Rossbeigh Beach

The Ring of Kerry has barely begun before it delivers something extraordinary. A couple of miles beyond the village of Glenbeigh, a narrow lane drops down to Rossbeigh, where a great sandbar curls out into Dingle Bay with mountains at your back and open water ahead. It is a spit rather than an ordinary beach - a natural breakwater of sand and dune built up over millennia, mirrored across the bay by the similar tongue of Inch Strand. On a clear day the two seem to reach toward each other, almost closing the mouth of the bay.

Irish legend gives the place a dreamlike backstory. This, the storytellers say, is where the warrior-poet Oisín met Niamh of the Golden Hair, climbed onto her white horse and rode out over the waves to Tír na nÓg, the land of eternal youth - only to return centuries later to find everyone he loved long gone. It is a fitting tale for a shoreline that seems to run straight into the horizon.

The sand itself is restless. Rossbeigh has long been shaped and reshaped by the Atlantic, and a severe storm breached the outer spit in 2008, splitting the far end into a tidal island; a well-known stone tower that had marked the harbour approach for generations collapsed a few years later and was rebuilt in Glenbeigh village. The beach you walk today is beautiful but ever-changing, and its exact length depends on the tide and the last big storm as much as on any map.

For most visitors, though, Rossbeigh is simply a glorious place to spend a few hours. The Blue Flag strand shelves gently into the water, with lifeguards on duty through the summer, and the firm sand is made for long barefoot walks toward the distant point. Families settle in near the car park, where there's a playground and, in season, basic facilities; the steady southwesterly and the shallow gradient make it a favourite for surfers, windsurfers, kayakers and kite-surfers. Horses are a common sight, ridden along the tideline or thundering past during the Glenbeigh races held on the strand each August. Behind the beach, an energetic loop walk climbs Rossbeigh Hill for wide views over the bay and the Dingle Peninsula beyond.

Rossbeigh lies about two miles from Glenbeigh, signposted off the N70 not long after you leave Killorglin. There's a large car park at the landward end of the spit, close to the sand and reasonably easy for those with limited mobility, and Glenbeigh itself has pubs and places to eat within a couple of minutes' drive. Summer brings the lifeguards, the crowds and the facilities; out of season you may have the whole shining sweep of it to yourself. Allow an hour for a stroll and a look, longer if the surf or the walking tempts you. From here the Ring continues west toward the subtropical greenery of Kells Bay Gardens and the road to Cahersiveen.