Quay, Glena, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Transport Infrastructure
On the western side of the narrow channel connecting Muckross Lake and the Upper Lake in Killarney National Park, a small stone pier extends roughly fourteen metres into the water, most of it now submerged.
Its upper surface was once paved, and a patch of concrete at its eastern end suggests later repair or reinforcement, but the structure itself sits low and half-drowned, easy to miss unless you know to look for it.
The pier sits about a hundred metres south of Old Weir Bridge, a well-known crossing point at the meeting of the lakes. Oriented east to west and approximately five metres wide, it abuts a natural rock outcrop along its southern edge, which likely served as both anchor and foundation. Quays of this kind were working infrastructure, used to load and unload boats carrying turf, timber, or supplies across the lake system before road access became practical. The Killarney lakes were navigated extensively for commercial and estate purposes, and small landings like this one were scattered along the shorelines to service that traffic. The concrete patching at the eastern end indicates the structure was still considered worth maintaining at some relatively recent point, though it is now left to the water.