MacsTravel Blog

In between days exploring Dublin we opted for a day trip on one of the giant coach buses that blanket the country of Ireland. This was to the Wicklow mountains, with a morning stop in Glendalough, a monastic settlement in Wicklow National Park, and an afternoon visit to the medieval town of Kilkenny. Both stops proved to be well worth it.

Wicklow is the largest national park in Ireland and its borders are only about 45 minutes outside of Dublin. We stopped for a couple of hours at the Glendalough monastic site. Glendalough literally translates as the valley of two lakes and we visited both the lower and upper lake on a pleasant trail that took us through a lovely, almost magically lit forest, to a few very scenic lookouts.

The air of mystery certainly hangs over Glendalough as the ruins of its ancient cathedral, watch tower and a few small churches are embedded within a rambling and ancient cemetery. It’s a striking spot.

Glendalough was founded by St. Kevin in the early 6th century, when he was just known as that weird hermit Kevin who lived in a rocky cave by a lake for a dozen years to escape the attentions of a local girl. The monastery gained notoriety because of Kevin’s maniacal dedication to his faith and his supposedly long life. He was said to have lived for a 120 years, from the late 400’s to the early 600’s. If true, this was a feat that would quadruple the average life expectancy of Kevin’s contemporaries, who must have been extremely frustrated by the impact his longevity had on their leadership aspirations.

I’ll call blarney on that one. But the ruins are wonderful.

If you are an Irish whiskey aficionado you might recognize the tower and the name from the Glendalough whiskey branding.

After leaving Glendalough we drove deeper into the park and through the Wicklow pass. Beautiful landscapes spotted with sheep, and weather that alternated between sun and soft breezes and driving winds and the threat of rain. Another typical Irish morning. It would have been great to have the flexibility to explore more trails in the area but this was not possible on our giant coach bus.

We arrived in Kilkenny shortly after 1pm and had the afternoon to wander the town. Again, we had mixed weather, so we alternated between exploring castles, churches and the Smithwick’s brewery in lovely sunshine and diving into shops (Kilkenny has a great bookstore) to escape the pelting rain.

We stumbled upon Kyteler pub where we decided to have lunch. This turned out to be a great idea as it is the oldest pub in town, dating to the early 1300’s. I later found out that its founder, Alice Kyteler, was accused of witchcraft but managed to flee the country ahead of her persecutors (no doubt jealous competitors), leaving her unfortunate servant to face the horrific and fatal punishment for being a witch in Alice’s absence.

Not sure who took over managing the pub at that point, but it’s certainly thrived in the years since.

It is a beautiful medieval town, one that friends Kevin and Dana had highly recommended, and we can certainly see why.

For a one day bus trip, this worked out very well, and it also reminded us how fortunate we were to explore so much of the island the way we did with Vagabond.