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Photo: Emmett.Hume, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Grand mansion built in 1843 in Tudor style, and embellished for Queen Victoria's visit of 1861. Two sideshows have outgrown the original attraction: "Muckross Traditional Farms" are an outdoor museum of farm life in Kerry in the 1930s, with demonstration of country crafts and cutesy animals for children to pet. There's also a large clothing and pottery retail outlet.
Muckross House is located on the small Muckross Peninsula between Muckross Lake and Lough Leane, two of the lakes of Killarney, 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) from the town of Killarney in County Kerry, Ireland. In 1932 it was presented by William Bowers Bourn and Arthur Rose Vincent to the Irish nation. It thus became the first National Park in the Irish Free State and formed the basis of the present day Killarney National Park. The house now forms part of a visitor attraction marketed as Muckross House, Gardens and Traditional Farms.
© OpenStreetMap contributors
The first monastery was founded in the 6th century, but the ruins you see now are of the Franciscan friary of 1448. (Actually not an abbey, where monks live in seclusion: friars preached in their locality.) It was smashed up on several occasions before Dissolution and a final scourging by Cromwell. The ruin is roofless but extensive; a striking central courtyard has a yew tree and cloisters. The graveyard remains in use.
This now hosts the park visitor centre. It was originally a grand 18th-century chateau but proved serially combustible, so eventually the owners gave up and decamped to the stables, converting them into the present house.