St Kevin's Way - Pilgrim Path

I did this trail on the last Thursday in September 2022. I was fortunate that my brother, living in Dublin and on vacation, was able to drop me to Valleymount for a 10.30 start. I've no idea how I would have gotten to Valleymount otherwise as there's no public transport.

I decided to choose the Valleymount starting point instead of Hollywood as I was heeding the advice by Aoife who recommended Valleymount due to the quieter road section.

A side note, there's are many discrepancies on the trail distance. Sport Ireland indicates 30km, Visit Wicklow.ie states 26km but printed on the map board is 19km from Valleymount and 27km from Hollywood. Google maps estimated 22km from Valleymount and 26km from Hollywood and thus I gleaned that there's a 4km delta between the 2 routes.

The walk from Valleymount started off on a minor road which gently rose to a height and flanked Silsean mountain. There are nice views behind of Poulaphoca Reservoir. I suprised myself in how quickly I made it to the forestry plantation at Garryknock. Coming to the end of the first map, there was one section which the waymarker indicated leaving the road and going across felled trees. This route looked too rough and overgrown so I stayed on the road until the T-junction and turned left to reach Ballinagee Bridge.

From Ballinagee Bridge, the route passes through forest trails and forest road and it was a welcome change from the road. The route then crosses farmland and then back onto forest road before crossing a road once more to enter another forest. I had lunch beside a footbridge that straddled a river. After lunch I discovered St. Kevin's Pool. I filled my water bottle up from the flowing river water but when I saw the brown colour, I dumped it back in. The trail the proceeding uphill and eventually bog bridge carried me over boggy land until I arrived onto a gravel road with a wooden signpost indicating 9km to Glendalough.From here the route hugs the road to the Windy Gap from the safety of farmland.

Eventually the route left the farmland and I was walking on the hard shoulder of the road to the Windy Gap. The views start to impress now. Up until now the trail was a 3 out of 5 but now it started to enter the 3.5-4 out of 5 territory. I rested, boiled water and had a cup of tea on a large boulder which overlooked the rest of the way down to Glendalough.

Resuming the trail I was surprised that the route didn't skirt the Lake Nahanagan, instead the waymarker pointed across the road and directed me across bogland which flanked a forest.

I emerged from this section to rejoin the route as highlighted by the map. Shortly afterwards I was expecting to have to walk the road but the way has been nicely redirected to run parallel to the road which lead me to the lead mine ruins. The disused lead mines are the highlight of the trail for me. You get an amazing vantage point of Glendalough and the monastic city off just 3km in the distance. At times it felt like walking around ruins of Ancient Greece.

The trail finishes by following the Glendasan river as it flows into Glendalough ending near the monastic city. The 22km walk took me roughly 6hrs including at least 1hr of breaks.

Beautiful walk, very well way - marked. Bit boggy in some spots but the board walks are excellent and in place across a lot of the boggy sections. It was a beautiful day which helped...... Scenery at Wicklow gap beautiful.

Trail was challenging enough for an interested hiker and very beautiful and peaceful. However, we misread one of the pilgrim sign posts and ended up walking a forest road for an hour, which brought us back to where we had previously crossed the road to follow the pilgrim path an hour earlier. Although it was pleasant and beautiful, it was disappointing. We asked a motorist who explained that we misread the sign which I felt was ambiguous. We continued to complete the climb and finished the walk around 5.45pm on Sunday, only to find that we couldn't get our passports stamped as the visitors centre was closed and the hotels knew nothing about the stamp although my sister had been told over the telephone that stamps were available in the hotel in Glendalough. We also enquired in the hotel in Laragh but again, they knew nothing. This spoiled our adventure somewhat, compared to Kerry, where we did two trails on Easter weekend, and had no difficulty getting passports stamped on Good Friday and Holy Saturday. If this could be addressed, it would greatly improve the experience and sense of achievement upon completion of a long trail. Many thanks for an otherwise very rewarding experience.

Walked part of the trail over the gap heading into Glendalough. As I was walking down the old mining road which is part of the trail I noticed a bridge over the river that someone had made into a stone tribute to peace. The word peace was written with stone in a number of languages and it was very beautiful. I think St. Kevin would approve. It's a lovely walk along the river and into town.

The village of Valleymount actually is accessible by Dublin Bus, though only twice a day and you'll have to catch the first bus to Ballyknockan at 5.30am. Hollywood is accessible via Bus Eireann buses to Baltinglass.



The route from Valleymount follows the road to Glenbride and while narrow, it is less traveled than the Hollywood route and quite safe. All of the off road sections follow paths but can be boggy in places. Bring your gaiters! I recommend sheltering at St. Kevin's Pool at around the half way point for your break. A beautiful walk that I highly recommend for a fine day.

The trail follows an obvious route over the Wicklow gap, and from the west it is well signposted and easy to follow. However, I recently walked the route from Glendalough to the forest below Art's Cross (about 10-12km) and the signage is far from adequate at several locations. Firstly, where the trail leaves the main road to the west of the old mine workings at the head of the Glendasan valley. The trail arrives at a ford across the river, from where there are two options of paths to take - the lower one is the correct one. About half a kilometre from this the marked trail should deviate from another trail to skirt the forest and head directly for the Wicklow Gap. However the trail that leads towards Lake Nahangan is much more obvious, and there are no signs to direct walkers along St Kevin's Way - we ended up walking as far as the lake and then following the access road back to the trail.

Secondly, upon reaching the Gap, the obvious way to go is to continue along St Kevin's Road towards the power cables, whereas the trail actually moves to run along the road for several hundred metres.

Thirdly, the sign to leave the road and rejoin a parallel trail is marked only by a painted yellow arrow on a small rock by the side of the road - there is no waymarker to indicate that the trail has left the main road at this spot.