Derrynane: O'Connell's House and Staigue Fort

Derrynane House was the home of Daniel O'Connell, the Liberator, and it stands in 120 hectares of parkland on the Kerry coast, with relics of his life and career inside. His grandparents built or extended the house in the 1700s; O'Connell himself built the south wing facing the sea and the library wing in 1825, now the oldest parts that survive. Below it you can walk across Derrynane beach to Abbey Island and the ruined Ahamore Abbey, but only at low tide. Nine kilometres away, Staigue Fort was built in the late Iron Age, probably around 100 BC: a ring of dry stone 27 metres across, with walls up to 5.5 metres high and 4 metres thick, and inside an elaborate network of stairways leading to terraces.