Gap of Dunloe Kerry
The Gap of Dunloe is a dramatic mountain pass in County Kerry cut through the McGillycuddy's Reeks by glacial action during the last Ice Age, a narrow valley of approximately six kilometres connecting Beaufort in the south to the Black Valley in the north in a route of extraordinary mountain scenery that traverses some of the finest glacial landscape in Ireland. The Gap is traditionally experienced by pony and trap from Kate Kearney's Cottage at the southern entrance, a combination of transport and scenery that has been providing tourists with one of the most memorable Kerry experiences since the Victorian period.
The glacial valley of the Gap was carved by a glacier flowing south from the ice field of the Reeks, the enormous erosive power of the ice deepening and widening the pre-existing river valley into the U-shaped profile characteristic of glacial erosion. The five glacial lakes that occupy the valley floor at various points along its length, the largest being the Black Lake at the head of the pass, fill the over-deepened sections of the valley floor where the glacier scoured most aggressively into the underlying Old Red Sandstone rock.
The views from the head of the pass into the Black Valley beyond, one of the most remote and most beautiful valleys in Kerry, provide the most dramatic single moment of the traverse. The Black Valley has no electricity supply connected to the national grid and its farms and houses retain a degree of isolation unusual in a Kerry valley accessible by road.