Overview
In 1910 an American film crew came to this village under the MacGillycuddy’s Reeks and shot The Lad from Old Ireland – the first American film made anywhere outside the United States. The director, Sidney Olcott, liked Beaufort enough to come back every summer until 1914, lodging at Patrick O’Sullivan’s hotel, which still trades as the Beaufort Bar.
That’s the village’s one genuine claim to fame, and it tells you the rest: Beaufort is small (251 people at the 2016 census), strung along the River Laune with a post office, three pubs, a shop, the parish hall and about thirty houses. The Irish name is Lios an Phúca, ‘fort of the púca’ – the shape-shifting horse of Irish folklore, tied to the ring forts scattered across the parish. People don’t come for the village itself. They come because it sits about 9 km west of Killarney, on the road to Killorglin, at the foot of Carrauntoohil and right at the mouth of the Gap of Dunloe.
If you only do one thing
Walk or cycle the Gap of Dunloe. It’s a glacial pass running south between Beaufort and the Black Valley, and it’s the area’s one unmissable thing – roughly 11 km of old droving road climbing past a chain of mountain lakes. Do it on foot, on a bike, or in a jaunting car, but try not to do it by car. The road is single-track and shared with walkers, cyclists and the ponies, and in summer it backs up badly. If you must drive, go early morning or in the evening when the traffic thins.
At the far end you can carry on to Lord Brandon’s Cottage for soup and sandwiches, then take a boat down through the Lakes of Killarney and get bused back – a full day, and the best one you can have from here.
The mountains and the woods
Cronin’s Yard, at Mealis below the Hag’s Glen, has been the traditional starting point for the climb up Carrauntoohil for over 200 years. At 1,039 m it’s Ireland’s highest mountain, and the path is rugged and barely maintained – fine in good weather with a map or GPS, serious in bad. Conditions on the Reeks turn fast, so check the forecast and treat the climb with respect. The yard itself has a café and is an easy walk in even if you’ve no intention of going up.
Lower down, Tomies Wood is one of the largest surviving native oak woodlands in the country, with a waymarked loop and a herd of red deer you’ve a decent chance of seeing early in the day. The River Laune runs past the village and holds salmon and brown trout; you’ll need an Irish fishing licence, which local guesthouses can usually help arrange. Beaufort Golf Club, on the edge of the village, has an 18-hole parkland course with the Reeks as a backdrop on several holes.
A free stop worth the detour: Kerry Woollen Mills, just north of the village, runs a no-charge tour of one of Ireland’s oldest working mills, with a shop attached.
The films, and the rest of the history
The Kalem Company shot more than a dozen films around Beaufort and the Gap over those summers – Rory O’More, The Colleen Bawn, Arrah-na-Pogue, adapted from Dion Boucicault’s plays. Locals were cast as both Irish rebels and British soldiers in Rory O’More, a rare chance, as one account put it, to act out their own history. Annie O’Sullivan, the hotel-keeper’s daughter, was a teenager when the Americans drove up; her memories of it survive in the RTÉ archives.
The deeper history is in the ground. A South Kerry archaeological survey identified over 100 sites across the parish, including the Dunloe Ogham Stones, two ruined churches, and Dunloe Castle, built in 1207, with Corr Castle following in 1450. Earlier, the Beaufort estate belonged to the Day family – Edward Day, Archdeacon of Ardfert, lived here until 1808, and his descendant John Robert Fitzgerald-Day until 1881.
Getting there and parking
It’s a short drive west of Killarney towards Killorglin, well signposted as part of the Ring of Kerry. A car is essentially required: the local bus to Killarney runs only a few times a day and shifts with the season.
One honest note on parking. There’s no dedicated public car park in the village – the free parking you’ll read about comes with the guesthouses and cottages, not the street. Most visitors stay locally and park where they sleep; if you’re passing through, plan to park at whichever trailhead or attraction you’re heading for rather than expecting a village car park.
Where to stay and eat
Accommodation is mostly self-catering cottages and family guesthouses geared to people out walking all day – the likes of Inveraray Farm and the Pot of Gold lodges, with kitchens and somewhere to dry your gear. The three pubs cover dinner; book ahead in July and August when Ring of Kerry traffic is at its heaviest, and use the village shop for picnic supplies before you head into the Gap.
If you want to tie the two halves of the place together, have a pint in the Beaufort Bar – the old O’Sullivan hotel where Olcott’s crew lodged, and the one building in the village that remembers the summers the films were made.