Museums & Archive

Kerry County Museum

Ashe Memorial Hall, Denny Street,
Tralee, Co. Kerry
Tel: 066 712 7777
Fax: 066 712 7444
Email: info@kerrymuseum.ie
Website: www.kerrymuseum.ie

Opening times:
1st May to 31st October from 9.30am to 5.30pm.
2nd January to 30th April: Tuesday to Saturday from 9.30am to 5pm.
1st November to 20th December: Tuesday to Saturday 9.30am to 5pm.
On bank holiday weekends the Museum will be open on Sunday and Monday from 10am to 5pm.

Kerry County Museum in the Ashe Hall provides a fascinating guide to the archaeological riches and heritage of the ‘Kingdom’ from the Stone Age to the present day. Priceless archaeological treasures are displayed in our Museum Gallery, while a stroll through the Medieval Experience reveals the streets of Tralee as they were in 1450 AD, with all the sights, sounds and smells of a bustling community. A trek through our award-winning Antarctica Exhibition will show you what drove Kerry’s famous explorer, Tom Crean, to risk his life repeatedly in Antarctica with Scott and Shackleton. Kerry County Museum is a designated repository under the National Monuments Act. The Museum frequently runs events and workshops and has a regular Saturday morning History Club for children.

McGillycuddy’s Reeks from Inch Sand Dunes, a watercolour by Edward Wilson
Scientist, naturalist and artist, Edward Wilson was from Cheltenham in England. In 1900 he joined Captain R.F. Scott’s Discovery expedition to Antarctica as the junior medical officer and zoologist. Another member of that expedition was the Kerryman Tom Crean, on the first of his three trips to the frozen continent. On his return from the Antarctic Wilson and his family came to Kerry on holidays in August 1905, taking a house overlooking Inch Strand, and it was here that he painted a number of landscapes of the area.

These Kerry watercolours were generously donated to the Museum by the Wilson family. Wilson went south to Antarctica with Scott and Crean again in 1910 on the Terra Nova expedition. He never came back: he died there in 1912, along with Scott and three others, on the return journey from their doomed attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole.