Killarney House opens ‘new chapter’ for town’s tourism

They gathered in Victorian costumes to welcome the official opening of the €7m restoration of Killarney House and gardens on the 155th anniversary of the visit to the estate of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1861.

A painstaking recreation of the gardens, which had been the former estate of the Earls of Kenmare, has been taking place for a number of years and the day-long event to mark its official opening saw locals don Victorian costume.

The project to restore the gardens has been overseen by conservation landscape architect Elizabeth Morgan, along with the Killarney horticulturalist and plantsman, formerly of the OPW, Cormac Foley, and Killarney gardens supervisor Gerry Murphy.