A Walk for the Weekend: Wicklow

It’s a Tuesday afternoon and I am engulfed by less than tranquil circumstances. Drawn to Dublin by a couple of morning appointments, it had seemed a good idea to schedule a short hike for the afternoon. My dilemma was, however, where to ramble, for Ireland’s east had never been my hiking playground.

A solution presented itself in the compact form of Helen Fairbairn's Walking Guide to Dublin and Wicklow. Walk 10: Kippure and the two Lough Brays caught my eye. It is described as "two stunning lakes and the highest summit in County Dublin", and its undemanding completion time of 2.5 to 3.5 hours seemed ideally suited for a short outing.

Full of the joys of spring, I headed for Wicklow and directly into a traffic snarl-up in Rathmines. Onwards then in funeral traffic through Rathgar and Terenure. A further delay in Rathfarnam allowed me admire the stoical forbearance of city folk who cope with such conditions on their daily commute.

Reaching the M50, I considered abandoning the entire endeavour when, as if by magic, the traffic dissipated. After Killakee, I had only a slew of cyclists for company as I absorbed sweeping vistas over the unpopulated uplands lying startlingly close to our capital city. Reflecting on how fortunate Dublin folk are to have an unspoiled wilderness on their doorstep, I gained my start point.

Initially my chosen route was downhill on a sometimes mucky path that passed through a chaos of granite boulders before rising to a high point between the twin magnificences of the Lough Brays. Here the trail blossomed steeply upwards towards a rocky prow known as Eagle Crag. Fairbairn correctly predicts that hands will be usefully employed here, for easy scrambling moves are required to grease the wheels of my ascent.

Eagles Crag offers the reward of sublime views east over the two loughs, and then across the pristine vastness of the Wicklow Mountains National Park to the Irish Sea, with the distant mountains of Snowdonia a shimmering backdrop.

Southwards then, along the cliff-top ringing the upper lake with only a ravens throaty cry breaking the stillness. Where the guidebook mentioned the option of a diversion to Kippure, resistance proved futile; obediently I headed for the summit carrying the moniker of Dublin’s highest mountaintop.

Not being what Fairbairn describes as a “purist”, I took the easy option of joining the summit roadway. Its summit is cluttered with the excrescences of modern telecommunications, but the compensation is an expansive 360-degree view encompassing most of the east coast’s signature mountains.

Back along the access roadway before breaking left across heathery ground to regain the cliff-top path circling upper Lough Bray. The descent proved occasionally rough and marshy and the path sometimes disappeared, but expansive views to the Great and Little Sugarloaf more than compensated.

As twilight quickened my steps towards the Military Road, I concluded that Wicklow deserves more visits, if only for the stark remoteness of its vistas.