The Bonane valley holds over 250 recorded archaeological sites, one of the highest concentrations in the country, and the heritage park’s 2km loop strings the best of them together across roughly 5,000 years: a stone circle, a ringfort, a bullaun stone, a fulacht fiadh (a Bronze Age cooking pit) and famine-era ruins. It costs €5 for an adult, €10 for a family, and you should give it about two hours. Cars stay at the entrance – there’s no driving beyond the gate – so the visit is a walk from the start.
If you can pick your morning, pick the summer solstice. The park runs a sunrise gathering on the longest day: arrive at 6am and the sun comes up over the stone circle at about 6.40am, with no booking needed (bring midge spray, as they advise). Otherwise the park is open year round, and a free audio tour – Neolithic to Famine times – plays through the SoundCloud app as you walk, which is worth setting up before you arrive rather than fighting the rural signal on site.
The valley and its name
Bonane (Irish: An Bunán, also anglicised Bunane) sits in the Sheen River valley between the Sheehy and Caha Mountains. The name comes from Both-Fhionáin, ‘Fionn’s house’, tying the place to Fionn Mac Cumhaill and the Fianna. The valley is also associated with the early saint Fiachna, and there’s a Mass rock at Inse an tSagairt in Innisfoyle townland with a grim story attached: it’s said to be the site of the last killing of a Catholic priest at a Mass rock, in 1829, after a Glengarriff shebeen-keeper and five local men conspired to take the £45 bounty on his head.
Beyond the loop
A short distance away on the N71, Molly Gallivan’s is a restored 200-year-old cottage with a craft shop, tea rooms and a restaurant, and it’s the starting point for the longer waymarked walks in the valley – the Druid’s, Fionn MacCool and Cailleach Beara loops. The first two are gentle valley circuits; the Cailleach Beara is a proper hill walk and not one to take on lightly in poor weather or low cloud.
Getting there
Bonane is about 10km west of Kenmare on the N71 towards Glengarriff, right where the Ring of Kerry and the Ring of Beara meet – which makes it an easy add-on to either drive. The heritage park is signposted on the right, with free parking at the entrance. Public transport is thin: there’s no Bus Éireann stop, only a pre-bookable TFI Local Link service on Wednesdays and the second Saturday of each month, so most people come by car or take a taxi from Kenmare.