R574 road | |
---|---|
Bóthar R574 | |
Location | |
Country | Ireland |
Highway system | |
51°43′20″N 9°45′26″W / 51.722192°N 9.757088°W
The R574 is an Irish regional road in the Beara peninsula which crosses the Caha Mountains via (Tim) Healy Pass.[1] It runs from the R572 at Adrigole in County Cork to the R571 near Lauragh in County Kerry.[1] It is a popular tourist route with the pass at an altitude of 300m giving panoramas towards Bantry Bay to the south-east and the Kenmare River to the north-west.
The original track, called the Kerry Pass, was cut during the Great Famine as a poor relief public works project. It was renamed for Timothy Michael Healy, former Governor-General of the Irish Free State, who died in 1931 shortly after the road was improved.[2] The name "Healy Pass" is now also applied to the pass itself, previously called Ballaghscart or Ballyscarta, anglicisations of Irish: Bealach Scairte, which remains its Irish name.[3]