Kenmare

A Kerry town at the head of Kenmare Bay, where the Roughty meets the sea between the Iveragh and Beara peninsulas, on both the Ring of Kerry and the Ring of Beara. Sir William Petty laid it out around 1670, and its three central streets still form a triangle. The Poor Clare nuns started a lace industry in 1864 that made Kenmare lace known worldwide, and the suspension bridge of 1841 is claimed as Ireland's first.

A stone circle of 15 stones with a boulder dolmen at its centre shows settlement here from at least the Bronze Age, and Vikings are said to have raided the area. Cromwell granted the whole district to Sir William Petty in part payment for the Down Survey of 1656, and Petty laid out the town around 1670, its streets named for his family. The Poor Clares arrived from Newry in 1861, among them Sister Mary Frances Cusack, the 'Nun of Kenmare', and in 1864 they set up the lace-making that became famous. A suspension bridge, claimed as Ireland's first, opened in 1841 and served until 1932. Holy Cross Church was consecrated in 1864.

During the Civil War the Anti-Treaty IRA killed the O'Connor brothers in September 1922 and held the town until the Irish Army retook it in December 1922. In 1923 three Dublin Guard officers led by Paddy Daly assaulted the daughters of a local doctor, an event sometimes called the 'Kenmare incident'. The Carnegie library opened in 1918 and is now the Carnegie Arts Centre.

Drawn from the History section of the Wikipedia article on Kenmare ↗, rewritten here and adding nothing it does not say; licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

• Uragh Stone Circle · stone circle · 11 km
• Dunkerron Castle · castle · 3 km
• Dromore Castle · castle · 9 km

Straight-line distances from the town centre, from each site's documented coordinates.

• Dunloe Ogham Stones · Eight ogham stones in a circle by the road to the Gap — Ireland's earliest writing, notches on the edge of the stone naming forgotten chiefs.
• Ross Island copper mines · Among the earliest copper mines in north-west Europe, worked from 2400 BC by Beaker-culture miners with fire and stone hammers — beside Killarney's tourist lake.
• Lough Leane — O'Donoghue's return · Every May Day at dawn the chieftain O'Donoghue rides across the lake on a white horse; to see him brings a year's good luck.

All of these are pinned on the Hidden Ireland map.