Smerwick Harbour Panorama

Smerwick Harbour was the landing site of a small Papal invasion force led by James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald in July 1579, initiating the Second Desmond Rebellion. He was killed one month later. In September of 1580 600, mostly Italian, troops landed at Smerwick to aid the rebels, and were garrisoned at Dún an Óir. Within days however the English forces overwhelmed the allies and subsequently executed 600 men women & children.

The harbour, where Fitzmaurice's invasion force landed, was also the landfall of the returning transatlantic expedition of Walter Raleigh in 1587.