Cliffords Ocean View B&B

A snug seaside village on the Ring of Kerry, pinched onto a strip of land between Lough Currane and the Atlantic, with a golf links, a beach and a long-standing friendship with Charlie Chaplin.

Waterville is unusual among the villages on the Ring of Kerry in that it sits directly on the coast, its main street running along the sea front with Lough Currane at its back and the Atlantic in front. That combination of lake and ocean on one narrow spit of land is what gives the place its character, and it has drawn visitors for well over a century, long before the road around it became one of Ireland’s best-known drives.

The village’s most famous regular was Charlie Chaplin, who first came here in 1959 on a friend’s recommendation and returned with his family most years afterwards, staying at the Butler Arms Hotel on the seafront. A life-sized bronze of Chaplin as the Tramp stands looking out to sea on the promenade, and the village still runs an annual comedy film festival in his honour every August. For a B&B stay, that quiet, unhurried village atmosphere is still very much intact.

Waterville is also a serious golfing destination. Waterville Golf Links runs along the dunes just north of the village and is regularly ranked among the best links courses in Ireland and Britain, drawing golfers who base themselves here for several days at a time rather than passing through. Lough Currane, just behind the village, is well known for its wild brown trout and salmon fishing, with the ruins of a monastic settlement on Church Island out on the water.

The village also sits at the start of the Skellig Ring, the coastal loop off the main Ring of Kerry that takes in Ballinskelligs Bay and views out to Skellig Michael, so a stay here works equally well as a quiet base in its own right or as one stop on a longer circuit of the peninsula.