Ten Years On: When The Washington Post Fell in Love with Kenmare
This day ten years ago, on 1st September 2016, a little town on Ireland’s southwest coast found itself in the pages of The Washington Post.
The headline read: “On Ireland’s southwest coast, history rich Kenmare is the gateway to County Kerry.”
Written by American travel writer Anne Calcagno, the article introduced readers across the Atlantic to a town many of us are lucky enough to simply call home.
Ten years later, we thought it would be lovely to revisit the Kenmare she discovered. Because while quite a lot has changed since 2016, remarkably, the things she loved most about Kenmare really haven’t.
“Compact and cosmopolitan, historic and avant garde”
It's difficult to think of a better description of Kenmare.
Calcagno arrived here while celebrating her 30th wedding anniversary with her husband and visiting friends who had retired to the town. What she discovered was somewhere that seemed to contain an extraordinary amount within a very small place. History stretching back thousands of years. Colourful streets. Craftspeople and artists. Wonderful food. Mountains, sea and wilderness within minutes of the town centre.
And, of course, characters, and Kenmare has always had plenty of those. She described the town memorably as “compact and cosmopolitan, historic and avant garde.”
Ten years later, we might still happily borrow those words.
A town shaped by history
The Washington Post journey through Kenmare began long before the cafés, restaurants and colourful shopfronts we know today.
At the Kenmare Stone Circle, the story reaches back to the Bronze Age. Then came the history of the town itself and the Petty Fitzmaurice family.
The article tells its American readers about William Petty Fitzmaurice, 2nd Earl of Shelburne, and the development of Kenmare’s distinctive street plan in the eighteenth century. Those broad streets and unusual layout remain part of what makes the centre of Kenmare so instantly recognisable today.
Walk around town ten years after the article was written and the history Calcagno discovered is still all around us and sometimes, quite literally, beneath our feet.
And then she discovered Kenmare Lace…
Perhaps one of the loveliest parts of the 2016 article is its exploration of something very close to Kenmare’s heart, Kenmare Lace.
Following the devastation of the Great Famine, the Poor Clare nuns came to Kenmare and established a convent here. Among their work was teaching local women skills through which they could earn an income. From those beginnings emerged the extraordinary tradition of Kenmare Lace.
And when The Washington Post wanted to understand that story in 2016, Anne Calcagno went to two women who have spent decades protecting it: Nora and Emer Finnegan.
The article explored not simply the beauty of the lace, but its social history.
For generations of women, lace making represented something enormously important: education, a skill and the possibility of earning their own money.
Nora shared an extraordinary example of the value placed on the work. In 1866, a Kenmare lace bedspread was reportedly purchased by a woman in Texas for £300, at a time when a house could apparently be bought for around £100.
Perhaps even more remarkable was the portability of the skill. Young women leaving Ireland could carry the tools of their trade with them in a pocket. A tiny piece of Kenmare travelling out into the world.
Ten years later, the story continues
There is something particularly poignant about rereading that section in 2026. Nora Finnegan is still here. Kenmare Lace is still being made, and a new generation is once again looking at how we preserve, celebrate and share this extraordinary part of our heritage.
Ten years ago, one of America's great newspapers recognised that Kenmare Lace wasn't simply a beautiful craft. It was part of the story of Kenmare itself, a story of women, work, creativity, survival and independence.
A town of makers, designers and crafters
The Washington Post also noticed something else about Kenmare that remains wonderfully familiar, that we make things here.
The article celebrated the craftspeople, artists and independent businesses that gave the town its character, from jewellery and woollens to leatherwork and art.
Some of the names and businesses on our streets have inevitably changed over ten years and others remain.
New artists have arrived. New makers have opened doors. New restaurants, cafés and shops have become part of the town. But that independent spirit remains unmistakably Kenmare.
This is still a town where the person behind the counter may very well be the person who made what you're buying. And we rather like it that way.
Then, of course, there was the food
Even in 2016, Kenmare had a reputation for punching considerably above its weight when it came to food. Calcagno discovered traditional Irish cooking alongside a thriving contemporary food scene and wrote about several of the restaurants and guesthouses that were part of Kenmare life at the time.
Ten years later, food remains one of the great pleasures of visiting the town. Restaurants have changed. New chefs and restaurateurs have arrived and the old favourites have evolved.
But you still don't have to walk very far in Kenmare to find something very good to eat and some things are probably best left unchanged.
And beyond the town…
Then there is the part of Kenmare that none of us could change even if we wanted to; the landscape.
The Washington Post writer ventured beyond the town to discover Gleninchaquin, Uragh Stone Circle, the Sheen Valley, the Caha Pass, Moll's Gap, Ladies View, Priest's Leap and the mountains beyond.
Those places were ancient when the article was written ten years ago. Ten years, thankfully, has made very little difference to them.
Kenmare still sits in that extraordinary position between the Ring of Kerry and the Beara Peninsula, with mountains behind us and Kenmare Bay stretching out before us.
You can have coffee in the town in the morning and, remarkably quickly, find yourself somewhere that feels completely wild and perhaps that's one of Kenmare's greatest luxuries.
Kenmare, ten years on
Ten years have passed since The Washington Post introduced its readers to our colourful little town on Ireland's southwest coast.
Businesses have opened and closed. Buildings have been restored. New families have arrived. Children have grown up. Visitors have returned year after year and some, just like the friends Anne Calcagno came to visit, have decided they might rather stay.
But the things she discovered here in 2016 remain.
The landscape.
The history.
The craftsmanship.
The food.
The characters.
And that wonderful contradiction she captured so perfectly: a place capable of being both historic and forward looking, traditional and surprising. Perhaps that's why Kenmare gets under people's skin.
And perhaps the nicest thing we can say, ten years later, is simply this:
Kenmare is still Kenmare.
And we wouldn't have it any other way.
Anne Calcagno's original article, “On Ireland's southwest coast, history rich Kenmare is the gateway to County Kerry”, was published by The Washington Post on 1 September 2016.
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