History of Tralee and Fenit Harbour

The Tralee Harbour Board was established in 1840.

Commercial shipping started to use Blennerville, at the head of Tralee Bay, as the access point for the town of Tralee.

Prior to this cargo for Tralee was transported through Barrow Harbour, a natural sea inlet, just North of Fenit. Barrow was historically the port used to service Ardfert, now a village but in the monastic era it was a major ecclesiastical centre with students and monks from many parts of Europe.

In the year 1880, the harbour at Fenit was built and the Harbour Board took on the name "Tralee and Fenit Pier and Harbour Board"

In 1851 a lighthouse was built on the little Samphire Rock, located a few hunderd meters west of Fenit Pier.

On the 8th of August, 1922, during the Irish Civil War, Fenit was the scene of a major seabourne landing by over 1000 Free State troops, as part of an offensive to re-take Kerry and the Republican held province of Munster.

A large bronze sculpture of Saint Brendan, the Navigator, was erected in 2004 on Great Samphire Island, the rock around which the harbour was built. Saint Brendan was probably born on Fenit Island just north west of the village.

Fenit Castle, a tower house, was built in the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries to protect the entrance to Barrow Harbour.