Go walk: A saunter in south Kilkenny

Start: Thomastown GAA Club. This is located south of the town beyond Grennan Mill and is signposted left from the Tullogher Road.

Suitability: Easy, 11km outing following the banks of the river Nore, a minor road and some lovely woodland paths. Care required on the public road sections.

Time: 2.5 hours.

Map: trailkilkenny.ie

Looped walks are the ultimate in convenience. Popular because they minimise logistics by conveniently returning walkers to their start point, they have vastly expanded walking opportunities in Ireland. One pleasure they do not afford, however, is the rare modern-day experience of reaching a destination on foot. Linear tracks alone offer this possibility and in the process remind us of past times when journeys were onerous undertakings and the other side of a mountain could seem a different country. These destination-to-destination trails invariably make me feel close to the landscape as the countryside around me expands to the awesome proportions it held for the generations before the combustion engine killed true concepts of distance.

I am in Kilkenny pursuing a trail from the sunny charm of Thomastown to the “olde worlde” village of Inistioge. Gaining the banks of the river Nore after departing Thomastown GAA grounds, I saunter south through a landscape shouting of abundance to the ruins of Grennan Castle.

Impressive, even in decay, this fortress deserves admiration for the skill of the 13th-century Norman conquerors, who secured the valuable heartlands of south Kilkenny by constructing such an imposing redoubt. Later, the Nore became a thriving hub for water-powered industries, but today it is a recreational playground – a fact emphasised by a couple of kayakers paddling downstream towards Inistioge.

Onwards then through the enchanting woods of Dysart, before I leave the waterside to tag a bluebell-rich trail with branches intertwined overhead. Just as I am reflecting how compelling the trail is, I get a shock: the walking arrows deposit me unceremoniously on a public road with car whizzing by. It is a short diversion, however, and soon I am back on a sylvan lane that ascends high above the Nore and the ruins of Castle Dysart, once the home of philosopher George Berkley. Berkley questioned the existence of material objects, but the one-mile stretch of vergeless roadway I follow next is indisputably real and just too long.

Then, as I wonder if it will ever end, the arrows beckon me on to a well-constructed, tree-lined path that conveys me gloriously downhill to a great oxbow in the meandering Nore. The vivid broad-leaved exuberance of Brownbarn Wood comes next before I fetch up beneath the elegant arches of Brownbarn Bridge. In past times the Nore was apparently a vital trade route for exporting agricultural produce, but as I linger by the riverside, I can’t help wondering how these relatively shallow waters once carried laden barges.

Question unresolved, I continue with the mutating terrain now offering a tranquil waterside ramble through rolling farmland that is only spoiled by a lack of trail maintenance. Struggling at times though knee-high grass, but otherwise enjoying the sweeping ambience, I reach the 10 arched bridge at Inistioge and journey’s end. I conclude that here is a hugely varied trail, which, with a little less road walking and more maintenance, has potential to become one of our finest linear walking routes.