Since its inception Killarney and District Motor Club has organised and ran a number of Forestry Rallys.  In the club’s early years, a short stage around Killaclohane Forest to the east of Milltown village was a very popular event.  

In 2002 the club took its first foray into organising a forestry event that would form part of the National Forestry Championship.  This event was based in the River Island Hotel in Castleisland (which has been the home of KDMC forestry rally’s since).  71 cars lined up for the start of that first event on 20th October 2002 which took in stages to the north east of Castleisland skirting on the Kerry / Cork / Limerick border.  The stages and event proved extremely popular with competitors.  

Building on the success of that first event the Killarney Forestry Rally continued to be ran from 2003 to 2007.  The event date as also moved forward one month from October to September.  These events were again based in Castleisland and continued to use slight variations of forestry roads available to the north east of Castleisland.  The event was scheduled to run again in 2008, however with the economic downturn in Ireland at that time the club took the very difficult decision to cancel the event as it was deemed to not be financially viable to keep going with at that time.  The Killarney Forestry Rally was put into suspended animation for a number of year.  The concept was shelved, but certainly not forgotten.