Kerry ( or in the older spelling
Ciarraighe) means the "people of Ciar" which was the name of the Gaelic tribe who lived in part of the present county. The legendary founder of the tribe was
Ciar, son of
Fergus mac Róich. In
Old Irish "Ciar" meant black or dark brown, and the word continues in use in modern Irish as an adjective describing a dark complexion. The suffix
raighe, meaning
people/tribe, is found in various
-ry place names in Ireland, such as
Osry—
Osraighe Deer-People/Tribe. The county's nickname is
the Kingdom.
Lordship of Ireland On 27 August 1329, by
Letters Patent,
Maurice FitzGerald, 1st Earl of Desmond was confirmed in the feudal seniority of the entire
county palatine of Kerry, to him and his heirs male, to hold of the Crown by the service of one knight's fee. In the 15th century, the majority of the area now known as County Kerry was still part of the
County Desmond, the west Munster seat of the
Earl of Desmond, a branch of the
Hiberno-Norman FitzGerald dynasty, known as the
Geraldines.
Kingdom of Ireland In 1580, during the
Second Desmond Rebellion, one of the most infamous massacres of the Sixteenth century, the
Siege of Smerwick, took place at Dún an Óir near
Ard na Caithne (Smerwick) at the tip of the
Dingle Peninsula. The 600-strong Italian, Spanish and Irish
papal invasion force of
James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald was besieged by the English forces and massacred. In 1588, when the fleet of the
Spanish Armada in Ireland were returning to
Spain during stormy weather, many of its ships sought shelter at the
Blasket Islands and some were wrecked. During the
Nine Years' War, Kerry was again the scene of conflict, as the O'Sullivan Beare clan joined the rebellion. In 1602 their castle at
Dunboy was
besieged and taken by English troops.
Donal O'Sullivan Beare, in an effort to escape English retribution and to reach his allies in
Ulster, marched all the clan's members and dependants to the north of Ireland. Due to harassment by hostile forces and freezing weather, very few of the 1,000 O'Sullivans who set out reached their destination. In the aftermath of the War, much of the native owned land in Kerry was confiscated and given to English settlers or 'planters'. The head of the
MacCarthy Mor family,
Florence MacCarthy was imprisoned in London and his lands were divided between his relatives and colonists from England, such as the Browne family. In the 1640s Kerry was engulfed by the
Irish Rebellion of 1641, an attempt by Irish Catholics to take power in the Protestant
Kingdom of Ireland. The rebellion in Kerry was led by
Donagh McCarthy, 1st Viscount Muskerry. His son
the Earl of Clancarty held the county during the subsequent
Irish Confederate Wars and his forces were among the last to surrender to the
Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in 1652. The last stronghold to fall was
Ross Castle, near Killarney.
The Famine In the 18th and 19th centuries Kerry became increasingly populated by poor tenant farmers, who came to rely on the
potato as their main food source. As a result, when the potato crop failed in 1845, Kerry was very hard hit by the
Great Irish Famine of 1845–49. In the wake of the famine, many thousands of poor farmers emigrated to seek a better life in America and elsewhere. Kerry was to remain a source of emigration until recent times (up to the 1980s). The earliest criminal gang in USA were the
Kerryonians. Another long term consequence of the famine was the
Land War of the 1870s and 1880s, in which tenant farmers agitated, sometimes violently, for better terms from their landlords. The population of Kerry dropped significantly during the Famine, with a 19% drop in population during the
Census of 1841 and 1851.
War of Independence and Civil War In the 20th century, Kerry was one of the counties most affected by the
Irish War of Independence (1919–21) and
Irish Civil War (1922–23). In the war of Independence, the
Irish Republican Army fought a guerilla war against the
Royal Irish Constabulary, and British military. One of the more prominent incidents in the conflict in Kerry was the
siege of Tralee in November 1920, when the
Black and Tans placed in
Tralee burned many homes, and shot dead a number of local people in retaliation for the IRA killing of five local policemen the night before. On 10 December 1920
Martial law was declared in the Counties of Kerry, Cork and Limerick. Another incident was the
Headford Junction ambush in spring 1921, when IRA units ambushed a train carrying British soldiers outside Killarney. About ten British soldiers, three civilians and two IRA men were killed in the ensuing gun battle. Violence between the IRA and the British was ended in July 1921, but nine men, four British soldiers and five IRA men, were killed in a shoot-out in Castleisland on the day of the truce itself, indicating the bitterness of the conflict in Kerry. Following the
Anglo-Irish Treaty, most of the Kerry IRA units opposed the settlement. One exception existed in
Listowel where a pro-Treaty garrison was established by local Flying Column commandant Thomas Kennelly in February 1922. This unit consisted of 200 regular soldiers along with officers and NCOs. A batch of rifles, machine guns and a
Crossley tender were sent from Dublin. Listowel would remain a base for those supporting the treaty throughout the conflict. The town was eventually overcome by superior numbers of anti-Treaty forces belonging to the Kerry No. 2 and 3 Brigades in June 1922. In the ensuing civil war between pro- and anti-treaty elements, Kerry was perhaps the worst affected area of Ireland. Initially the county was held by the
Anti-Treaty IRA but it was taken for the
Irish Free State after
seaborne landings by National Army troops at
Fenit,
Tarbert and
Kenmare in August 1922. Thereafter the county saw a bitter guerilla war between men who had been comrades only a year previously. The republicans, or "irregulars", mounted a number of successful actions, for example attacking and briefly re-taking
Kenmare in September 1922. In March 1923 Kerry saw a series of
massacres of republican prisoners by
National Army soldiers, in reprisal for the ambush of their men—the most notorious being the
killing of eight men with mines at Ballyseedy, near Tralee. The internecine conflict was brought to an end in May 1923 as the rule of law was re-established following the death of IRA Chief of Staff
Liam Lynch, and the order by
Frank Aiken to dump all arms. ==Local government==