Once upon a time, more than 200 years ago, the head of Glencree valley, where it abuts the great granite mass of Kippure Mountain, was a remote, lonely and inaccessible place. Then, a military road was carved into that wilderness and a military barracks and garrison imposed there. Later, that barracks became a reformatory and briefly a refuge for German second World War orphans, and finally and currently the Glencree Reconciliation Centre. Along the way, the nearby rich mountain peat was harvested, a peaceful place for German war dead was found and a TV broadcasting mast was erected on the summit of Kippure Mountain. And still, despite all that, the place has kept faith with its wildness – and has gifted us one of the best "little" walks in the Dublin and Wicklow mountains.
This walk is compact and short. It will take you up around the two Lough Brays, initially close to their shores and later along the high brow or rim of their corries. It’s best to park in the Reconciliation Centre and road walk to “McGurk’s Cottage”, once a busy cafe for the armies of turf-cutters during WW2. Though on private land, you are welcome on the clear access path to the left of the “cottage”, as long as you observe the “don’t”s on the entry notice.
I took this path on a sunny August day, and ascended through a mountain garden of heather blossom, fraughan berries, bright sunshine and the nearby enchanting presence of the lower lake. The path splits just before the moraine arête between the two loughs, underneath the steep rocky promontory before you. Take the left branch, and quickly gain the crest of the moraine which was excavated from the hollow that is now home to the dark waters of the upper lake. This “block” moraine marks the last “kick” of the Ice Age, when both the glaciers, then occupying the two loughs, expanded briefly before finally melting away.
Corrie lakes
I crossed the lake outflow stream at the end of the moraine and ascended, briefly now through difficult heather and fraughan, to the high path that comes from the Military Road about 300m to the east. I then followed this turf-floored, rough path right around the brow of the mountain, the two beautiful corrie lakes my companions below on my right. Above a gully at the western corner of the lower lake, I thought of the hunter who lost a stone-tipped arrow there, only for it to be recently found deep in the bog. To him or her, the beautiful valley of Glencree below was probably a vast oak forest, creeping up its hillsides and away over Knockree towards the same distinctive “volcano”-shaped Sugarloaf Mountain that I was admiring!
The path exits on to the Military Road, 5-10 minutes’ walk from the centre. Mark the spot where it emerges through the ferns because the circuit will be just as good, on another day, if travelled in the other direction.
THE HIGH BROW OF GLENCREE, CO WICKLOW
Map: OSI Discovery Series no 56
Start/Finish: Glencree Reconciliation Centre, 9km west of Enniskerry
Effort: about 7km, 220m of climbing, about 2/3 hours
Suitability: exposed mountain route; knowledge of mountain navigation and pathfinding, good boots and weather gear essential
