Free entry for English Heritage members
This place is cared for by the Office of Public Works, which runs Ireland's national heritage sites as Heritage Ireland. English Heritage members are entitled to free entry to all OPW sites from the first year of membership. Show your current membership card at admissions.
More information
The same price online and at reception; booking optional, up to seven days ahead. Under-12s free with a ticket; visitors with disabilities and their carers free. Free for English Heritage members showing a valid card, from the first year of membership (every OPW site; the named members on the card). Heritage Card holders free.
Under-12s free with a ticket; all under-18s accompanied by an adult. Free for English Heritage members showing a valid card, from the first year of membership (every OPW site; the named members on the card). Heritage Card holders free.
OPW's family ticket as defined on its booking site. Free for English Heritage members showing a valid card, from the first year of membership (every OPW site; the named members on the card). Heritage Card holders free.
OPW's 'Group/Senior' rate; seniors 60 and over on the booking site. Free for English Heritage members showing a valid card, from the first year of membership (every OPW site; the named members on the card). Heritage Card holders free.
Students must show valid identification on arrival. Free for English Heritage members showing a valid card, from the first year of membership (every OPW site; the named members on the card). Heritage Card holders free.
The Trust's page does not say how parking is charged.
OPW lists a car park with coach and bicycle parking and designated accessible spaces, and publishes no tariff or free statement; from the car park a laneway leads to the house entrance. The house is 3.5 km from Caherdaniel off the N70 Ring of Kerry; OPW names no bus service.
Driving pin: the Derrynane House visitor car park, 164 m from OPW's own pin on the house.
At the southern tip of the Iveragh Peninsula, 3.5 km off the Ring of Kerry at Caherdaniel, Derrynane House is the ancestral home of one of the greatest figures of Irish history. Daniel O'Connell, the Liberator, was raised here by his uncle Muiris 'Hunting Cap' O'Connell and returned almost every summer for the rest of his life. The house displays many unique relics of his career, including the triumphal chariot presented to him by the citizens of Dublin in 1844 and the very bed in which he died three years later; a twenty-minute film introduces the furnished rooms. Transferred to the State in 1964, the house sits in the free Derrynane National Historic Park, 120 hectares of gardens, oak woodland, dunes and beaches, with trails including a section of the Kerry Way, and Abbey Island reachable across the sand at low tide. The house opens from mid March to the start of November, with a cafe; the park is open all year and dogs may walk it on a lead.
The house opens 13 March to 1 November 2026: daily 10:00 to 16:45 from March to September and 10:00 to 16:00 in October and November; OPW prints no last admission and online slots run hourly to 15:00. Closed for the winter from 2 November until spring 2027, whose dates are not yet published. Tickets at reception or on OPW's Admit One site up to seven days ahead (six per booking, morning or afternoon slots), including the free English Heritage Card ticket; on 19 October the site showed no online slots for Wednesday 21 October. Derrynane House is on OPW's Free Wednesday list. The park, gardens and beach are open all year without a ticket.
Level access to the house and gardens with a lift to the first floor, an induction loop at reception, wheelchair-accessible toilets, baby changing, wifi and cards accepted; uneven walkways in the park. The tea rooms off the courtyard open in season. Allow about an hour for the house and longer for the woods and beach; the cliff path to Abbey Island is rough. Assistance dogs only in the house.
Dogs: Pet dogs are not admitted to the house or its ticketed areas; assistance dogs only. Dog walking is permitted in the free Derrynane National Historic Park with dogs on a lead in public areas; the current place page publishes no park rule. Dogs are not allowed on the Kerry Way, a section of which runs through the park.
Photo: Derrynane House, its slate-hung castellated wing and grey gables set against wooded hills, with the chapel to the right and steps down to the lawn. August Schwerdfeger, CC BY 4.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Derrynane_House_2018-08-03_-_1.jpg. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0. Resized and cropped for display; derivatives retain the source licence.
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Dogs, with restrictions
OPW's network of trails through the 120-hectare park from the house car park: woodland paths, a Mass path, a seashore nature trail and a section of the Kerry Way, with Abbey Island reachable across the sand except at high spring tides by a rough cliff path; free, no ticket needed; dogs on a lead in public areas.
Sport Ireland's 232 km waymarked loop round the Iveragh Peninsula from Killarney, a section of which crosses the park (OPW); free; dogs not allowed.
