The Art of Kerry: Killarney, Dingle and the Kerry Hills in Irish Art

Kerry has always been easier to describe than to paint. The light changes every ten minutes, the mountains sit low and blue behind everything, and the coast breaks into peninsulas so quickly that no single picture can stand for the whole county. The artists who tried, over two centuries, ended up with very different Kerrys. This guide follows a few of them, and the prints that carry their work.

Burton on the Corca Dhuibhne coast

Frederic William Burton (1816–1900) is remembered for one famous picture, but he spent most of his working life as a watercolourist, and his drawings of the Irish coast are the quieter half of his reputation. He could not tolerate the smell of oil paint, so everything he made is watercolour or drawing, which gives it a consistency you notice when you hang several together.

His view of Muiríoch Beach on the Corca Dhuibhne coast is held by the National Gallery of Ireland. Corca Dhuibhne is the Irish name for the Dingle peninsula, and it is still one of the strongest Irish-speaking districts in the country. Burton records the shoreline in close detail without hurrying it. If you want to see more of his hand, the Frederic William Burton collection collects the set.

Lavery comes home

Sir John Lavery was born in Belfast and made his career in Glasgow, Paris and London. In the early 1920s he toured Ireland, and the trip reads as a homecoming. The Kingdom of Kerry (c.1921) shows soft Atlantic light over the Kerry hills, handled with the loose, confident brushwork of a painter who no longer needed to prove anything. It is a calm picture, closer to the country's mood than to the postcard. More of his Irish work sits in the John Lavery collection.

Butler on the hillside

Mildred Anne Butler is best known for the garden at Kilmurry in County Kilkenny, but she also worked out in the hills. In Unpacking the Picnic, Kerry, a woman in a white dress works bundles loose from a donkey's back while a child in blue holds the rope. Behind them the hillside runs from gorse and rough grass into heather, with the Kerry mountains low and blue under a heavy sky. The washes are quick and wet, and the figures are caught in the middle of a job. Butler was elected an associate of the Royal Watercolour Society in 1896 and a full member in 1937. It is the most domestic picture of Kerry in this guide, and probably the most likeable.

Killarney: a park for everyone

Killarney became Ireland's first national park in 1932, built around the donated Muckross Estate. Mountains, lakes and native red deer that had been private grounds were suddenly open to everyone. That history suits a poster-style treatment, and our Killarney National Park print takes its bold geometric look from the WPA poster tradition, reimagined for Kerry's own mountains and water. It works well in a hallway or a small room where you want a strong shape rather than fine detail.

Dingle and the Atlantic edge

The Dingle peninsula is the Kerry that most visitors remember: cliffs, winding coast roads and the open ocean to the west. The Dingle Peninsula coastal print gives that sweeping view in a framed format, and it sits naturally on the Wild Atlantic Way shelf of any collection.

Choosing a Kerry print

• For a quiet, painterly room: Burton's Muiríoch Beach or Butler's hillside picnic. Both are watercolours and both reward being seen up close.
• For a larger wall: Lavery's Kingdom of Kerry, where the open sky does the work at a distance.
• For a bold graphic piece: the Killarney print.
• For a gift to someone from Kerry or who loves it: Dingle, or whichever place they would name first.

If you would rather browse by subject than by artist, the Irish Landscape & Seascape Art Prints collection and the Irish Photographic Prints collection are both good places to compare Kerry with Clare, Galway and Donegal. Or start from the full Irish Art Prints hub.

Every print is made to order on archival 250gsm matte paper and ships free worldwide, framed or unframed.