History and Legend

The name Bromore (Bru Mhor) means the Big Gathering Place and refers to the Promontory Fort protected on the East by a large bank and by 180 foot sheer cliffs on all other sides.

There are also two ring forts nearby-Liosdunaflan and Lios Rua.

• The outline or the Prehistoric old coast road is still visible near Bromore Cliffs; this road connected the many Promontory Forts of North Kerry and later the coastal Castles of Beal, Leck, Doon and Ballybunion.
• Saints (Brendan and Senan) and Pirates (Granuaile and John Paul Jones) sailed past Bromore Cliffs as did part of the Spanish Armada and later the Patriot Wolfe Tone.
• In those days of sail this coastline claimed many a ship and its unfortunate crew.
• A section of the cliffs spontaneously ignited and burned for about six years in the 1730’s.
• William Ainsworth wrote a book in 1834 describing the cliffs and caves which led to an increase in visitors to the cliffs here.
• During the Great Famine people risked their lives to get to the cliffs and strands for any available food such as seabirds, limpets, periwinkles or edible seaweed when more accessible places were stripped bare.
• In the two World Wars the strands here were searched daily for wreckage washed ashore from shipping casualties to the west and south–west. In 1939 a Look-Out Post (LOP 43) was built within the Promontory Fort and manned continuously for the duration of WW2.
• There are stories of Cuchulainn and the Fianna hunting wild boar and of battles fought on Knockanore Hill. There are stories of the Forts and the Shee-the Fairies, of Mermaids and Ghost-Ships. Of Cill Stoichin-(Killstiffin)-( the Church in the Waves), a long lost under-sea village.