Wonderful visit. The house is lovely with the furnishings, artifacts, displays, and video telling the history and story of Daniel O’Connell, but even if you have no interest in history you can thoroughly enjoy the building, period furnishings, and grounds. There are excellent gardens, a nice cafe tea house, and it’s basically right on Derrynane beach just over an elevation.
I was generally familiar with O’Connell’s political role as the “Great Liberator” but it was interesting to learn more about his career as a successful barrister and his family history. Given how remote the house is by road in the era of cars it’s hard to imagine how the house was an active social scene and place of business back in the day.
You learn a lot about Daniel O'Connell here. Above all, you realize just what a big fan of Daniel O'Connell that Daniel O'Connell was. It is a very pretty property, and definitely worth a visit, both to the house and the beach. The main knock is the L-road to get to it is very long, very windy, barely wide enough for one car yet two-way and prone to lots of buses. Mercifully, we made it down without facing oncoming traffic (just barely).