Finding the Irish Charm: Trekking the South Leinster Way

August 5, 2022

When we planned our Ireland trekking itinerary we knew that we wanted to hike the Wicklow Way and the Kerry Way, two of the country’s premier trails. We discovered that both of these trails were part of the 2,900-mile European Long Distance Path E8, which travels from the Irish Coast all the way to Istanbul. Seven distinct trails form the Irish portion of the E8 route.

For a time we considered trekking all seven Irish paths to hike across the entire country of Ireland, but the lack of accommodations close to the trail deterred us. Going back to our initial plans, we reviewed the other paths comprising the Irish portion of the E8 for hiking options. One trail stood out – the South Leinster Way.

There weren’t any books or detailed websites about the South Leinster Way, but I found several blogs describing the beautiful mountain and river scenery, as well as the quaint villages on the trek route. Compared to the number of people who hike the Wicklow Way and Kerry Way, the South Leinster Way was lightly trafficked, appealing to our desire to explore parts of Ireland that tourists don’t normally see. And the 65-mile trail started just a short distance from where the Wicklow Way ended, making it easy for us to access.

The major downside was that 36 miles of the trek were on paved roads. We had already walked on a fair share of roads on this journey, as well as on the Camino Portugues in 2018, so we weren’t too concerned about that. In the end, even though we didn’t have much detailed information about the hike, we decided to take a chance and add it to our itinerary.

And we were glad that we did, as we felt real Irish charm in the scenery we saw, the villages we visited, and the people who we met while hiking on the roads of the South Leinster Way.

Our trekking route along the South Leinster Way

Trekking through a Mountain Range and to a Viewpoint

Since the Wicklow Way and South Leinster Way are adjacent to one another, we took just one rest day between the two treks in the village of Bunclody. The next morning our B&B arranged a taxi to take us three miles to the village of Kildavin, where the South Leinster Way begins.

The Irish charm we were seeking was apparent before we took our first hiking steps. After being dropped off, we found the starting point of the trek in front of the village church. Looking around in the early morning, there was no one to take a picture of us. Wanting to get started with our hike, we decided to take a selfie.

Just as we were ready to take the selfie, a car with a man and woman drove by us. Their car then stopped. The woman jumped out and asked if she could take our photo, so we accepted her offer. Feeling grateful for her kindness, we set off on the trek with a smile.

After spending multiple days traversing the Wicklow Mountains during our last trek, we would spend our initial 9.4-mile stage passing through the Blackstairs Mountains. The range runs 15.5 miles from north to south along the border between County Carlow and County Wexford. Not surprisingly, given the amount of paved walking ahead of us, we initially set off on some quiet country roads.

We had been fortunate not to have any major bug issues on our 500-plus miles of trekking to date. But while we were on the Wicklow Way, we sporadically encountered some flies. They rarely landed on us and never bit us, but were annoying because they sometimes came in clouds and it was actually hard to see in front of us. We asked several locals, who told us bug spray was the answer.

On our rest day we found some natural spray (we are not big fans of DEET), and tried using it when we hit the flies again almost immediately after beginning our stage. It helped a little bit, but I also decided to try my head net. It made it much easier to see in front of me, so I alternated between the spray and the head net, as the flies were much worse on this trek. We were told about hikers being bit by horseflies, but wearing long sleeves and long pants seemed to help us keep bite free.

As we got a couple of stages into the trek, the flies got better.

As we walked, the paved street turned to a dirt road. Soon, we began climbing along the shoulder of Mount Leinster, which is the highest point of the Blackstairs Mountains at 2,612 feet.  Back on a paved street again, we stopped for a lunch break along the side of the road part of the way up the climb. From our vantage point we had a beautiful view of the countryside below us.

The weather was cool and cloudy. After lunch we resumed our ascent to a gap. The clouds moved quickly as we climbed, so we could see ahead of us for a time before it clouded over again.

At the top of the climb we reached the gap and a parking lot. There were a group of friendly day hikers there who we spoke to for a time. Next to us were nine rocks on the ground. Known as the Nine Stones Viewpoint, on a clear day the coast of Wales can be seen.

There are differing explanations of the origins of the stones. One story is that the alignment represents nine rebels who were killed and buried there during the Irish Rebellion of 1798; others say that it commemorates nine shepherds lost on Mount Leinster during a winter storm. 

From the viewpoint, the rest of the stage was all downhill. We continued to follow a narrow road to descend on the other side of the mountain. As we got further down, we had a nice view of the Blackstairs Mountain range. A local woman also hiking along the road stopped us to ensure that we had enough water to make it through the rest of the day.

After about 2.5 miles of walking steeply downhill, we turned off the main trail to another road. We walked four-tenths of a mile further to a rural cabin that we had booked for the night.

A Stage of Village Visits and Peaceful River Walking

To begin our next stage, we made our way back to the main trail. While walking on the paved road, the traffic was mostly quiet in the early morning. We marveled in the views of the countryside as we hiked.

Things got a little busier on the road as we approached the village of Borris. At one point, a man pulled over asking if we wanted a ride to the village center. We thanked him and declined his kind request.

About four miles into our 12.2-mile stage we reached the village of Borris. Arriving in the south part of the village, the South Leinster Way passed right underneath the 16-arch, 754-foot long Borris Viaduct. Completed in 1860 using granite transported from Mount Leinster, the viaduct supported a railway that ran from Wexford to Bagenalstown. It closed to passengers in 1931.

The viaduct stands 60 feet high, so we climbed up to take a look at the nice path that was constructed along the top.

Back on the route, we followed the road into the center of Borris. There were quaint cottages along the main street.

The village prospered in the late 1800’s when the MacMurrough Kavanagh dynasty developed a sawmill and a lace-making industry there. As we continued walking, we could hear a huge chorus of sheep all around us. It reminded us of the cow bells we continually heard while trekking across Switzerland in 2018.

The village buildings were beautiful. We especially liked the clock tower of the Sacred Heart Church.

The MacMurrough Kavanaghs, who trace themselves back to the former Celtic kings of Leinster, still live in Borris. Their estate, known as Borris House, was built in 1731. It is only open for events and private tours, so we couldn’t get close enough to see the manor itself. But the trail went right past the entrance to the 650-acre grounds, so we took a peek inside.

We turned off the main street of Borris to join another road taking us downhill toward the River Barrow. Just before the bridge crossed the river, we left the road and began walking on a grass towpath. The weather, which had been cloudy, eased into full sunshine as we hiked.

The Barrow is Ireland’s second largest river at 119 miles. The river provides an inland link between the port of Waterford and Dublin via its connection with Ireland’s Grand Canal. The Barrow, along with the nearby rivers Nore and Suir, form the “Three Sisters” of rivers, which merge to create the Waterford Harbor estuary.

Physical geography map, showing the Three Sisters of rivers
By Mrchris – CC BY-SA 3.0,44

During our recent John Muir Way trek in Scotland, we spent a couple of stages hiking along the Forth and Clyde Canal and Union Canal towpaths. Compared to those trails, the River Barrow towpath was wild and peaceful, with only a few canoers in the water and walkers passing by us on a Sunday. We took our time enjoying this section of hiking in the warm and sunny weather.

The non-tidal section of the Barrow that we were hiking contains 23 locks over 41 miles. Barge traffic ceased along the river in 1959, but the locks were still there to see. We passed four of the locks during our six miles on the towpath, arriving at the first one about three-quarters of a mile after joining the trail.

Still savoring the natural beauty and serene path, we passed a couple of swans gliding through the water.

We arrived at the second of the four locks soon after.

After passing the second lock, we decided to take a long lunch break.

The pristine scenery and solitude still continued to surprise us as we hiked. Nearing the end of our stage, we were disappointed to be leaving this section of the trail.

Coming around a bend, we got our first view of the village of Graiguenamanagh. We were surprised to see that a big event was taking place.

There were excited crowds of people on both sides of the river. When we got closer, we asked some locals what was happening. As it was a bank holiday weekend in Ireland it was also the date of the annual Graiguenamanagh Regatta, dating back over 100 years. Various competitions take place and we happened to be there when a pre-teen / teen swimming race across the width of the river was getting ready to begin.

After watching the race, we also asked a couple of people how to pronounce the village’s very long name.

“Everyone just calls it ‘Greg,'” we were told. So we resorted to that.

Just across the river from us was our hotel for the evening.

To get across the river we needed to walk a little further to a stone bridge, built in 1767.

After crossing the bridge, we took a short walk down the picturesque village streets.

Graiguenamanagh means “hamlet of the monks” in Irish. It is home to the 13th century Duiske Abbey, the largest of thirty-four medieval Cistercian abbeys in Ireland. Cistercians are a Catholic religious order that branched off from the Benedictines.

As we walked around the village we came across several life-size granite statues of Cistercian Monks performing different duties. After a delightful dinner at an outdoor pub, we settled in to relax for the evening after one of our favorite days of trekking. 

Two of the monk statues in Graiguenamanagh

A Tough Stage along a Hill, through a Village, and into the Forest

Day 3 was our longest and toughest stage with a total distance of 16.1 miles. We started the day by climbing steeply out of Graiguenamanagh. A well-placed sign warned motorists of our presence on the single-track paved road.

We ascended along the shoulder of the 1,690 foot Brandon Hill. The nice countryside view made up for the effort of our climb.

While we had just a little drizzle thus far on the trek, it had rained significantly during the nights. As we descended from Brandon Hill, we hit a stretch of trail that was extremely muddy and took some time to navigate through.

Once we passed the mud, it was clear sailing downhill to the village of Inistioge. As we got closer to the village, we ran into a man and his young son day hiking. When he heard we were trekking the South Leinster Way, he encouraged our efforts and pointed out an upcoming turn that was easy to miss.

Inistioge was 10 miles into our stage, and we had covered the distance in four hours, while gaining about 1,600 feet in the process.

We entered the village by crossing a 10-arch stone bridge over the River Nore, the second of the Three Sisters of rivers.

As we crossed the bridge we got our first look at the village and the St. Mary’s Church that was built in 1824.

The tree-lined streets and main square featured a number of 18th and 19th century homes. Since we had made such good progress on our stage, we decided to stop to eat lunch at a pub in the main village square. 

Just as we sat down to eat, it began to rain. By the time we finished eating it was raining hard. Since we still had about six miles to go on the main trail (plus a two-mile road walk off the path to our B&B), we decided to get going and not wait for the rain to let up. We put on our rain jackets and pants and set off again, putting the main square behind us.

After a few minutes the rain dissipated, and we removed some of our protective gear. We continued our hike by ascending through the Woodstock Forest along the River Nore.

At the end of the stage we turned off from the forest and descended two miles from the main trail on a series of dirt and paved roads to spend the night at a farmhouse B&B. The owner was delightful, and we spent quite a bit of time talking with her in the beautiful sun room of her home.

Turning to Paved Roads as the Trek Ends

On Day 4 we walked two miles from our B&B back to the main trail in the forest. After the long stage the previous day we were a little tired. But we had 12.1 miles scheduled to take us to the town of Mullinavat for the night.

After a little uphill section through the forest, we headed downhill to a series of fields and farms.

Because we had another big uphill climb coming, we stopped to eat an early lunch on a wall by the side of a paved country road.

The ensuing ascent took us on some of the final dirt roads of our entire trek.

The last 18.6 miles of the South Leinster Way solely follows paved roads. So we spent the final 4.4 miles of this stage walking on the streets. 

Mullinavat was the biggest town we had visited on this trek. Although not as quaint as the other villages we had seen, we still enjoyed the nicely colored buildings on the main street.

The entire 14.2-mile stage on Day 5 was on paved roads. Because there were no big climbs on the final day, we took our time leaving the hotel in the morning.

Early in our hike we came to a turnoff to the beautiful Poulanassy Waterfall. After a short walk to the falls we found ourselves to be the only ones there to enjoy the peaceful view. 

The hiking went quickly on the mostly quiet country streets, but we occasionally hit a busy stretch of traffic. A couple of times we even had to contend with tractors passing by us as we walked.

There was just one short climb during the entire stage. We never got tired of looking at the green countryside as we climbed.

At the top of the short climb, we could see that the rest of the stage was going to be on much flatter ground.

Our trek ended at the edge of the village of Carrick-on-Suir, located on the River Suir. After taking a completion photo, we made our way down to the river.

Looking out to the River Suir, we had arrived at the last of the Three Sisters of rivers.

We walked back to the town’s main street and checked into our hotel for a shower and some celebration after completing 65 miles over five days.

We felt our time on the South Leinster Way really got us off the beaten path. The small villages that we visited, rivers that we crossed, mountains and hills that we traversed, and the locals who we met gave us a better feeling for the real Ireland away from the tourist sites.

Even though all the road walking may not be everyone’s cup of tea, we felt it was a small price to pay for the charm that we felt while hiking through the Irish countryside.

We have now completed seven treks during our Trekking the British Isles journey, with just one more to go!  After a few days to relax and sightsee in Waterford and Kinsale, we will travel to County Kerry and begin hiking the longest of Ireland’s National Waymarked Trails – the 123-mile Kerry Way.