Wild Wicklow and Glendalough

Choosing where to go on our one day in the Irish countryside was difficult. There were the Cliffs of Moher, Newgrange, Malahide Castle, Limerick, Blarney Castle and Wicklow to name a few. Thankfully, Veronica came to the rescue again and recommended Wicklow County.


Known as The Garden of Ireland, County Wicklow is one of Ireland's true scenic treasures with its magnificent hills and mountains, long sandy beaches, rivers and lakes. The name of the county comes from the town of Wicklow, which local history contends that it was founded by the Vikings, probably around 795 AD. The name "Wicklow" comes from Vikinglow, meaning Meadow of the Vikings, or Wykynlo, meaning Viking Loch. (You can see how excited D is to get out of the city. I never would have thought of him as a tree-hugger, but here is the evidence. [Editors note: this display of arboreal love triggered comical copycat behavior by a tree-ringing group of Dutch women])


Wicklow county is also known as having been a historical hotbed of rebellion activity. Our bus driver/tour guide told us that County Wicklow was the scene of intense fighting in the Irish Rebellion of 1798. Militant factions held out in the Wicklow mountains and confounded every British strategy to defeat them for five years. There is a lot of pride in the area over this fact.


The region includes large areas of mountain blanket bogs, including the Lugnaquilla and Liffey Head Bog complexes and Glendalough Wood Nature Reserve. The National Park provides protection for the landscape and the wildlife, from rare orchids to the wild and beautiful Peregrine Falcon. The heather wasn't in bloom yet, but the bogs are covered by them and I can imagine how beautiful it must be when you see the lavender color as far as the eye can see.


It was surprising to me to see the numerous creeks, streams and rivers so high up in the mountains. Given how much it rains in Ireland, I shouldn't be surprised to see water anywhere but the bogs were unique and fascinating to me. Bogs occur where the water at the ground surface is acidic, either from acidic ground water, or where water is derived entirely from precipitation. Water flowing out of bogs has a characteristic brown color, from dissolved peat tannins. Our guide pointed this out (saying that it looks just like Guinness, which amusingly, it does) and I found it beautiful and interesting. And, to add to the humor, much of this land is owned by the Guinness family foundation. The next picture shows the lake and groomed grounds of a Guinness family home built over 100 years ago, and because they wanted a lovely sandy shore, they trucked in tons of the sand. And, as time and waves took hold, the driver commented that the lake now has the look of a pint of Guinness and the sand is the foam on top. Clever bloke - with Guinness on the mind.


The road going through the mountains is remarkably narrow and, as you can imagine, the bus took up more than its fair share of space. There is a fearlessness needed for driving anywhere, but I would give a medal for those that had to share the road with our bus. I didn't realize how dangerous the bogs could be on mountain tops until the driver commented to one of the drivers trying to get out of our way that they had better not go any further off the road otherwise they wouldn't be able to get out of the bog (they were only, at most, a foot off the paved road)- and even though there was a lot of traffic (meaning people around to help), I imagine that getting a tow truck would be nightmarish.


We wound our way through the mountains and over to the other side for our arrival at Glendalough. Gleann Dá Loch, in Gaelic, means "Glen of Two Lakes" and is a glacial valley renowned for its Early Medieval monastic settlement founded in the 6th century by St Kevin, a hermit priest, and destroyed in 1398 by English troops.


The largest and most imposing of the buildings at Glendalough, the cathedral had several phases of construction, the earliest, consisting of the present nave with its antae. The large mica-shist stones which can be seen up to the height of the square-headed west doorway were re-used from an earlier smaller church. The chancel and sacristy date from the late 12th and early 13th centuries.


After enjoying the buildings and cemeteries, we decided to take a walk through the property. There are many walking trails of varying difficulty around Glendalough. We followed the crowd through the fantastic forested path leading to the lower and upper lakes. I love this picture, it just really captures the natural beauty of the place.


The walk was so peaceful. The shade was wonderful and comfortable (it had gotten down right hot!) and gave us the chance to take in the scenery. I liked this view because it looks like a river or stream had previously run through here and had dried up leaving the grass to take it's place.


This lake was just so inviting. There were hundreds (if not thousands) of people visiting along with us (this is a national park) and given the weather, I could well see why. It reminded us both of Lake Tahoe. We did notice, however, that since the irish rarely see the sun, they didn't seem to know how to protect themselves much from it. We saw A LOT of really sunburned people.


This was the path leading us back to the monastery. Again, just such a lovely location.


This was a great view in which to reflect on the Great Tower and St. Kevin's church. The sheep added ambiance. I wanted to get a picture of this weed as well. (It is the bit of yellow in the foreground above and the yellow bush in the pic below.) Our driver educated us a bit on it - it is called gorse. (Think "horse" only with a "g.") Apparently the EU wouldn't let the local farmers burn it in order to clear the land to farm it, which results in hillsides covered with it. I don't know if you can see in the pic or not, but this is about 5-7 feet high and imposing. It looks lovely from a distance and apparently this disagreement has had the side benefit of helping sustain and bring back the local flora and fauna that over-farming had previously destroyed.


I have to say that a bit of my heart was stolen by Ireland. The history is tragic and engaging. The people are warm, funny, friendly and a bit melancholic. The food was lovely (we had a lot of Chinese - super good - and a little bit of pub food and one proper Guinness stew), the drink was satisfying and the music entertaining and thoughtful. I hope that this will not be my last visit to this remarkably beautiful country. I desire to experience more of what she has to offer.