There are hundreds of scenic walking ways scattered throughout Ireland and an abundance of walking festivals taking place this summer.
Author Michael Fewer explains the benefits of walking trails and recommends some walking festivals.
Here are some of his top trail picks:
Beara Way
The Beara Way, incorporating part of the Beara Breifne Way based on the march of O Sullivan Beare in 1603 . The Beara Way is a long distance walking route around the highly spectacular peninsula with a large concentration of historical and archaeological sites en route. The main towns on the route are Castletownbere ,Kenmare and Glengarriff . There are a number of colourful villages in between: Allihies, Ardgroom, Adrigole, and Eyeries. Bere Island and Dursey Island offer excellent walking after a short trip by ferry or cable car
Wicklow Way
The Wicklow Way begins in Dublin's southern suburb of Rathfarnham and travels in a south-south-westerly direction across the Dublin and Wicklow uplands, then through the rolling hill country of southwest County Wicklow to
finish in the small, County Carlow village of Clonegal 127 kilometres later.
The Wicklow Way is now part of a network of long-distance self-guided walking trails, (also called 'way-marked ways'), throughout Ireland. The Wicklow Way combines easy accessibility with a wide variety of scenic experiences, some of them in truly remote upland areas. They include mountains, upland lakes, steep-sided glacial valleys, fast flowing mountain streams, forests and farmland. The Wicklow Way route is now the most westerly section of the E8 footpath which extends across much of Europe.
Western Way South
This 66 km linear walking route provides an excellent introduction for walkers to the beautiful and scenic wildernesses of Connemara in County Galway in the west of Ireland. Starting in the famous angler’s town of Oughterard on Lough Corrib, it follows the western edge of the lake, one of the longest, and the second largest lake in Ireland, northwards into a magnificent wilderness of mountain and bog to reach civilisation again at the village of Maam Bridge.
