Rosslare Harbour Walk

Rosslare Harbour is a 45 minute drive from our house so we decided to try to drive down and get this small walk in and a longer walk around Tintern Abbey. We drove to Rosslare harbour first to do the blue looped walk around the top of the beach and back into the town.

We parked our car in the car park provided for the walk that is across the road from the Topaz petrol station. From this car park there is a viewing point that allows views of the harbour.

We started following the blue arrows out of the car park, we crossed the main road and started walking up the hill. The walkway surface is in good condition on this point of the walk and is tarmac until past the Rosslare hotel.

Rosslare harbour loop

The initial observation of the walk was not the sea views or even golden beaches but the amount of derelict houses and commercial buildings on either side of the walkway. As we reached the top of the hill there is a catholic statue of the Virgin Mary and a seat that is designed to admire the statue and the sea view, it was nice design.

Rosslare harbour loop walk 1

From here the walk continues straight along the top of the harbour with a cobble stone surface until we meet a stone car road that leads to the harbour.

Rosslare harbour loop walk 3

The walkway starts to narrow here and eventually turns into a mud path that will only fit one person. The path follows the rear gardens of houses on one side and a golden beach on the other side. There is a 50m drop to the beach so we didn’t attempt walking down to the beach but it looked like a clean nice beach.

Rosslare harbour loop walk 5

This stretch of trail is the most scenic part of the trail, it skirts along the top edge of the beach for about 50 meters with it also allowing access to sections of the beach below. We didn’t walk down to the beach as the access routes were quite steep and they seemed to have poor footing so we stayed up on the higher section of the walk.

The trail then comes onto a green area with a childs play area to the left hand side and a main road to the front. The blue signs then direct you back in the direction of the original car park along a main road.

The walk then follows this road down past a number of derelict buildings, a number of rather large housing estates, the local bank of Ireland and a church that was closed.

Verdict on the Rosslare Harbour walk

This walk, like many walks in Ireland is set up to promote all the good aspects of the local area but unfortunately it seems that the recession is still quite prominent in Rosslare with the abundant supply of old ran down buildings. The walk does provide good views over the beach and even reminds me of the Howth walk for about 50 meteters.

Would I recommend the Rosslare harbour walk?

The simple answer here would be, no i would not recommend driving here just for this walk but if you were near here or drving the Norman way and wanting to get out for a short walk then i would recommed that you do half the loop, so follow the blue arrows until you reach the end of the cliff walk section where the playground is(if you have children they could play here for awhile before walking back to your car) and then turn around and walk back the way you came, that way you get to enjoy the sea view for longer as this was the nicest part and it was too short for us.