula on the west. It extends inland to the bridge at Blennerville, where the River Lee enters from the Slieve Mish mountains behind the town of Tralee. The bay is broad - perhaps fifteen kilometres acr...

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Image: Maoileann | CC BY-SA 4.0

Tralee Bay: Lighthouses and Islands

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ingo Mehling, CC BY-SA 3.0. Two small rocks in the bay bear the name Samphire, after the rare golden samphire plant that grows on them. Great Samphire Island, just offshore from the village of Fenit, is now the foundation of the modern Fenit Harbour, with the working port and marina built up around it. At t...

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Image: Ingo Mehling | CC BY-SA 3.0

Tralee Bay: Saints and Emigrants

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michael G Kenny, CC BY-SA 4.0. The bay's connection to Saint Brendan is foundational. Brendan was born on Fenit Island around the year 484, sailed to monasteries across the western islands and possibly across the Atlantic to the New World, and is honoured today by the statue at Great Samphire and by the great ...

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Image: Michael G Kenny | CC BY-SA 4.0

Tralee Bay: Wrecks Along the Coast

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Maoileann, CC BY-SA 4.0. The bay's history is also written in wrecks. The barque Saint Lawrence went ashore in Ballyheigue Bay on the north side in February 1840. The Dingle hooker Brothers, carrying potatoes for the Protestant colony at Dingle, was lost in May 1841. The Integrity, en route from Tarbert ...

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Image: Maoileann | CC BY-SA 4.0

Tralee Bay: Working Bay, Living Bay

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CM Cogollo, CC BY-SA 4.0. Today Tralee Bay is many things at once. The container terminal at Fenit ships Liebherr cranes, manufactured in nearby Killarney, out to the world. Oyster beds on the bay's south side, around Spa and Derrymore Island, produce a small but renowned harvest. A bird sanctuary on Derr...

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Image: CM Cogollo | CC BY-SA 4.0