[edit]
Historical populationYearPop.±% p.a.14616,173—    14716,212+0.06%15006,331+0.07%15106,355+0.04%15156,404+0.15%15306,445+0.04%15356,616+0.53%15506,888+0.27%15556,923+0.10%15806,970+0.03%15857,032+0.18%16007,085+0.05%16107,111+0.04%16117,180+0.97%16137,212+0.22%16167,445+1.07%16217,616+0.46%16317,710+0.12%16417,955+0.31%16457,999+0.14%16518,045+0.10%16538,210+1.02%16598,390+0.36%1821216,185+2.03%1831263,126+1.98%1841293,880+1.11%1851238,254−2.08%1861201,800−1.65%1871196,586−0.26%1881201,039+0.22%1891179,136−1.15%1901165,726−0.78%1911159,691−0.37%1926149,171−0.45%1936139,834−0.64%1946133,893−0.43%1951126,644−1.11%1956122,072−0.73%1961116,458−0.94%1966112,785−0.64%1971112,772−0.00%1979120,356+0.82%1981122,770+1.00%1986124,159+0.23%1991121,894−0.37%1996126,130+0.69%2002132,527+0.83%2006139,835+1.35%2011145,502+0.80%2016147,707+0.30%2022155,258+0.83%
Kerry (Irish: Ciarraí 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[edit]
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[edit]
Gallarus Oratory near Dingle, which dates back to the 6th century.
Little Skellig, as seen from Skellig Michael.
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[edit]
This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
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[edit]
Ross Castle and Lough Leane, Killarney National Park.
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.
