Five of the best family friendly hiking trails around Ireland: From easy to demanding
From three to four years old, your child can start going on slightly longer and more uphill walks. The trick is to choose interesting walks so that the rocks, water and scenery carry the load of entertaining your child. Watch your own physical and emotional wellbeing too – try to be in a good mood and not stressed so that you can support your child while also being able to look after yourself.
The more walks you go on, the better hikers you and your children will become. A few uphill hikes on easy routes are recommended to build up stamina in your calf muscles before you undertake longer, more demanding hikes. By steadily increasing your hiking experience, you and your family will be able to climb most mountains in Ireland. Here are some of our favourite hikes to try.
Diamond Hill, Co Galway
An exhilarating hike through Connemara National Park
Diamond Hill overlooking the Atlantic Ocean
Diamond Hill is one of the first mountain hikes that we undertook as a family and is still one of our favourites. It offers so much bang for buck in terms of the effort required to experience stunning vistas of the Twelve Bens mountain range and Atlantic Ocean. This walk has a great mix of safety and wildness. Our son loves the boardwalks and rocky steps and at several points was so entranced by the views that he spontaneously twirled and danced en route. On our first hike up Diamond Hill, we introduced the Irish saying of 'Tóg sos' (take a break) as a way to put brakes on our son who always clambers ahead faster than his parents. In our experience, children are naturally adept and agile hikers; it's the poor old parents who in the early days of hiking need to strengthen their calf and joint muscles and need multiple water breaks. There is a very companionable atmosphere on the mountain with fellow climbers urging each other on. There are stunning views of Kylemore Abbey and the Twelve Bens from the summit with lots of fun rocks for children to explore. You can also see the mountains where Fionn Mac Cumhaill and Cú Chulainn had one of their many spats, according to the legend. We have climbed Diamond Hill on calm days, windy days and cloudy days and it's a different experience each time. It is lovely to have a picnic on top on a calm day and exhilarating to experience it on a wind-buffeting day. There are shorter walk options for families with very young children but we would encourage aiming for the top if your children are over four years old. There is a playground and cafe at the start of the hike. Our son always has plenty of energy left to try out the slides and swings while we take it easy on the benches.
READ MORE
Mullaghmore, Burren, Co Clare
A hike through a fascinating limestone kingdom
Mullaghmore, in the heart of the Burren
When we asked our son what his favourite hike was he told us quite definitely that it was Mullaghmore in the Burren,
Co Clare
. Our son loves the Burren in general – the unique flora and karst landscape – and this hike has it all. Mullaghmore and the surrounding hills look like giant coiled snakes or soft cake mixture and remind us that the landscape results from layers of seabed being twisted skyward 325 million years ago. The hike is clearly marked throughout and there is something truly satisfying about walking across the karst limestone. Our son especially enjoys the sections where you have to scramble a bit by using your hands to get up or down rocks. The views from the summit of Mullaghmore across the Burren are beautiful and offer much exploring and picnicking opportunities. We have visited this site many times, and each time it is so much fun. There is also something surreal about the landscape, and this is brought home by seeing the house used in Father Ted on the far side of Mullaghmore. As you cross some of the more barren sections of the limestone slabs, you may well think of the great line from that series, 'Are you on your holidays, Father?' Once you finish the hike, you may find that part of your heart has turned to karst limestone, ensuring that you will be compelled to return here again and again.
Great Blasket Island, Co Kerry
An unmissable hike exploring a bygone time
The Great Blasket Island
This hike is full of adventure, nostalgia and beauty and will last long in the memory. It starts with making the steep descent to Dunquin pier from where you take the boat to the Great Blasket Island. Even on a calm day, the waters of Blasket Sound are somewhat choppy. As we crossed, we noticed a small dinghy being carried behind the boat and imagined what it would be like if we needed to use it as a lifeboat. We were somewhat taken aback when we realised that we would have to transfer to the bobbing dinghy in order to access the harbour in Oldtown. Once safely ashore, tranquillity settles. You realise you are now on the most westerly point of Ireland and Europe, with the next parish being America. The old abandoned village puts you in mind of the people who lived on the island, the last of whom left in 1953. We are tempted to explore the beach first but since the island is relatively compact, we decide to walk around it before exploring the old houses and beach later. This proves to be a good decision and we are rewarded with breathtaking views of the Atlantic Ocean and the other Blasket islands, including Inishvickillane, the island bought in 1974 by taoiseach
Charlie Haughey
and now owned by his family. Seals, whales, dolphins and puffins can be seen from the beach. The tour provided by the OPW was excellent and it was fascinating to hear the stories of the islanders, including their celebrated literary figures
Peig Sayers
, Tomás Ó Criomhthain and Muiris Ó Súilleabháín. Then it was back on the boat again and, to top the day off, we had a very delicious meal in
Páidí Ó Sé's
traditional and memorable pub in Ventry.
Slieve Foye, Cooley Mountains, Co Louth
Where Queen Maeve fought the king of Ulster for the Brown Bull of Cooley
Overlooking Carlingford Lough on the way to Slieve Foye
Slieve Foye is one of the first mountains that we hiked as a family and the experience was so amazing that it became our gateway to exploring the rest of the Cooley and Mourne Mountains. The views of Carlingford town and lough are beautiful from the start but it's at the summit ridge that the hike really comes alive, with its tremendous vistas and clambering opportunities. The route is clearly marked for the most part but there is a chance to test your navigational skills as you near the summit. Slieve Foye is the literal high point of
Co Louth
, and the route is made up of different terrains – rock, grass and bog. The walk can be shortened if needed for younger families but reaching the summit does require a bit of stamina or prior hiking experience. The views from the summit are so expansive and beautiful that it was here that we were first put in mind of the mythological Fianna who were said to roam Ireland in pre-Christian times. We could imagine Queen Maeve coming here with her army to raid the Brown Bull of Cooley and Cú Chulainn single-handedly defending Ulster on Slieve Foye against the invading Connacht army. It was within the Cooley Mountains that we began to understand the intersection between landscape and psyche in Irish mythology and decided to research the myths and folklore linked to other places we had hiked. The charming village of Carlingford is a great place to finish your day.
Fair Head, Co Antrim
A breathtaking hike along a sublime route
The Fair Head coastline
Fair Head in
Co Antrim
is surely among the finest cliff walks in Ireland. It offers adventure and superlative views for little effort. It is not far from the Giant's Causeway cliff walk (also stunning) but there will be very few if any people on this route. Right from the start at the car park, the waters of Murlough Bay rise up to meet you and the shores of Scotland and Rathlin Island are clearly visible. The path is clearly marked, navigation is straightforward and the walk can be shortened or lengthened as desired. It is thrilling to be able to walk near to the cliff edges and yet feel completely safe (children should be old enough to be fully secure on their feet and trusted not to go too near the edge). There are also many unusual rock formations to explore en route. There are beautiful inland views too as well as across the ocean. Chilling tales of the enigmatic Grey Man are linked to this path, usually associated with the grey mists and fogs that roll in off the north Antrim coast. Another mythological link to the area is the story of the Children of Lir, who were cursed by their stepmother to live as swans for 300 years in the stormy Sea of Moyle between Fair Head and Scotland. If I could be teleported to anywhere right now, I would ask to go to Fair Head.
The 50 Best Family Hikes in Ireland by Mairéad Furlong and Fergal McLoughlin is published by Gill
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
3 hours ago
- Irish Times
Fáilte Ireland appoints Caroline Bocquel as new CEO
Fáilte Ireland has appointed Caroline Bocquel as its new chief executive. Ms Bocquel, the first woman to led the State tourism agency, will step into the role in November. Paul Kelly , who had led Fáilte Ireland for eight years, stepped down in March to take over as chief executive of the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) . Ms Bocquel, an executive with 20 years' experience, most recently served as chief executive of Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM), the State agency responsible for the development of the Irish seafood sector. She has been in that position since January 2023, having previously served as BIM's director of corporate services. She is the chairwoman of the audit and risk committee at the Irish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and formerly served as the chief financial officer of aid agency, Goal Global. READ MORE Ms Bocquel said she was honoured to be appointed to the position, describing Fáilte Ireland as 'central to one of Ireland's most vital industries'. 'Tourism supports hundreds of thousands of jobs in communities nationwide, and its sustainable growth is essential to our economic and cultural future,' the incoming chief executive said. She outlined her aim of working to 'ensure Ireland continues to offer world-class experiences while building a resilient, innovative and inclusive tourism sector'. Minister for Enterprise, Peter Burke , said he was 'happy' to approve Ms Bocquel's appointment, adding that 'tourism is of critical importance to the Irish economy'. Mr Burke said Ms Bocquel 'has the strategic skills, development mindset and governance experience needed to support the sustainable growth of our tourism economy into the future'. 'I am confident that Caroline and her team will work closely with the industry and my officials as we develop and support the Irish tourism sector together,' the minister said. Ruth Andrews , chairwoman of the Fáilte Ireland, said the appointment came following 'a highly competitive recruitment process'. Before Ms Bocquel formally assumes the role in November, Paul Keeley, the director of regional development, will serve as interim chief executive.
Irish Times
17 hours ago
- Irish Times
A letter from Michael O'Leary: ‘MetroLink is a mad, bad project'
Sir, – Unbelievable!! Only an Irish Times columnist (with no known experience in transport) could waste her half-page column, slagging off Dermot Desmond and myself for criticising the Dublin MetroLink, without once mentioning the projected cost of approximately €20 billion!! Being criticised by Irish Times columnists is always a great compliment. In what crazy country could we seriously consider wasting approximately €20 billion of taxpayer money on a railway line, serving a narrow strip of the north Dublin population from Swords to St Stephen's Green, all of whom are well served currently by bus connections? The cost/benefit of this insanity has never been published, because it cannot be justified. Dermot Desmond's transport view should carry significant weight, given his very successful rescue, redevelopment and sale of London City Airport for approximately $1 billion in 2006. My own, (less?) humble view is based on almost 40 years' experience of growing, what is now the world's largest passenger airline. READ MORE But sadly we are both guilty of 'being rich', so therefore dismissed by The Irish Times 'experts', who know so much more about transport. I wouldn't quibble with a MetroLink from Swords to St Stephen's Green if it was free, but there are far better uses of taxpayer funds, than this white elephant. Muddled thinking, free of any cost/benefit analysis, such as that displayed by Justine McCarthy, is how you deliver a children's hospital (which should have cost €200 million) at a final cost of €2.5 billion and rising. My criticism of the MetroLink is based on the fact, that very few passengers at Dublin Airport will ever use it. It takes passengers into St Stephen's Green, so some small minority of inbound visitors might use it, but the vast majority of Irish originating passengers, who need to get to Dublin Airport early in the morning, or are travelling to/from outside the D2 / D4 area, won't use it. Dublin Airport is just 9km from the centre of the city, and is well served by competitively priced bus connections, which takes passengers to the city centre, and to points all over Ireland at low fares. These passengers won't switch to a €20 billion metro. Your columnist claims that I 'opposed the second terminal at Dublin Airport in 2010. I didn't. Dublin needed a second terminal l and I offered to build it on the North Apron for just €200 million, as Ryanair had proposed. I simply pointed out that the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA), wasted €2 billion, building Terminal 2 in the wrong place (a cul-de-sac) and with no ability to future expand. Now that the second runway has opened on the north apron, the chronic congestion in the T2 cul-de-sac bedevils the T2 airlines on a daily basis. I note Ms McCarthy failed to offer her opinion on the Dublin Airport second runway (a project which I also supported), yet which the airlines and our passengers are prevented from using, by a 2007 (Road Traffic) Planning restriction. We elected a new government last November which promised to remove this cap 'as soon as possible', which would enable the airlines at Dublin to grow traffic, new routes, tourism and jobs. Sadly, eight months later the Government has failed to take any action to scrap this cap. More inexcusable delay and inaction from our political class. To summarise, both I and Dermot Desmond believe, wasting €20 billion on a Dublin Airport metro, is an unjustifiable waste of scarce taxpayer funds. I object because the majority of Dublin Airport passengers won't ever use this vastly overpriced service. Dermot correctly suggests that Al and electric road transport will solve the problem at a fraction of this €20 billion over the next decade. The fact that an unqualified Irish Times columnist considers that 'two rich men' are wrong, only renews my faith that this MetroLink is a mad, bad project. Add some more buses to service the citizens of Swords, Ballymun, Collins Avenue, and Glasnevin, and The Irish Times could save Irish taxpayers (me included!) about €19.9 billion rather than squandering these funds, as we have on the world's most expensive, and least efficient, Children's Hospital. If the next time Ms McCarthy wants to offer an opinion on government transport projects, perhaps she could address the cost benefit of the project, rather than slagging off two successful – albeit opinionated – business people. We won't always be right, but we will be right, far more often than the misguided, anti-business Irish Times 'chatterati'. – Yours, etc, MICHAEL O'LEARY. Chief Executive, Ryanair, Dublin.
Irish Times
a day ago
- Irish Times
Boyne Companions – Frank McNally on why the road from Dublin to Slane lies mainly on a plain (allegedly)
Glamping on the banks of the Boyne at Slane , Co Meath , on Saturday night, I was reminded what a staggeringly beautiful setting for a village that is. Historic too, of course. Our campsite was on the right bank of the river – the Jacobite side during the famous battle of 1690, which happened a few miles east of Slane. But it was hard to imagine this had ever been a place of conflict as peace came dropping slow on the steep, wooded hills. The only threat we faced at the weekend was from an army of insects that invaded the tent overnight. An indirect effect of 1690 was to change ownership of the local castle, of which we had fine views across the water. Perhaps ironically for a battle won by a Dutch king, the big losers included a family called the Flemings. They had previously lost castle and lands in the confiscations following the 1641 rebellion, before regaining royal favour in subsequent decades. Then they ended up on the wrong side of history again in 1690. The Conyghams – an Ulster plantation family, ancestors of the late Henry Mount Charles – acquired the estate soon after. READ MORE The loveliness of the setting is matched by Slane itself, a model of 18th-century British town planning and still dominated by handsome stone buildings. In keeping with its left-bank setting, the village now has a self-deprecatingly declared 'arty quarter'. And it all looked rather idyllic on Saturday night, especially the view down on the old bridge, as the sun set on the river and on its adjoining canal, which used to serve the biggest mill in Ireland, now a hotel. I haven't always appreciated Slane's beauty. Before the M1, it used to be the halfway point on the journey between my hometown (Carrickmacross) and Dublin: a route that, north of Slane at least, is notoriously hilly and winding. As a child and later, I was prone to car/bus sickness, especially on morning trips. Slane tended to mark the full onset of nausea. From there on, it was a grim battle to retain my breakfast as far as Dublin. Sometimes, having reached the outskirts of the city but unable to trust myself for another 20 minutes of lurching through traffic, I would decamp from the bus at Finglas for fresh air and resume the journey on a 19A. [ A life's work reviving the Irish language - Oliver O'Hanlon on Liam Ó Briain Opens in new window ] It could have been worse. Even back then, the road from Slane to Dublin was relatively flat and very straight. This was in part a reflection of different terrain. But it was also – according to oral tradition – a legacy of the fact that King George IV had his favourite mistress in Slane Castle . Hence, during his Irish royal visit of 1821, he made a beeline for there, the road smoothed in advance, and spent most of the trip in her company, to the chagrin of Irish loyalists elsewhere. The mistress in question was Elizabeth Conygham, maternal forebear of Lord Henry. She was married and a mother of several children. But being consort of the monarch was a semi-respectable career in former centuries, so she used it to advance the family's wealth and status, her husband becoming a marquess as part of the deal. Kayakers on the river Boyne at Slane Castle in Co Meath. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA Wire After serving time as one of the assistant mistresses, she ousted Isabelle Seymour-Conway, Marchioness of Hertford, from the main job in about 1820, just as the then prince ascended to the throne. And although she was hitting 50 and he a decade older, the new king was besotted. He was said to be 'nodding and winking' at her throughout the coronation ceremony. For ordinary people, such an ancestral inheritance might be an embarrassment, to be spoken of in whispers if at all. But the aristocracy are not like us. On a visit to Slane Castle after the recent funeral (the whole congregation was invited back, including journalists), I was amused to see that a giant portrait of George IV is still a centrepiece of the ballroom. In fact, it was one of the treasures saved during the 1991 fire, when Lord Henry cut the canvas from the frame just before flames gutted the place. [ Make more of the Moores: An Irish village's connection to the Hollywood Walk of Fame Opens in new window ] In fairness, the castle also displays a pair of cartoons satirising the couple, who enjoyed high living as well as each other and were both somewhat corpulent as a result – a detail the caricaturists exaggerated. According to The Irish Aesthete (a website curated by my former Irish Times colleague Robert O'Byrne), the extent to which the king's Irish visit was dominated by his Slane lover inspired much mockery. One satirist commented in verse: 'Tis pleasant at seasons to see how they sit/First cracking their nuts, and then cracking their wit/Then quaffing their claret – then mingling their lips/Or tickling the fat about each other's hips.' In any case, according to legend, the affair left its mark on Irish transport infrastructure. The course of true love may never have run smooth, according to Shakespeare. But the road from Dublin to Slane seems to be an exception.
