OPW Heritage Ireland places in County Kerry

A small medieval church of limestone and sandstone near Blennerville, south-west of Tralee, with a carved Norman horseman inside its south wall and a pointed sandstone doorway, in a graveyard still in use; free, open-air.

A 12th-century cathedral with nine lancet windows and two smaller medieval churches on St Brendan's monastic site in Ardfert village; €5 in season, closed until the 2027 season.

A Franciscan friary founded by the Fitzmaurice lords of Kerry in the late 13th century, with a long lancet-lit church, a 15th-century tower and cloister, east of Ardfert village; free, open-air, a paved walk from the car park.

The shoreline priory of 1210 built to house the monks of Sceilg Mhichíl, its ruined church, cloister and graveyard behind a sea wall on Ballinskelligs Bay; free, open-air, a ten-minute dune walk from the beach car park.

The O'Connors' 1490s tower house on a rock at the mouth of the Shannon, breached by artillery in the siege of 1580, with 104 steps to the top opened by a caretaker in summer; free, open-air, parking beside the castle.

Daniel O'Connell's ancestral home on the Ring of Kerry, with his triumphal chariot and deathbed, set in a free 120-hectare park of gardens, woods, dunes and beaches; house open mid March to 1 November, cafe, car park.

The upturned-boat-shaped drystone oratory below Mount Brandon on the Dingle Peninsula, one of only three with its corbelled roof intact; free at all times by OPW's public path, open-air, a private charging visitor centre beside it.

St Maolcethair's early Christian and Romanesque church complex of the 1130s on the Dingle Peninsula, with an ogham stone, sundial, alphabet stone and cross on the pilgrim path to Mount Brandon; free, open-air, roadside parking only.

A Franciscan friary built by the O'Connor Kerry lords in 1470 above Ballylongford Creek, with a traceried east window, a triple sedilia and a dormitory range, in a graveyard near Carrigafoyle Castle; free, open-air.

Two 15 m towers and a linking arch survive of this Anglo-Norman castle above the River Feale, the rebels' last stand in 1600; free guided tours in summer, closed until the 2027 season.

A restored drystone ringfort with two house foundations and a souterrain, high above Ballinskelligs Bay on the Ring of Kerry with views to Sceilg Mhichíl; free, open-air, up a steep single-track lane.

A tenth-century church of purple sandstone, seat of the bishops of Kerry from 1111 to 1117, with a sixth-century ogham stone and an early cross-slab inside, in Rath Cemetery on the edge of Tralee; free, open-air.

The excavated early Christian enclosure of An Riasc near Ballyferriter, with the footings of an oratory, paired beehive huts and the famous cross-inscribed Reask pillar stone; free, open-air, a short detour off the Slea Head Drive.

Fifteenth-century O'Donoghue tower house on Lough Leane in Killarney National Park, seen on a guided tour of fifteen; adult €5, free for English Heritage members, free NPWS parking and lakeside trails.

A World Heritage island monastery of stone beehive huts 11.5 km off Kerry, reached by 618 steps; landings only mid May to September by permitted boats, closed until the 2027 season.

OPW's heritage centre at Dunquin on the Dingle Peninsula telling the story of the Great Blasket islanders and their literature, with interactive exhibitions, a film, a clifftop viewing platform.