How to Cross the Gap of Dunloe: Every Way Through

Most places you visit, but the Gap of Dunloe you cross. Arrive at Kate Kearney's Cottage expecting a viewpoint with a car park and you might be surprised to find the start of an eleven kilometre mountain road that comes out somewhere else entirely.

So the question is how you get through it, and how you get back.

From Kate Kearney's over the Head of the Gap

The Gap runs roughly north to south, from Kate Kearney's Cottage at the top to Lord Brandon's Cottage at the bottom, eleven kilometres of single-track road over the Head of the Gap and down into the Black Valley. There is nothing sold in between: no shop, no cafe, no bank machine.

At the far end the road stops mattering and the water takes over. Open boats run from Lord Brandon's down the Upper Lake, along the Long Range and across Lough Leane to Ross Castle outside Killarney. That crossing, road one way and water the other, is the classic Gap day, and people have been making it for well over a century.

Everything below is a way of doing that, or a way of avoiding it.

On foot

The honest option, and the cheapest. Eleven kilometres from Kate Kearney's to Lord Brandon's, climbing steadily to the Head of the Gap and dropping into the valley beyond. Three hours at a walking pace, more with stops, and it is a road the whole way rather than a mountain path, so it needs ordinary fitness rather than hillwalking experience.

At the far end you arrive at Lord Brandon's eleven kilometres from your car with no bus to collect you, so you are either booking a boat, arranging a lift, or walking back the way you came and making it twenty two.

If that is more day than you want, walk in as far as the Wishing Bridge or the Head of the Gap and turn round. You will have seen the best of it. The full crossing is a commitment rather than an upgrade.

By bike, boat optional

A popular option, and for good reason: it turns the awkward far end into the point. Hire a bike in Killarney, take the boat out to Lord Brandon's, then ride back over the Gap and down to town. You get the water and the road, in the order that puts the climbing behind you early.

Done the other way round, north to south, the ascent from Kate Kearney's is the hard part and the run down into the Black Valley is the reward. Either works. The boat operators carry bikes, which is what makes the whole thing possible.

You can also leave the boat out of it and ride the loop. Out from Killarney to Kate Kearney's, over the Gap, then home the long way round through the Black Valley and along the N71 past Ladies View: a little under fifty kilometres with two real climbs in it. That is a day for someone who came to cycle, rather than someone who hired a bike for the afternoon, and it has the advantage of running to nobody's timetable but your own.

By pony and trap

The jaunting cars wait in the yard at Kate Kearney's, and this is the way the Gap has been travelled since tourism here began. It takes an hour and a half to two hours to the far end.

On the money, since it is the thing people most often ask and least often find. Reckon on somewhere around thirty five to forty euro a head, or in the region of a hundred and forty for a trap with four aboard. It is cash, settled on the day.

Some jarveys quote per person and some quote for the car, and the car is the unit that decides it: a party of two can pay close to what four would, or be made up to four with strangers. Nothing is posted on a board, the rate moves with the season, and travellers regularly report paying different amounts on the same morning.

So agree the price before you get in, and be clear whether it covers you or the trap. Doing that in the yard, before anyone moves, is worth more than any figure printed here.

A trap is an open cart on an exposed mountain road for the best part of two hours. Some of the Killarney cars have had roofs fitted, but do not count on drawing one of those, and bring a coat you would be happy to sit still in.

By boat

The boats are the half of the journey that no road can give you, and they are the reason the crossing is worth the logistics. From Lord Brandon's the route runs down the Upper Lake, through the narrow twisting Long Range, past the Meeting of the Waters and out onto Lough Leane to Ross Castle.

They run in both directions, so you can start with the water and finish on the road, or the reverse. They are open boats. In fine weather that is the whole charm of it; in poor weather it is an hour on the water with nowhere to hide, so bring proper rain gear rather than an umbrella and expect to sit in it.

Book ahead in season. This is the one part of the day with a timetable and a capacity.

By car

It is a public road and you are entitled to drive it. Whether you will enjoy it is a different question.

The road is single track, walled in places, with passing spaces rather than passing lanes. The first stretch above Kate Kearney's is where the pony traps gather, so that is where you will be slowest, moving at their pace and backing into gaps for whatever is coming the other way. The jarveys make their living on this road and would rather you were not on it, which is worth knowing before you meet the first one.

Go early and little of that applies. First thing in the morning, before the traps are out and the coach parties arrive, it is a quiet mountain road and a fine drive.

There is a separate way in that does not involve the Gap at all. Lord Brandon's can be reached from the south, off the N71 near Moll's Gap and through the Black Valley - a long, slow, narrow drive, but it puts you at the boats without crossing the pass.

What to bring, and when to come

Cash, first. The jarveys take it, the tearoom at Lord Brandon's takes only it, and you should not count on a cash machine at either end.

Then the ordinary things this landscape asks for: a jacket you believe in, water, and something to eat if you are walking or cycling, because the eleven kilometres in between sell nothing at all.

The boats are a summer business. Operators run them broadly from spring into September and none of them advertise a winter service, so the water half of the crossing is not something to count on outside the season.

The traps keep going longer, and the Killarney jaunting cars work most of the year, but whether anyone is waiting in the yard at Kate Kearney's on a wet Tuesday in February is another matter. Out of season, ring ahead rather than driving out on the assumption.

The road itself is there all year, and the Gap in winter with nobody on it is worth having. Just go knowing you are walking or cycling it both ways.

The Gap is on the interactive map, along with Kate Kearney's at one end and Lord Brandon's at the other, which is the easiest way to see why the far end is the part to plan.