Killarney West is a short 9-hole public course near Hillsboro that opened in 1979 on forested land Joe O'Meara bought in the late 1970s, intending to clear it and sell the timber. His friend Henry (Hank) Van Grunsven persuaded him to build a golf course instead and designed it. Van Grunsven died around the time the course opened, and the O'Meara family has operated it ever since.