The Incredible Reinvention of Ireland’s ‘Awful’ Tourist Town
Located on the shores of Lough Leane and surrounded by rugged mountains and lush valleys, Killarney is one of the most beautiful spots in Ireland. It has stiff competition, however, as it is just one stop on The Wild Atlantic Way, the stunning 2,500km tourist trail tracing Ireland’s west coast that takes in some of the country’s most scenic landscapes.
But had the visionary Viscount been able to see the future, might he have left the bogs soggy?
Over the following century, things took a sharp turn for the worse. Hotels proliferated, roads became clogged and suburbs spread. On a weekend night at any time from the 1980s onward, you were more likely to be marauded by stag and hen parties than transported by nature. Some visitors never left the manicured golf resorts, while in town, tin whistle and fiddle music piped from tannoys outside shops selling plastic shamrocks and souvenirs made continents away. Killarney got a name for all that was awful in mini break getaways. The tacky town had turned its back on its glorious scenery, and many dismissed the place as too far gone to care about.
Green Getaways
But a core group of locals were not about to give up on their home’s natural beauty. Over the past few years, thanks to tenacity, vision and a huge community effort, Killarney has managed to reinvent itself by leaning into some brilliant green ideas – and the results are remarkable.
When I recently visited, I realised that getting to Killarney can be sustainable in itself. The train station is in the centre of town so it is quite possible to travel without flying or driving; and while once upon a time the UK and Ireland’s smaller towns were connected by rail, Killarney is one of the outliers in keeping its tracks.
Last year, Killarney hit the headlines by becoming the first town in Ireland to ban single-use coffee cups in an opt-in scheme, saving, according to Louise Byrne, a sustainability manager and one of the scheme’s pioneers, more than one million cups a year. Byrne says that the idea came from noticing the sheer numbers of cups littering the area, including in the surrounding Killarney National Park, a Unesco Biosphere Reserve. Even if they are recycled, she notes, recycling itself uses energy, adding that “in Ireland there are more than 200 million single-use cups used annually that are generally not recycled or composted”.
Visitors are encouraged to bring their own reusable cups, or they can, for a €2 deposit, get an Irish-made one to be returned at any participating business or kept for future use. Participating businesses, and there are now more than 70 of them, according to Byrne, quite simply no longer stock single-use cups.
In addition, 22 hotels have signed up to the Killarney Hotels Sustainability Charter, committing to removing single-use items as well as reducing their carbon footprint, cutting down on food waste and working with local and sustainable suppliers.
One of the reasons these initiatives have worked in Killarney is the presence of networks underpinned by the idea of “meitheal”, a Gaelic word that translates as “cooperative neighbourhood work group”. In the past, meitheals would have helped one another with the harvest and on building projects, and while the idea has died out in some parts of Ireland, it is still alive and well in Killarney, which is small enough for locals to feel seen and heard in their efforts.
The Killarney Mountain Meitheal was set up 10 years ago by local sustainability pioneer Johnny McGuire, and along with another strong community group, the Tidy Towns, they collaborate with the town council on everything from clearing the invasive purple rhododendron ponticum to repainting street furniture.
Walking guide and Mountain Meitheal member Maureen Hegarty says that when some of her tour groups see teams out cleaning up the streets or painting kerbs and street furniture they think they must be offenders performing community service. She says she laughs as she explains to them how people do things differently in Killarney. Many, she adds, are impressed enough to want to bring the ideas home.
“It just takes two or three people with a vision to get things going,” she said. “It’s all about changing your mindset, so now we all see the value of working together.”
And it’s working: in 2023, Killarney was named Ireland’s tidiest large town in the country’s SuperValu Tidy Towns Competition.
Alongside the sustainability projects, a great deal of work has gone into re-forging the town’s connections with the adjacent national park. In this, the pandemic has helped, as travel restrictions meant that locals rediscovered what was on their doorstep and then spread the word as things opened up.
Created in 1932, the Killarney National Park was the first in Ireland and encompasses more than 25,000 acres of lakes, ancient forests, fertile valleys, the ruins of pre-Famine settlements and Ireland’s highest mountain range: the magnificent McGillycuddy’s Reeks. It also plays host to a wealth of endangered flora and fauna.
As the sun set over the lakes, I thought back to a trip I made to this area some years ago when it was cluttered with litter, and reflected on the fragile balance that exists between tourism, commerce and the environment. It is tempting to think that our own actions are just a small drop in an increasingly polluted ocean, but then I thought of the acorns and realised that there is a great deal to be said for not giving up on the idea of starting small.
