Waterville

Waterville - An Coireán, 'the little whirlpool' - sits on a slender isthmus with the open Atlantic of Ballinskelligs Bay on one side and the dark trout-and-salmon waters of Lough Currane on the other, the two almost meeting across the width of the village. It grew up around water in more ways than one: in the 1880s it became a major European landfall for the transatlantic telegraph cables, and the engineers and operators who staffed the cable station brought golf with them, laying out a course among the dunes that has since matured into the championship links Waterville is famous for today.

But the name most visitors know here is Charlie Chaplin's. The great comedian first came in 1959, reputedly on a fly-fishing tip from Walt Disney, fell for the place and the fishing, and returned with his family almost every year for the next decade, always staying at the Butler Arms Hotel on the front. The village has embraced the connection warmly: a bronze statue of Chaplin in his Little Tramp costume, unveiled in the late 1990s, stands looking out to sea on the promenade, and remains the most-photographed spot in the village.

For a stretch a summer film festival celebrated the link, though it has effectively lapsed since 2022, so don't plan a trip around it. What endures is quieter and more reliable - the walk along the seafront, the light on the bay, a round on the links for those who book ahead, and some of the finest wild-brown-trout angling in Ireland out on Lough Currane. There's an exhibition on the cable-station era at the community centre for a wet afternoon.

Waterville sits on the N70 roughly midway round the Ring, an easy base with plenty of places to eat and stay. From here the road climbs south over Coomakista Pass toward Derrynane House, while a quieter loop north leads out to the Gaeltacht village of Ballinskelligs and the Skellig coast.