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It’s far better on foot
MALCOLM ROGERS partakes of four of Ireland’s best walks. A fine chance to soak up the history, have the odd drink — and improve his health.
There’s no better way to see a place than by foot — either city or country. The history, the geography, and for that matter the people, are all more accessible if you’re prepared to get out of the car and wander about.
Ireland is well-designed for the job, being for the most part small, compact and with few extremes of terrain. The scenery can be spectacular, and the countryside is stuffed full with historical curios. 
An added bonus is that you’re never that far from a watering hole should the exercise make you overly thirsty, and nowadays there’s a tremendous selection of delis, cafes and restaurants in almost every Irish town —which guarantees more than satisfactory re-fuelling stops.
Don’t forget too, that walking is now seen as crucial to good health.
Exercise is not only beneficial for your physical wellbeing — walking increasingly is seen as curative as a course of anti-depressants. All walkers talk about the ‘feelgood factor’ after a morning or afternoon spent on the mountainside, and Ireland has plenty of open countryside to practise on. Truly it can be said that in Ireland there’s a hill for every ill.
Listed below are a few of the many exciting strolls this fair country has on offer, both in town and city.
Derry
Derry is perfect for either a gentle stroll or a full day’s march. Either way, start at the Guildhall — which plays host to the Saville Enquiry into Bloody Sunday — and make your way to the ancient walls of the city. A certain historical resonance connects the two places.
The indelible marks of a blood-stained history are everywhere in this ancient city, but the people remain friendly and open. Their default position towards tourists seems to be one of being as helpful as possible.
Apart from its agreeable citizens, Derry is a city of superlatives: the only completely walled city left in these islands; the world’s most northerly Catholic city; one of the oldest inhabited settlements in Ireland. History dramatic and dreadful lurks round every corner.
A walk round the wall, which is about a mile in circumference and the width of a road, passes by the Harbour Museum, the Apprentice Boys Memorial Hall, St. Columb’s Cathedral, the latter home to many artefacts from the city’s history, including the locks from the gates closed by the Apprentice Boys in 1688.
A gentle dander will take you on to Roaring Meg, a cannon used in the Siege of 1689, past old watchtowers that were constructed in 1618, and over the double bastions that have kept the wall impregnable since the turn of the 16th century.
Particularly look out for the ‘Site of Coward’s Bastion’ with its inscription which reads “1689 — being most out of danger, cowards resorted here.” That’s where you would have found me — or most other sensible people.
The stroll will eventually take you on to a more modern watchtower, a British army lookout post, which continues to turn its baleful gaze on the Bogside.
The Troubles (the modern ones) have of course left their impratur on the city, but fortunately the ‘damned barb wire’ — which, as we all know thanks to Phil Coulter, was getting higher and higher — has now receded considerably.
Galway
You naturally have to start at Eyre Square, containing the Quincentennial Fountain, which marks the granting of a charter to the city by King Richard III. The 18th century piazza also boasts the statue of Padraic O’Conaire, the Irish-language poet.
But attractive though the square is, we haven’t time to lounge around there all day. Granted, the whole of the rest of Galway seems to be doing just that, but we have to be on our way. After all, this is an article about walkers, not wastrels.
Rousing ourselves, we make our way to Williamsgate Street, passing through what was once the site of the Great Gate of Galway. We soon reach one of the finest medieval houses in the whole of the country — Lynch’s Castle, which displays the famous coat of arms depicting the 14 ‘tribes of Galway’.
One particular member of the Lynch tribe is reputed to have given the word ‘lynching’ to the English language, through the extraordinarily jobsworthy feat of hanging his own son for some misdemeanour. The things you learn in a walk in Ireland!
History assails you from every corner in Galway, including of course the Spanish Arch, one of Galway’s most famous landmarks. This 16th century structure recalls the trade formerly carried on with Spain; its main purpose was to protect galleons unloading wine and rum.
Galway is increasingly seen as the craic capital of the country for the young Irish. Temple Bar in Dublin has been given over to stag parties, Belfast is still seen (erroneously) as the preserve of the Calvinist not the Celt, and Cork is for music lovers, festival-goers and bell ringers. But Galway is the place to go for cask-conditioned, party-size, craic n’ roll. And a fantastic place to walk around for the day.
Tollymore Forest Park, Bryansford, Co. Down
Situated just two miles outside the seaside resort of Newcastle, Tollymore Forest covers some 2,000 acres of the Mountains of
Mourne.
Because it was once the playground of a wealthy Anglo-Irish family headed up by Lord Roden, the forest park is laid out with some magnificent walks and is stuffed full of gothic arches, Victorian follies and extravagant historical curios.
The walk from the main car park, round the Arboretum, down the Shimna River is some four miles in total, but will in all likelihood take something approaching three hours, so grand and interesting are the views en route.
Start at the Arboretum and admire the 100-foot-tall Wellingtonias, the 10-foot-tall dwarf spruces, the Monterey pines and silver firs — and one of Ireland’s very few cork trees. Then descend under the Horn Bridge (which looks like something out of a Hans Christian Andersen tale) along an azalea-lined path and down to the river. Turning left up the Shimna, in about a mile you’ll come to an incredibly strange looking stone folly, called the Hermitage. This melancholy grotto is in fact a memorial to one of the Roden family.
At this point you have many choices — you can continue on towards the Meeting of the Waters and and the Spinkwee River, you can venture a little further upstream and cross the stepping stones into a great spruce wood, or you can head downstream to Parnell’s Bridge, the Ivy Bridge and the Lake. Alternatively, you can just sit on the huge granite rocks by the side of the Shimna and aimlessly skiff flat pebble-stones across the dark pool. (I usually opt for this last option, and can strongly recommend.)
Truly a fantastic day out — and if you walk any distance from the car park you’re
guaranteed peace and solitude in the shadow of the Mountains of Mourne.
Killarney by the old Kenmare Road
If you do the whole of this walk you’ll clock up some 11 miles, or at least four-and-a-half hours of steady tramping. Start at Galway’s (sometimes spelled Galwey’s) Bridge about 10 miles outside Killarney on the Kenmare
 Road, and pick up the well- signposted Kerry Way.
After some mile-and-a-half miles through soporifically beautiful countryside you reach an area called the Tunnel at the foot of Cromaglen Mountain. From here there’s a stupendous view of the far-famed Lakes of Killarney.
After enjoying the panorama towards the High Lake, take the descending road through fuchsia and hawthorn-lined boreens, eventually reaching the Torc Waterfall. While not exactly Niagara Falls, this is still an impressive enough 60 foot cascade.
Returning to the road at Torc Bridge you then take the route towards Muckross Abbey, founded by the Franciscans in 1440. It’s such an enchanting scene you may well find yourself singing “I left my heart with some Franciscans...”
The demesne here is probably the most beautifully situated estate in these islands — every foot of the way is of breathtaking and varied beauty with the lakes ahead, the hills acting as a backdrop, and flowers, trees, ferns and old stone walls providing a photo-opportunity every yard of the way.
You may want to stop for lunch at the restaurant in Muckross estate — well, if you don’t want, I do, so I’ll see you back out on the Lough Leane lane.
That’s better. We now have a choice — the Lady’s Walk will take us along the Lower Lake, with the richly clothed islands stretching endlessly towards the distant mountains, or back home through the Knockreer Estate. You reach this through a gateway opposite Killarney Hotel, and from here it’s only a mile or so back to Killarney.
And the thought of all of those famous Killarney hostelries is certainly very enticing... so we’ll maybe give the Lower Lake a miss, eh?
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