The village that connected two continents
On 7 August 1922, the telegraph link carrying messages between Paris and New York went dead, because IRA irregulars had seized Waterville. That a village of a few hundred people on the far end of the Iveragh Peninsula could switch off transatlantic communication tells you what Waterville once was: from 1884 it was a Commercial Cable Company station, one landfall of the undersea cables that ran on to Canso in Nova Scotia and across to Europe. In 2000 the Kerry cable stations were given an IEEE Milestone award for their place in the history of electrical science, and the story is laid out in an exhibition at the Tech Amergin centre.
Today Waterville (An Coireán, ‘little cauldron’, after the curve of the bay) is a Ring of Kerry stop with a difference: it’s the only village on the route that sits right on the coast, on a thin isthmus with Ballinskelligs Bay on one side and Lough Currane on the other. Most of the Ring’s traffic photographs the Charlie Chaplin statue on the prom and drives on. If you’ve an hour, do better than that: walk the seafront, then turn your back on the bay and look at the lake, which is the thing most day-trippers never notice.
Chaplin, and a football great
Charlie Chaplin first came to Waterville in 1959 and brought the family back for holidays for more than a decade; the bronze of the Tramp on the seafront marks the connection, and the village runs a Charlie Chaplin Comedy Film Festival over four days each late August – screenings, workshops, a parade and a lookalike contest – held with the blessing of the Chaplin estate since the first one in 2011.
The other statue on the prom is closer to local hearts: Mick O’Dwyer, Waterville man, the most decorated manager in Gaelic football and a four-time All-Ireland winner as a Kerry player. In a county where football is close to religion, that statue means more to the regulars than Chaplin does.
Golf and the lake
Waterville Golf Links, on the dunes just south of the village, is one of the great Irish links courses – a championship layout that top professionals detour to play. It’s a serious round and priced accordingly; book tee times through watervillegolflinks.ie.
Lough Currane, a short hop behind the village, is the quieter draw and arguably the better one. It’s a renowned salmon and sea-trout fishery, with boats for hire from operators on the north shore and shore fishing from the pier. There’s parking and picnic tables at the lake, and Church Island, with its early monastic remains, sitting out in the water.
The beach, the sea and the stars
Waterville Beach runs the length of Ballinskelligs Bay, with a paved promenade for the standard seafront walk. It’s exposed Atlantic water and the tides turn quickly, so ask locally before swimming and don’t assume lifeguard cover outside high summer. The Sea Synergy Marine Awareness and Activity Centre, on the beach across from the Butler Arms Hotel, runs guided kayak trips, shore walks with a marine biologist, and boat tours where seals and dolphins are regular and a basking shark is the summer prize.
Come nightfall, Waterville sits inside the Kerry International Dark Sky Reserve – a Silver-tier reserve and one of the darkest skies in the northern hemisphere. On a clear, moonless night the Milky Way is plainly visible; bring a flask and get away from the village lights.
Heritage trail
The self-guided Waterville Heritage Trail starts at the Butler Arms Hotel – the late-18th-century house the Butler family built and gave the village its English name – and links the 1884 telegraph station and other historic points around the village. It’s a short walk and the best way to put the cable story onto the ground it happened on.
Getting there and parking
Waterville is on the N70, the main Ring of Kerry road. There’s free on-street parking through the village and a larger car park above the beach promenade, but summer days fill it fast, so come early. Bus Éireann route 279 links Waterville with Cahersiveen and Killarney, with the summer-only route 280 running the Ring of Kerry; TFI Local Link buses connect on to other Ring villages such as Killorglin and Kenmare. There’s no railway out here – the nearest station is Killarney, roughly 50 km away, and Kerry Airport at Farranfore is the closest airport.
Food
Be realistic: Waterville has good food but not a lot of it, and on a busy evening you’ll want to book. The seafront restaurants trade on Atlantic seafood, with the Smugglers Inn and O’Dwyer’s the Villa among the long-standing names, and Bosca Bia at the Sea Lodge does fish and chips worth eating with a sea view. For a single recommendation: eat the local seafood and don’t waste the meal on anything that isn’t.
Nearby
- Skellig Michael – the UNESCO monastic island offshore. Boat tours (landing and eco trips) run May to September from Portmagee, Knightstown and Derrynane; book well ahead, as landing places are strictly limited.
- Kerry Cliffs – 300m cliffs near Portmagee with the best land view of the Skelligs, about a 25-minute drive; small admission charge.
- Valentia Island – reached by the Portmagee bridge or the short ferry from Reenard West, with Geokaun Mountain, the lighthouse and the slate quarry.
- Derrynane – Daniel O’Connell’s family home and a Blue Flag beach with an abbey on Abbey Island, south along the coast.
- Staigue Fort and the Eightercua stone row – a well-preserved ring fort and a Bronze Age alignment, both within a short drive.
If you only stop for one thing, make it the walk from the Chaplin statue back along the prom and round to Lough Currane – ten minutes that take you from the Atlantic to a salmon lake, which is the whole point of a village built on an isthmus.