Some of Ireland’s most beautiful lake and mountain scenery falls within the boundary of Killarney National Park. The heart of the park is the 4,000 hectares of the Muckross Estate around Lough Leane, given to the Irish nation in 1932 by the philanthropic American landowners Mr. and Mrs William Bowers Bourn and their son Senator Arthur Vincent of California.

Victorian and Edwardian holidaymakers eulogized the Killarney landscape as the Mecca of every pilgrim in search of the sublime and beautiful in Nature – the mountain paradise of the west.

As a contrast to the civilized surroundings of Muckross, head northward along the lakeshore to reach the restored fifteenth century fortified bawn, or walled tower, of Ross Castle. Hire a rowboat here and pull out across the lake to Inisfallen, a lovely little island whose thick woods conceal a church and the ruins of monastic settlements.