Castlegregory

Castlegregory sits on the north coast of the Dingle Peninsula, between Tralee Bay and Brandon Bay, at the foot of the Maharees: a five-kilometre spit of sand and dune running out into the Atlantic. Mount Brandon, the second highest mountain in Ireland, stands behind the village, and the beach in front of it runs unbroken for the better part of a day's walk.

It is a working coast rather than a resort. There is no hotel and no traffic light. What there is: some of the best windsurfing water in Europe, a Blue Flag beach with lifeguards, an early monastery on an island offshore, a lagoon holding the country's largest population of natterjack toads, and, over the hill, the newest and largest of Ireland's national parks.

The village takes its name from a castle built here in the sixteenth century by Gregory Hoare, of which almost nothing survives. The longer story is here: the castle and the name, how the sand spit was made, the monastery on Illauntannig, St Brendan and his mountain, the Famine, and the light railway that once ran into the village.

This guide is written and paid for by the people behind Classical Sessions, the free chamber music festival held in the village hall and at Brandon each summer. The 2027 festival runs from 28 July to 8 August.