Brandon Hill is Kilkenny’s highest point. It is 515 meters high and has an ascent of 300 meters. It is situated 4 kilometres South-SouthWest of Graiguenamanagh and 7 kilometres east of Inistioge. The start of the walk is situated up a small woodland lane that is very easy to miss.

• Time: 2 hours
• Distance: 5.3km
• Guide Book: Ireland’s county high points – Kieron Gribbon
• Starting point here
• New Carpark (2021) 50 cars+ here
• Great sights from the summit and a large cross
• Easy hike

How to get to Brandon Hill Kilkenny

We drove from Graiguenamanagh, once you go over the bridge you take a right turn for Inistoge on the L4209.

Continue on that road until you see the house in the below picture and then you take a left up the lane beside the house. This house is very easy to miss, we have climbed this before but we still managed to miss it and drive halfway to Inistioge by mistake.

Hiking Brandon Hill Graig

We walked straight up through the metal barrier and up the hill. Even at this point, the views on our lefthand side of the landscape were beautiful.

At the top of the small gravel track, before we entered the woodland hill, we turned right, and then shortly after we climbed over a stile. We were greeted by some very friendly sheep, I think they thought we had food in our big blue bag.

Walking the Trail

We kept left and followed the wooded forest area until we came to a corner where we turned right and followed a stony path up a steep hill, opposite the stone wall and fence on the left-hand side.

The ground was very uneven and stony so we would advise wearing good hiking boots to protect your ankles and hiking poles can come in handy for this section. We saw a lot of sheep wandering around through the purple heather, it was lovely to see. We continued to follow this stony path and met a path coming in from the right. We kept straight and followed the path along the forest boundary, the path bends left. We took the next path on the right (you will see a white arrow with a picture of a cross on your left pointing up towards the path on your right-hand side)

We stopped every so often to look around and enjoy the beautiful views of the landscape.

Brandon Hill Kilkenny Summit

Take the path on your right and that will lead you to the top of the hill. When you reach the top of Brandon Hill you will see a large metal cross on your left. Straight ahead you will see the cairn and trig pillar which is the highest point of Kilkenny.

We took a few pictures and walked around exploring our summit before retracing our steps back down by taking the path left to the large metal cross.

Brandon Hill Map

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Brandon Hill Hike Summary

Overall we really enjoyed this hike, we would recommend waiting for a fine day so you can really enjoy the panoramic views at the top, also wear good supportive boots as the ground is very uneven in some sections.  The hikes signposts are not great but the trail is cut into the ground very well and it is hard to walk off the trail. It is not too exposed until you reach the top but when you start descending again you get shelter nearly immediately.

2022 Update- Brandon Hill Kilkenny

We eventually got to hike this mountain again this year and we realised that the route has been updated with new markers and a longer route through the woods.

Brandon New Car park location

Thankfully, the Brandon hill car park has been extended to take more cars. The car park is called Raheendonore car park and can easily take 50+ cars.

We walked the new route with our 3 kids, aged 1,3 and 5 years old. The kids loved the hike to Brandon and 2 of them have already climbed it a couple of times.

Markers have been placed at all junctions detailing the distance and duration to the summit. We walked up the new route and back down the route described in the original post, as it is quicker to descend this way.

Brandon Hill- New Route Key facts

• Lots of parking in the new car park here
• 6.8km walk to the summit and back
• 2-3 hours walk
• Buggy friendly to the end of the woodland walk

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This was the very first Mountain that we hiked as part of the 32 Peak county high points with Ourlittlehiker but we didn’t record much information from that adventure, we decided to hike it again but this time with our 2 little hikers. This will be our baby hikers first time up Mount Leinster and Ourlittlehikers second time.

Our Babyhiker is 7 weeks old and we pushed her to the top of Mount Leinster in her Quinny Buzz and carrycot. Ourlittlehiker is now 2 years old and she walked a good section of the road herself. When she got tired, we put her into her own buggy. This is the first time we brought the kids pushchairs on a hike. We previously hiked Mount Leinster with Ourlittlehiker, when she was 6 months old, the photographs are a mixture of both hikes.

Why Hike Mount Leinster?

Mount Leinster is an easy mountain to hike, as there is a tarmac RTE access road leading from the carpark at the nine stones the whole way to the summit. This is similar to Kippure, Truskmore and Cornhill, county high points. Out of all the access roads to the county high points, Mount Leinster is definitely the steepest hike to the top.

As this was our first hike to a County High Point with Ourlittlehiker, it was more of a recce mission than actually trying to complete a full hike to the summit. We really wanted to see how comfortable OutlittleHiker would be in her Deuter baby hiking bag, especially for a long period of time, potentially 2-3 hours in warm conditions.

2017 Hike to Mount Leinster

Hiking Mount Leinster

We walked around the metal barriers and started walking uphill. The road is fully tarmacadamed to the top of Mount Leinster. We initially walked beside a wood to our left that seemed to be filled with flies. We put some insect repellent on Ourlittlehiker, which seemed to be doing a good job of keeping them all off her and projecting them onto her parents.

As this was our first CHP with a baby, we wanted to see were we able to hike up these hills with a baby on our back and wanted to make sure that our baby daughter was enjoying herself. After walking halfway up toward Mount Leinster, we quickly realised that our fitness levels were not as good as they were in 2015, but we were loving the challenge and more importantly, Ourlittlehiker was amazed by all the views, wildlife and other families out hiking.

We reached a gate and cattle grid, we decided to swap the bag over to give Mammy an opportunity to carry Ourlttlehiker up the side of the mountain. Gina did a super job and carried her the remaining way to the summit. This section after the gate was definitely the steepest section of the Mount Leinster hike.

We reached a left bend in the road and then reached a right bend, we could see another long steep section of road ahead. When we reached the final corner we could eventually see the compound for the TV mast in front of us. The summit is to the right-hand side of the compound gate of the mast. We quickly ran over and got a few pictures at the top.

The verdict of Mount Leinster Hike

We were super nervous about this whole hike. As this would be the first proper mountain that we would hike with our baby daughter. We were initially afraid that it would be too warm for her in the bag, we then were afraid of all the flies. The higher we got, we started becoming fearful of the wind and cold but we quickly realised that we had chosen the right hiking bag in the Deuter. (Ourlittlehiker was 6 months old at the time of writing this)

When the wind started to become cold and stronger we put blankets around Ourlittlehiker and installed the windbreaker cover. This is a godsend and we definitely wouldn’t attempt mountain hikes without it.

The hike up Mount Leinster is very easy. Okay, it is steep but the road brings you straight to the summit and we were reasonably sheltered from the wind until we reached the summit.

Conclusion on hiking Mount Leinster with a buggy or baby Carrier?

After hiking Mount Leinster once before with our Deuter Baby Carrier and once with the Quinny buzz buggy, we found it far easier with the Deuter baby carrier. We found it hard to push the buggies up the steep incline and the kids seemed far more content in their carriers. Our new addition to the family (babyhiker) loves her Ergo Carrier and sleeps constantly in it but she doesn’t seem to sleep in the baby buggy. When she is in the Ergo carrier she is nestled up against her Mammys skin and can even breastfeed while walking, she sleeps 90% of the time when she is in it.

Ourlittlehiker likes being up high and looking around her in the Deuter carrier when she gets tired from walking. She didn’t really like been in her buggy and she kept trying to get out. She kept saying she wanted to be on her daddy’s back, we assume this is toddler code for the baby carrier.

In future, we are going to stick to the Deuter kids comfort for hikes.

Mount Leinster Map

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Our goal was to climb County Longford, Roscommon, Fermanagh and Cavan highest points. County Cavan and Fermanagh share the same high point so this one will cut down on the driving. The hardest part of hiking every high point in every county of Ireland isn’t the walking or climbing up a mountain with a baby on your back, but it’s the driving between the mountains. We figured if the mountain is within 3 hours driving distance of our house we could drive to it, climb the mountain and drive home the same day. Today’s hiking will be tough, as there is roughly a 1-hour drive from each county high point. This means that we are over 3 hours drive home after we finish climbing our last mountain, if everything goes to plan, fingers crossed.

Our first mountain to hike is Cornhill or Carn Clonhugh and is possibly the easiest mountain of all 32 peaks in Ireland.

Cornhill Longfords highest point

We drove up and parked our car outside a lane to the summit of Cornhill, which was closed off by a metal barrier. We parked our car here to start our hike.

The barrier stops cars driving up the tarmac lane which is used to access the television mast. After driving over 2 hours, it was nice for all of us to get out of the car to stretch the legs.

We could see the Television antenna straight away from the barrier, so we knew this was going to be a very easy and quick county high point.

Starting our walk to the County Highpoint

The tarmac lane leads the whole way to the top of the high point so this could be walked in trainers if the weather was good.

On the way up to the high point, Ourlittlehiker has a toy camera and started to replicate her Daddy and kept shouting “Cheeeese, Cheeeese” and pointing her little toy camera at us, we all had a good laugh at it. It also broke the slightly dull viewless walk up to the summit.

After about 200m we walked around a corner and we could see a palisade fence around the tv antenna. We walked to the right-hand side of the fence and we could see the Longford county high point up on top of a raised bank just past the fencing.

After been up on a very busy high point the day previous (Slieve Donard), we realised that it was nice to be back hiking on our own again, as we could play around at the County high point instead of just taking one picture and leaving, as there was a queue on yesterdays high point.

High Point Dance

Gina decided to do a small dance on Longford Cornhill high point to celebrate our third high point of the bank holiday weekend, Ourlittlehiker loved all the dancing.

The verdict on Cornhill, Longfords highest point

Cornhill is only 278m high and is one of the easiest and maybe, as short as Cupidstown in Kildare (another very easy high point). There was not much of a view from the top of Cornhill, as the woodland trees are much higher than our eye level.

It only took us 10 minutes to reach the summit of Cornhill after leaving the car.

Which County High Point after Longford?

The normal route most people take after hiking Cornhill, is to go and hike Westmeath and Meath highest points but we already hiked these throughout the winter months, so we are now driving over to Roscommon to hike Seltannasaggart South East Slope. This CHP is slightly over 1 hour of a drive away.

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Kippure Mountain is the highest point in County Dublin. Dublin is the capital city of Ireland and is a neighbouring county to Wicklow, the county with the highest mountain outside of County Kerry. Kippure mountain is 40 km out of the city and can only be reached by car. Kippure is the 73rd highest mountain in Ireland.

We have driven past/near Kippure numerous times and never attempted to hike it, mainly due to weather conditions. When we hiked Cupidstown (County Kildare highest point) the next natural high point to hike should be Kippure, as it’s only a 40-minute drive away. We drove straight past the crossroads that lead to Kippure car park not realising it was so close but we only ever hike up the mountains if the weather conditions and forecast are showing good conditions.

We obviously should have researched Kippure mountain a little bit better, because there is an access road to the top of the mountain, so every time we drove past this mountain we probably could have ticked it off the list much sooner. But if your attempting to hike the 32 Peaks of Ireland, one thing becomes evident very quickly, the level of driving required to complete the challenge is massive.

Getting to Kippure Mountain- Co Dublin’s highest point

Like most Sunday mornings over the last 3 months, while completing the 32 peaks challenge, we rose from our beds early to hike Kippure mountain but thankfully we could have a slight sleep in, as County Dublin’s highest point was only 1 hour and 30 minutes drive away from our house. We reached Kippure mountain at 10 am and already the car parking space was becoming limited. This amazed us as the weather conditions were not the best, it was overcast with a strong breeze, we knew when we reached the top that the “strong breeze” would feel like a hurricane on the top, so we put on all our windbreakers. We saw some families starting to hike up the mountain in shorts and tee-shirts when we were dressed in 3 layers of clothes each.

Kippure Moutain is situated on the “Old Military Road” off the Sally gap crossroads. If you put Kippure Tv Mast into Google maps it will bring you straight to the car park. The drive up to Kippure Mountain is amazing, we drove home past the Guinness Lake and down into Glendalough. Both these sights are worth exploring on their own, simply amazing.

Hiking Kippure Mountain

The route we chose to reach the summit of Kippure is less of a hike and more of a walk but I did see other people walking in between the heather. We were not in the mood for walking in more heather as every high point is filled with it at the minute. We chose to walk up the road to the top of Kippure.

The hike to Kippure starts at the yellow and black barrier at the car park and you can basically see the whole route that you are about to walk in front of you from here.

Just as we started our hike the weather started to improve slightly and we could start getting views of other mountains around us. After about 20 minutes of walking, we could see the Sugarloaf mountain in Kilmacanogue.

The hike up along the road was longer than we expected and the views only really improved when we reached the corner close to the end of the road. The road started to sweep around the side of the hill which gave us views down into the valley above the Sally Gap. We could also see the great engineering feat that’s is turlough hill, which was built in 1974. My Dad still talks about this place, as he worked in the tunnels as a young man. The ESB pump water up into the top lake during the night and release it down into the lower lake during the day when there is a large demand for electricity.

The Top of Kippure Mountain- Dublin’s Highest Point

As we reached the entrance to the TV mast, we could see 2 concrete gate posts, the concrete looks like it has taken a serious beating throughout the years from the weather, as it is crumbling away. The Tv mast is massive in size and the fence surrounding it is very ugly. We skirted around to the rear corner of the Tv mast to find the county high point.

Amazingly enough, for such an easily accessible County High Point the centre section of the Ordnance Survey marker was still in the top of the post. Only a handful of the CHP’s has these and we didn’t expect Kippure to still have one.

At this point, the wind was very strong and we took shelter to the side of the mast to give our wind-stricken faces a break from the cold air. We sat down on the rocks looking over the Dublin sea. The views on Kippure mountain in late spring are pretty amazing, the whole mountain range is filled with an array of red and green foliage.

Map of Kippure Hike

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Our Thoughts on Kippure Mountain–County Dublin’s Highest point

We used this mountain as a rest day on the 32 peak challenge, as it was nice and close and essentially just a road walk. The walk up to Kippure summit is straightforward enough, as we just followed the road to the summit. The views near the top of the walk are nice, as we could see most of the Wicklow mountains from the top of the Dublin high point.

Kippure mountain is a perfect Sunday stroll and is a great rest day if you are completing the 32 peak challenge but the hike to the summit is reasonably dull. When you reach the bottom of the mountain you will be happy to get into your car and go home.

It took us 3 hours to reach the summit and descend Kippure mountain.

Allow time to explore nearby tourist attractions, as the surrounding areas are filled with amazing sights such as Glendalough round tower and the Guinness Lake. If you have enough time you could walk the Spink loop in Glendalough but allow 2 hours to do this hike.

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Lugnaquilla Hike from the Glenmalure valley

The main reason we are hiking Lugnaquilla from the Glenmalure side of the valley is that this is the first mountain that I (Paul) ever hiked. I would class this as my local mountain. I grew up and lived very close to this mountain.

Key Lugnaquilla Facts

• Hike Length- 6.6kms each way, 13.2km total
• Lugnaquilla Height- 925m Highest Mountain outside of County Kerry
• Lugnaquilla starting point- Park here on the side of the road
• Is the route signposted- No signposts or route markers
• Is the route clear- Yes in places but very easy to lose track of your location
• How hard is the hike? 6 out of 10
• Is Lugnaquilla dangerous? Yes large drops in many places
• How long to Hike Lugnaquilla- 5-6 hours

Starting our Hike up Lugnaquilla

We parked our car on the side of the road opposite the red galvanised roofed cottage underneath the waterfall and the zig-zag trail. There isn’t much room to park cars here so come early and keep your car tight to the ditch. Luckily we started our hike early, so we had a selection of parking spaces.

We took out all our hiking bags from the car and packed our windbreakers as we know Lugnaquilla has a very flat high point and is very exposed to strong winds for a much longer distance than every other high point. As it was extremely sunny and still early in the morning we all applied factor 50 suncream (I forgot the back of my legs) and walked back up the road toward the little laneway down to the small house with the red roof.

Lugnaquilla Trail

We walked down the lane toward the red-roofed house passing over a concrete bridge, when we reached a small river we kept left here and walked up beside the fence on our left-hand side. We followed the sign for the Zig-Zag trail and walked over a small timber footbridge.

We followed the grassy trail which zig-zags up the side of the hill pretty quickly. The trail rises in altitude very quickly and nearly instantaneously we found ourselves rising up over the valley and we could see the magnificent views down the middle of the U shaped valley.

When we reached the top of the Zig-Zags the nice grass footpath disappeared and from here on hiking boots are required to complete the hike.

This section of the Lugnaquilla Hike is well walked and very easy to follow. From this point on it becomes a little harder.

Trail Markers

Turn right after the large warning sign. No other markers were present on the trail.

At the end of the trail, we continued up the hill to the RHS. The ground started to get slightly boggy and the footing started to get slippy at this section.

There are no clear markers from here.

We walked for about 5 minutes until we met a sheep fence and a sty to cross over. Make sure to cross over the sty, as the trail is visible and in front of you from this point.

From here we could start to see some rock formations and the hiking trail goes up over the ridge to the side of the mountain. The hike up Lugnalquilla starts to evolve from walking up a hill to a bit of a scramble over rocks and heather.

From this point, we lost all the lovely views of the valley behind us but we started to get amazing views down either side of the ridge which we were walking up along. We felt that this is probably the toughest part of hiking up Lugnaquilla, it is definitely the steepest of all the sections. After lots of small detours to find the safest route along the steep rocky edges, we reached the top of the ridge.

Cloghernagh Stone Cairn at 783m

The top of the ridge is marked with a large bundle of stones and is the Clogernagh summit. This marker will come in extremely helpful when we are descending, as we will know to aim for this on the way back down to the Zig Zag Trail.

The steepest section of the hike is now over.

From this point, we were now high enough to see all the surrounding mountains that include, the Sugarloaf, Turlough hill up over Glendalough, Kippure (Dublin’s highest point) and I’m sure we could also see Mount Leinster too, which was looking south back down toward Carlow.

The top of Lugnaquilla is different from all the other County high points that we have hiked, as the top is not a big pointy mountain like the rest, but it is a reasonably flat top with a gently sloping climb to the top.

Lugnaquilla Summit Route

The trail on the top is through heather and is not greatly marked. Have a map handy because there are cliffs on either side of this mountain.

When we started walking we could see a vague trail going in the direction of the top of Lugnaquilla.

There are a number of national wildlife trust signs and post along the trail and the path seems to follow the signposts along the top of Lugnaquilla.

We finally came to the base of the hill before Lugnaquilla summit but it is not too steep and is easy to walk up to the top of it. The path reaches the top of the hill and we can see the Cairn to our left-hand side of the hill.

At the top of the gentle hill, we turn left and walk along the tight windswept grass toward the top of Leinster and Wicklow’s highest point, Lugnaquilla mountain.

Like clockwork Ourlittlehiker fell asleep about 30 minutes before we reached the top of Lugnaquilla, so we had to be very quiet trying to take the County high point pictures. Lugnaquilla seems to get big crowds of people up on the summit.

Lugnaquilla Summit Cairn

When we reached the top of the Cairn, there were about 20 people getting shelter from the wind and eating their lunch. We did not stop at the top as we felt this was one of our easiest hikes and we said we would treat ourselves to a nice lunch on the way home (maybe even an ice cream).

Ourlittlehiker woke up just as we were leaving the top of Lugnaquilla, so we had a good game of, spot the sheep on the way down and a sing-song. Thankfully, Ourlittlehiker did not get my poor eyesight, as she can spot a sheep miles away but all I can only see is white fluffy dots in the distance, so I have to just play along.

Descending Lugnaquilla

We walked an out and back route for this walk.

Coming down from Lugnaquilla we aimed for the pile of rocks at the top of Clogernagh. While descending the ridge we got some amazing views of Fraughan Rock Glen.

The minute we started our descent the wind stopped blowing and I realised instantly that I missed my calf muscles with suncream (that’s going to hurt tomorrow).

Halfway down the zig-zag trail, Ourlittlehiker wanted to stretch her legs so we took her out of her backpack and let her walk the lowest section while holding her Mams hand and a walking stick in the other hand (how cute). She loved walking along picking the grass and then we crossed the footbridge again and she loved looking at the water flowing under the bridge.

Lugnaquilla Map

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Our thoughts on the Lugnaquilla

Lugnaquilla is one of the highest mountains that we have climbed and it is only 113m lower than Carrantuohill, the highest mountain in Ireland. We felt that our Lugnaquilla hike was not that hard of a hike and we have found that some of the much lower mountains are harder to hike.

There are sections of the Lugnaquilla hike, that requires good navigational skills, especially if the weather turned bad. Lugnaquilla is different from most of the other County high points, that we have climbed previously. Most of the difficult sections of this hike are at the bottom section of the mountain and the top of the mountain is generally flat with gentle gradients to reach the top.

This is my fifth time to hike Lugnaquilla and Gina has done it twice previously but it was Ourlittlehiker’s 1st time and she got an amazing day to hike wicklows highest point.

We hiked up to Lugnaquilla and back to the bottom in 5 hours, there were a couple of stops for snacks and drinks along the way.

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We parked our car on the side of the road beside the sea, its free car parking here so no need to worry about being clamped. We started our hike at 11am and returned back to the car at 3pm. The hike up Slieve Foy is a very pretty hike and gives amazing views over the Cooley peninsula from the top on a clear day. The track initially follows a small country lane that is very similar to a Camino de Santiago hiking trail, the hike then follows a grass path up over the ridge of the mountain. The ridge and trail to the top of Slieve Foy is very safe and the trail is very easy to follow. This is a very rewarding hike and not too hard, we met numerous other families out hiking Slive Foye the same time as us. We had a lovely picnic at the end of the hike in Carlingford and Ourlittlehiker didn’t want to sit down to eat, all she wanted to do was explore the lovely area.

Getting to Slieve Foye

County Louth’s highest point is situated in the town of Carlingford. We parked our car in a free car parking spot beside the sea. This is definitely one of the prettiest towns that we have started hiking from on our county high point challenge. Thankfully Carlingford is very easy to access from the M1 motorway and it only took us 2 hours to reach for our bank holiday Monday hike. Try to allow additional time to explore Carlingford as it has some amazing little tourist sights to potter around.

Start hiking Slieve Foye

We left the car park and walked to the rear of it in the direction of Slieve Foye mountain. We walked under the stone archway and down the pedestrian street. When we reached the one-way road leading up the hill we followed the roadway straight up the hill out of the town of Carlingford. The road leading out of the town is a small cul-de-sac road leading to a group of private houses.

The road initially passes a high curved road/wall and then past a number of modern houses on the right-hand side. The road then comes to a crossroads and the track to Slieve Foye transforms into a small country lane leading upward between two fields.

At this point, we are starting to rise in elevation and when we turn around we are greeted with amazing views of Carlingford. The small laneway is very tight and slightly overgrown but this adds to the appeal of the hike. We had to be careful with Ourlittlehikers legs as some of the wildflowers had sharp thorns. The ground on this section is slightly tricky as there are large stones scattered underfoot and good hiking boots are required for this section or you could easily twist an ankle.

The trail cuts between the fields, which have loads of sheep and a horse, Ourlittlehiker loves all animals, so we spent about 10 minutes talking to the animals as Ourlittlehiker had full-blown conversations with them.

At the top of the gravelly lane, we reached a metal stile to cross a fence and into a field at the bottom of Slieve Foye mountain. We could see a path worn into the grass rising up the hill to the left of Slieve Foye. The walking trail cuts through ferns and at this stage of the hike is following the Commons loop up to Slieve Foye.  The hiking trail continues through the middle of a large section of gorse bush where we meet a T junction on the trail.

We took a right here following the red trail arrows up the hill. At the top of the hill, we see another sign with a red arrow and take a left here following the signposts.

From this section, we have a good view of the trail that we are going to use to get to the Col between Slieve Foye and Barnavave. The path sweeps up along a nice gentle grade toward the Col of the two mountains. This is a lovely part of the hike up to Slieve Foye, as the path is wide enough to have a nice chat while walking up the hill slowly but we also have great views of the sea below the mountain.

When we reach the col we came to another T Junction, Slieve Foye is to the right and Barnavave mountain (350m) is to the left. The trail leading up to Slieve Foye isn’t as obvious from here but we can see signs and a trail leading up between 2 faces of rock toward the ridge of Slieve Foye.

While hiking toward to base of the ridge, the hike looked very steep but when we reached it, the trail was very wide with good footing and it was not too steep. We quickly reached the top of the passing between the two rock faces.

From here we follow the trail up to the right which passes around rocky areas which are not walkable. This section of the trail cuts back over to the front side of Slieve Foye and provides a spectacular view of the bay below. The trail is not too difficult and keeps away from steep drops to either side.

When we started hiking Slieve Foye the weather was overcast but mild, just as we reached the summit of Slieve Foye the weather got really warm. It was the first of all the peaks that the air felt warm and we could relax without worrying about getting cold. Just as we were about to summit Slieve Foye, Ourlittlehiker decided she wanted her shoes and socks off. So we stopped and let her feet breath in the lovely warm summer air. We all took this opportunity to top up with suncream as the sun had just broken through the cloud.

Slieve Foye Summit

The summit of Slieve Foye is spectacular and definitely, in a league of its own. It has amazing views of the Sea right below the mountain which no other county high point (that we have climbed yet) has this type of amazing views and if they did, we probably missed them due to fog.

The summit of Slieve Foye is marked with a concrete Cairn on the top of a large rock. It is tricky climbing up to the cairn on the rock. We left Ourlittlehiker at the bottom of the rock with her mammy and Dad climbed up to the Cairn to get some elevated photographs of the amazing Slieve Foye and Cooley mountains below. From the top of the Cairn, we could see the other Cooley mountain and Carlingford walks.

Just as we were leaving the summit we met two other families with small kids, it so refreshing seeing families on these mountains, especially very accessible mountains like this. The route we used is the best way to summit Slieve Foye and is very safe.

Descending Slieve Foye

The hike down Slieve Foye was done very quickly, as the ground conditions on the mountain were extremely good. Maybe we got a little confident of the good hiking conditions and dad was probably being complacent and walked right into a boggy section of the trail and got mucky boots and legs for himself.

When we returned to our car we set up our picnic in the park underneath a tree for shelter from the sun. Amusements had been set up along with chipper vans for the bank holiday weekend. We had already packed a healthy picnic but the minute you smell chips its hard to think of anything else so we decided to get a bag of chips and a sausage to share between the three of us with our picnic.

After our picnic, we explored the lovely town of Carlingford where we got some homemade ice cream to finish off a lovely day.

The verdict on Slieve Foye

Being honest we were tired after all our hiking lately and we left our house this morning slightly torn on our choice of the hike for the day, as it was over 2 hours to drive to Slieve Foye. After we summited Slieve Foye, we all agreed that we made the right move by hiking this amazing mountain. This was the hike that we needed to lift our spirits again, as anyone that is doing the County high points challenge will know that hiking the CHP isn’t the hard part of the challenge, its the driving to all these remote places in Ireland (average 4 hours each way) that is the tiring part. We passed Carlingford many times going to other high points and we probably should have tried to fit it in with some of these hikes.

This hike is easily in the top 5 of the best hikes in Ireland for us and definitely one of the best county high points to hike. We loved it and so did Ourlittlehiker but I assume it was the sheep and horse that she liked.

Slive Foye Hike Map

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Maps and more information about Slieve Foye can be found here

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Where to start hiking Arderin Hike

We started at Glendine Gap which is on the Offaly/Laois border. There is a carpark behind the lovely border statue seen in the picture below. We parked our car here while climbing the mountain, there seems to be parking for only about 5 cars so come early or you might have to park on the road.

Hiking Arderin

Looking towards Arderin Summit to your right, just beside the car park entrance is a path that descends through a shallow bog. Be careful climbing down here as it is a little steep and the path is very slippery from water flowing down it. From here you then cross the flat part that was very wet when we walked through it and then climb up the mountain following a dirt track through the heather.

Arderin hiking Path

The path through the heather is quite worn from other hikers walking the trail and it is easy to see where the trail is leading. As the path starts to rise out of the flat section, we passed a nature reserve sign to our left. We walked through a few larger puddles that we couldn’t walk around and we couldn’t jump over either so we had to get wet feet early.

We followed the path through the heather and purple grass that lead us all the way up to the cairn. This high point is very easy and it only took us 25 minutes from leaving the car to walk to the two counties high points. When we reached the top the cairn was marked with a wooden stake and the high point had an OS marker pin in concrete.

Arderin Peak- Laois and Offaly County High Point

Arderin is an extremely easy hike for a high point but it is very enjoyable. On the way up to the cairn, you walk through heather, bogs, streams, and wild purple grass. When you reach the top you get panoramic views of the Slieve Bloom mountains while also looking across numerous other counties.

This is a great hike and our only advice would be to try to go in a dry spell as the ground is very wet.

We lost ourlittlehikers favourite Flamingo teddy while walking up the mountain so the whole way down we traced our footsteps but luckily we found the teddy about 20 meters from the car, since then we tie the Flamingos leg to the bag so we won’t lose the teddy in future.

Additional hikes and information

See here for more information about the Slieve Blooms. The Glenbarrow and Monicknew hikes are worth visiting after this hike.

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