Tralee & Environs (Co. Kerry)
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Tralee (Trá Lí) (pop. 23,500), capital of “The Kingdom” of County Kerry, is a friendly commercial town with excellent shopping facilities, some good pubs, a few decent restaurants and exceptionally scenic hinterland.
The town is situated at the confluence of County Kerry’s River Lee and several other small rivers and adjacent to marshy ground at the head of Tralee Bay. The name is said to come from Trá Lí / Laoi, meaning ‘strand of the Lee‘, although some claim it comes from Trá Liath, meaning ‘grey strand’.
The Pikeman Memorial, aka the Croppy Boy, has become the symbol of Tralee. Sculpted by Albert Power and erected on Denny St in 1939, the statue commemorates the 1798 Rebellion, even though the town played no part in the events of that year. (Photo – Kglavin)
Tralee History
John Thomas FitzGerald, posthumously aka John of Callan, founder of the Munster Geraldines, established Tralee’s Great Castle and a Dominican Friary in the C13th, and the town developed as a stronghold of his descendants, the Earls of Desmond.
The mediaeval town was destroyed in 1580 in retribution for the Desmond Rebellions. The FitzGeralds burnt down their own castle rather than let it fall to their enemies.
In 1587 Queen Elizabeth I granted huge tracts of land as a reward for his role in the massacre of Dún an Oir to Sir Edward Denny, who rebuilt the castle and procured a Royal Charter for Tralee from King James I in 1613. His descendants dominated the area for much of the next 300 years.
The Wars of the Three Kingdoms saw the castle besieged between 1641-2 by a group of Catholic rebels led by Piaras Ferriter, a Gaelic poet, whose successful local uprising was eventually quashed by Parliamentarian soldiers.The Dominican Friary, officially suppressed in 1580, continued to function until 1652, when it was completely destroyed by Cromwellian troops, who also laid waste to much of the town.The modern layout of Tralee was established in the early C19th. The Great Castle was demolished to make way for Denny Street, a wide Georgian thoroughfare completed in 1826.The Great Famine had less of an impact on Tralee than it might have due to the altruism of Sir Edward Denny, 4th Bart, a prominent member of the newly-founded Plymouth Brethren. Unlike so many landlords at that time, he maintained rents to suit his tenants. Nevertheless, thousands of homeless peasants who perished in the streets and local Workhouse were buried in mass graves.Writing in 1854, Archdeacon Rowan observed:
“If ever there was a new town, Tralee is one. There are in it men old enough to remember the building of almost every house now standing. Everything in it is new. There is a new court house – and a new jail – and the new barracks and the new poor house – new houses – new scouts hall – new shops on all sides of the street – new plate glass fronts in their windows – new flagway underfoot – new lights (gas light) overhead – the new canal – and we soon hope to see the new railway station.”
During the War of Independence, British soldiers torched the old town hall in October 1920. In revenge for the IRA‘s abduction and murder of two RIC men, the Black and Tans closed the town down in November 1920, burned houses and businesses connected with IRA activists, shot three local people dead and did not let any food into Tralee for seven days. Near famine conditions prevailed by the end of the week, and the incident caused an international outcry.
In August 1922, during the Irish Civil War, Irish Free State troops landed at nearby Fenit and then took Tralee from its Republican garrison. Nine attackers and three defenders were killed in fighting in the town. The anti-Treaty forces withdrew, only to continue a guerrilla campaign in the surrounding area.
The Ashe Memorial Hall, an imposing sandstone building at one end of Denny St, was erected in 1928 and dedicated to the memory of Thomas Ashe, an Easter 1916 Uprising leader who died on hunger strike. The Hall housed local authority offices until 1992, and is now home to the Kerry County Museum, incorporating an entertaining inter-active reconstruction of medieval Geraldine Tralee. (Photo – Kglavin)
Tralee Town Park, the former Denny demesne surrounding the Hall on three sides, contains a surprising quantity of subtropical plants; even bananas grow here. It is particularly beautiful in July and August when the famous Rose Garden is in full bloom. A new feature of the park is the recently created Garden of the Senses.
The Siamsa National Folk Theatre of Ireland, also located in the Park, celebrates Ireland’s Gaelic cultural heritage through expert performances including music, song, dance and drama.
St John’s church (CoI) was built on the site of the ancient parish church in 1623, rebuilt in 1819, enlarged in 1831, and is still in use. The atmospheric burial ground contains several interesting graves.
Tralee courthouse was designed by Sir Richard Morrison and built in 1835. It has a monument of two cannons commemorating those Kerrymen who died in the Crimean War (1854-1856) and the Indian Rebellion (1857).
Other historic landmarks on the recently restored and partially pedestrianised Ashe St (formerly Nelson St) are the old Mill and the Market, unfortunately currently disused.
The Georgian Visitor Centre in Day Place is the restored home of Sir Robert Day, a prominent jurist whose family connections with the Denny estate were very useful to all concerned.
St John’s church (RC), a Gothic Revival edifice designed by JJ McCarthy and completed in 1870, dominates Tralee’s skyline. from all approaches. The Sanctuary Window (1860) is by Michael O’Connor and the s Stations of the Cross are by Sean Keating.
The Dominican church of the Holy Cross (RC), designed by George Ashlin and EW Pugin, was inaugurated in 1871.
The church of Our Lady & St Brendan (RC) is a modern edifice containing several fine works of art.
The Wesleyan Methodists established a chapel off Denny St in 1829, relocated to Listowel Road in 1947.
A Presbyterian congregation was formed from Tralee’s Scottish population in 1840. A church was built in Edward St in 1846. By the 1870s the majority of the members were Irish.The church was demolished in 1974.
Having merged, the Methodist and Presbyterian congregations used the Listowel Road church until Non-Conformist services in Tralee ceased in 1976. The church became a furniture warehouse.
The Dúchas Theatre on Edward St provides an atmospheric setting for traditional song, dance and céilis.
The recently redeveloped Square is now used as the central market- and event place. (Photo – Peter Gerken)
The Mall, Bridge St, and some of the less obvious streets and lanes also repay browsing.
The Grand Hotel Tralee in the centre of the town retains old world charm with open fires, ornate ceilings and mahogany furnishings. The Samuel Restaurant, said to be one of the best restaurants in Kerry, was once the office of Samuel Hussey, land agent, staunch enemy of the Land League and controversial author.
Tralee’s Institute of Technology, based on two futuristic campuses, has over 3,500 students.
The International Rose of Tralee Festival is a cringe-inducing celebration of auld Ireland held every August, largely a cynical marketing exercise aimed at Irish-Americans and other sentimental members of the Diaspora.
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