The History of Kate Kearney
Kate Kearney of the Gap
At the beginning of the nineteenth century Kate was already well-known in ancient song and story, and it was said that here, in her síbín (clandestine bar or speak-easy) at the Gap of Dunloe, she distilled her famous poitín, her mountain dew.
In those far-off days, and indeed right up to the nineteenth century, the route through the Gap was one of the few connections between the north and the south of the county, and in her cottage, Kate played hostess to the many people who passed by.
We are told that her poitín was very fierce and wild, requiring not less than seven times its own quantity of water to tame and subdue it. Czar Peter the Great of Russia used to say that of all the wines, Irish wine is the best, and we think that Peter must have met the ancestors of our Kate. However, not everyone was enthused about her beverage. Two hundred years ago it was not recommended by one sober traveler who warned against an abominable draught of goat’s milk and poteen, the one taken from a cow, the other brewed in a foul cauldron in Cork. This liquor was illicit, but Kate flouted the law and invited the weary travellers to partake of her hospitality. She had, to quote Alexander Pope:
"Every grace and every charm, To win the wisest, and the coldest, warm"
Oh! Have you not heard of Kate Kearney,
Who lives on the banks of Killarney.
From the glance of her eye
Shun danger and fly,
For fatal's the glance of Kate Kearney.
While her eyes are so modestly beaming,
You'd ne'er think of mischief she's dreaming.
Yet oh, I can tell
How fatal's the spell,
That lurks in the eye of Kate Kearney.
O should you e'er meet this Kate Kearney,
Who lives on the banks of Killarney,
Beware of her smile,
For many a wile,
Lies hid in the smile of Kate Kearney.
Tho' she looks so bewitchingly simple,
There's mischief in every dimple.
And who dares inhale
Her mouth's spicy gale,
Must die by the breath of Kate Kearney.
In 1811, not long after this song appeared, John Lee Lewes, an English poet living in Manitoba, published
Oh, yes, I have seen this Kate Kearney,
Who lives on the banks of Killarney,
From her love-beaming eye,
What mortal can fly,
Unsubdued by the glance of Kate Kearney.
For that eye so seducingly beaming,
Assures me of mischief she’s dreaming,
And I feel ‘tis in vain,
To fly from the chain,
That binds me to lovely Kate Kearney.
At eve, when I’ve met this Kate Kearney,
On the flower-mantled banks of Killarney,
Her smile would impart,
A sweet joy to my heart,
As I gazed on the charming Kate Kearney.
On the banks of Killarney reclining,
My bosom to rapture resigning,
I first felt the smart,
Of love’s fatal dart,
And the soul-soothing sigh of Kate Kearney.
From the middle of the nineteenth century, she had become so famous that the name Kate Kearney has been used again and again in literature and elsewhere. The American Turf Register and Sporting Magazine of April 1832 gives a turf summary for 1830 in which the following appears: Kate Kearney won the four mile heats at Tree Hill, and the two mile heats, in three heats, at Broad Rock, Virginia. Lord Eglington who, at one time, owned the largest and best stud in England, had a horse called Kate Kearney in the early decades of the nineteenth century. Around the same time, a barque called The Kate Kearney was a sailing ship that used to transport goods and passengers between, for example, Liverpool and Port Adelaide, and Fiji and Sydney. The list goes on and on.
William Collier wrote his play Kate Kearney or The Spirit of Killarney around 1836 and it had already been performed in Ireland and in England when James Love, a young Yankee soldier camping with his regiment near Nashville in 1862, wrote how, while waiting for a fight with the enemy, he went to the theatre where he saw Collier’s musical Kate Kearney. One year later the play was performed in New York. Also in America, Francis Henry Brown composed The Kate Kearney Waltz around the middle of the century.
Many years later, in 1976, Mary Power, in The Journal of Modern Literature has suggested in her article, The Naming of Kathleen Kearney, that in his story A Mother from his book Dubliners, James Joyce drew his Kathleen Kearney from our Kate of the Gap. The mother of poor Kathleen was pompous, controlling, and stifling. Mrs Kearney, writes Joyce, was determined to take advantage of her daughter’s name, because she wanted her Kathleen to be associated with the mystique, the legend, and the beauty of our renowned and celebrated Kate, attributes that were completely lacking in his Kathleen who was insipid and bland, as innocuous as an after-dinner mint.
One hundred years ago, Paddy Doyle, the last bugler of Dunloe, used to recite:
I’ve met Kate Kearney’s daughter’s daughters,
I’ve seen Killarney’s beauteous waters,
I’ve seen the Bull and the Purple too,
And I’ve drunk Kate Kearney’s Mountain Dew.
The History of Kate Kearney's Cottage
Fáilte Isteach.
Bran II welcomes in the day at Kate Kearney's in the 1950s
Dónal Mór Moriarty and his wife Julia Burke, began building their home in 1849. They were great-great-great-grandparents of the current owner.
Dónal built on or near the ruins of Kate’s old house, and very soon, with the help of his landlord, he acquired a licence to sell alcoholic drinks.
This licence can be read on the sign near the door on this old 1870s photo. Julia is standing by the family sidecar and Dónal, wearing his customary top hat, is chatting with his son.
Since 1849, the cottage has undergone many transformations.
The next generation was Mary and John Moriarty, seen here with their daughter Minnie.
The jaunting car was used for family outings, to go to town and to go to church.
The common car was used for farm work.
Mary loved her shrubs and her flowers, and her window boxes were always a profusion of colour.
She was happy to provide home baking and tea for the ever-increasing numbers of travellers.
People also came to hunt and shoot in the mountains.
Early in the twentieth century, around 1905, John and Mary decided to add extra rooms to the northern gable of the cottage because the pub and the shop were getting busier all the time.
Jaunting cars used to bring hundreds of visitors to the Gap from the Killarney hotels, and by 1910 the motor car was no longer a rarity.
Horses could be hired from the locals and many people availed of the opportunity to enjoy the scenery of the Gap on horseback.
From Accounts 1911-1912
But it wasn’t only the tourists who were accommodated at Kate Kearney’s.
Old accounts’ books show how the business benefited the local population by providing, not only the beverages at the bar, but the much-needed essential items; oil, penny candles, soap, polish, starch, penny laces, sugar, salt, tea, bread and bread soda.
Some people were also buying milk and butter – not everyone had a cow.
An order of four lemons for Beaufort House in early 1913 must have been unusual as lemons were scarce in Kerry in those days.
The shop also sold a few souvenirs for the tourists, whose numbers were increasing by the year; Connemara marble, bog oak, and lace and linen from the convent in Killarney.
Kate Kearney’s Cottage has reinvented itself from generation to generation. Jerome Coffey (grandson of John and Mary Moriarty) and his wife Joan Riordan took over the cottage in 1945 and enlarged the small bar and tea rooms. In the early years Joan baked over an open fire and served tea and scones. Next, she opened a craft shop. After Jerome’s death in 1978 their son Jim renovated the property and extended the bar to create extra seating areas. Jim and his wife Mary started serving food and introduced music sessions in 2002.
The quality of the food and of the entertainment has lengthened the tourist season at The Gap, and Kate Kearney’s Cottage is now in full swing from March to October. Seán, son of Jim and Mary, is the driving force behind today’s exponential growth. He has opened new markets and widened our customer base. His innovative and cutting-edge methods have strengthened and secured our business, so that in the future we can continue to welcome both locals and visitors into our premises as we have been doing for almost two hundred years.
1956 Jerome Coffey, fifth proprietor of Kate Kearney’s Cottage, and his wife, Joan Riordan, with their children Jim and Mary Coghlan. Jim was sixth proprietor and father of the current owner, Seán.
(For a history of the Gap of Dunloe and a full history of Kate Kearney’s Cottage, see Echoes of Dunloe by Mary Coghlan.)