Healy Pass

Healy pass

The R574 is an Irish regional road in the Beara peninsula which crosses the Caha Mountains via the (Tim) Healy Pass. It runs from the R572 at Adrigole in County Cork to the R571 near Lauragh in County Kerry. It is a popular tourist route with the pass at an altitude of 300m giving panoramas towards Bantry Bay to the south-east and the Kenmare River to the north-west.

The original track, called the Kerry Pass, was cut during the Great Famine as a poor relief public works project. It was renamed for Timothy Michael Healy, former Governor-General of the Irish Free State, who died in 1931 shortly after the road was improved. The name « Healy Pass » is now also applied to the pass itself, previously called Ballaghscart or Ballyscarta, anglicisations of Irish: Bealach Scairte, which remains its Irish name.

Healy Pass

Flickr Album Gallery Powered By: WP Frank