Imagine trotting beneath a cathedral of ancient oaks while deer graze beside glass-still lakes and misty mountains tower overhead. That scene isn’t fantasy — it’s a standard Tuesday with Killarney Riding Stables, sited a mile west of Killarney town and known locally, still, as “O’Sullivan’s.” Established in 1968 by Donie O’Sullivan, the stables remain a family business through and through, with Donie’s wife Noreen and their children Aoife and William all still very much part of the operation.
Home to around seventy horses, the stables sit directly beside Killarney National Park — County Kerry’s crown jewel of mountains, lakes, and woodland, and one of the finest stretches of scenery in Ireland. Guests can book straightforward one, two, or three-hour rides into the park, or, for something more ambitious, join the Killarney Reeks Trail: a multi-day trek through the mountains with overnight stops in Killarney, Glenbeigh, and Waterville.
The Experience
You arrive at a yard that’s calm even when busy — seventy horses cared for to a standard reflected in newly built stabling constructed to exacting specifications. A guide is matched to you by ability, patient if you’re a beginner, genuinely useful if you’re returning to the saddle after years away.
Your ride heads north of Lough Leane, the largest of Killarney’s three lakes, into the Knockreer Estate — oak woodland, open parkland, long lake views that shift with the light. Deer are a near-constant presence, unbothered by horses moving quietly past. Your guide knows this terrain intimately and adjusts the pace to you: plenty of trotting if you’re confident, steady reassurance if you’re not.
If you have more time, the Killarney Reeks Trail — running April through October — pulls you deeper into Kerry: high mountain ranges that inspired poets long before they inspired Instagram, an inlet-studded coastline, woods and waterfalls that change character with every mile. You overnight along the way in Killarney, Glenbeigh, and Waterville, covering genuinely wild country that most visitors to Kerry never come close to seeing.
About Killarney Riding Stables
Killarney Riding Stables has been a fixture of this corner of County Kerry since 1968, when Donie O’Sullivan first established the yard on the edge of what is now Killarney National Park. More than half a century on, it remains a proper family operation — Donie, his wife Noreen, and their children Aoife and William all actively involved in day-to-day running, a rarity in an industry increasingly dominated by larger commercial operators.
The stables are approved by Ireland’s tourist board and by AIRE, and the seventy-strong string of horses is a mix of steady, reliable mounts suited to first-time riders and more forward types for confident, experienced guests. Riding is English style, and the guides — several of whom speak multiple languages to accommodate the stable’s genuinely international clientele — are consistently praised for their warmth, patience, and deep knowledge of the surrounding landscape.
What sets Killarney Riding Stables apart is the sheer quality of the terrain on its doorstep. Killarney National Park is one of the great landscapes of Ireland — high mountain ranges, an intricate lake system, ancient oak and yew woodland, and a drama of light and weather that changes by the hour. Few riding centres in the world can offer this scenery within a mile of the front gate, and fewer still have been doing it, under the same family’s care, for close to sixty years.
Our Stewardship
Killarney Riding Stables’ daily rides move directly into Killarney National Park, one of Ireland’s oldest and most significant protected landscapes, including the Knockreer Estate and the areas surrounding Lough Leane. A UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, Killarney Riding Stables operates there under permit, and the park’s conservation rangers used Clydesdales to harvest a wildflower meadow in the Knockreer Estate as a low-carbon habitat management method under the National Pollinator Plan.
