The Blasket Island Centre

There is so much to see and do in the immediate surroundings of the Killarney Park Hotel that it might be tempting not to stray from Killarney, but then you would miss out on the wonders of the Dingle Peninsula, a place of immense beauty and unique heritage. Ask your concierge about the Blasket Centre, a fascinating interpretive centre in Dún Chaoin, right on the edge of the Dingle Peninsula.

This wonderful Museum and Heritage centre celebrates the people who lived on the Blasket Islands, a spectacular but harsh environment just off the coast, where a dogged community lived off fishing and subsistence farming.  Their numbers dwindled through forced emigration until the final evacuation of the islands n 1953. The Blasket Centre showcases life for the islanders, their unique culture, and remarkably rich literary legacy. Famous works in Irish written on the island include The Islandman, Twenty Years A-Growing, and ‘Peig’.

Through exhibitions, interactive displays, art, audio-visual presentations, and artefacts, the Blasket centre tells us the islanders’ stories and how they lived.  The cafe offers unrivalled views of the Great Blasket, and there is a fine bookshop on site. If you are inspired to visit the island, you can travel by ferry to the wildly beautiful Atlantic outpost and contemplate the lives of those long departed.