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Town in County Kerry, Ireland
Photo: Colin Park, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Listowel is a town in County Kerry, 28 km northeast of Tralee. With a population of 4794 in 2022, it's the largest settlement in the north of the county. Its name in Irish is Lios Tuathail, "Tuathal's ringfort", which presumably lies somewhere beneath its stout Norman castle. Listowel was home to the world's first operational monorail, but is nowadays better known for the several literary figures associated with it.
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This museum celebrates the likes of John B. Keane, Bryan MacMahon, Brendan Kennelly, Maurice Walsh and George Fitzmaurice. The tourist information centre is also here.
The Lartigue system was inspired by camels shifting balanced paniers across the sands of Algeria. The Listowel-Ballybunion line, opened in 1888, was the longest built to this design, and its drawbacks were obvious as soon as a portly passenger shifted in his seat. If you wanted to send a cow to market, you had to balance it with two calves, who could balance each other on the ride back; and level crossings were a mechanical mess. The line was scrapped in 1924 but there's nowadays a museum, and you ride a short reconstructed section, hauled by a diesel got up to look like the original steam-loco-on-a-bicycle.
Behan's
Trad pub with bar meals and restaurant, they also have rooms.
Smart Georgian hotel by the castle, good food and service.
Comfy efficient hotel near the north beach.
By road from Dublin take N7 past Limerick onto M20 then N21 through Adare to Rathkeale, then R523.
Read in the guideListowel and Ballybunion are small and walkable, with buses between. You need wheels to see the rest of the district.
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