Wicklow Mountains National Park – the Largest Park in Ireland
Finally – our dear readers, we are writing about the national parks of Ireland, the gems of this Emerald isle. There are currently six national parks in Ireland; four of them; the national parks of Killarney (Co. Kerry), Burren (Co. Clare), Glenveagh (Co. Donegal) and Ballycroy National Park in Mayo; have an area of about 102 km² to 117 km².
The smallest national park in Ireland, with an area of only 30 km² is located in Connemera (Co. Galway) and the largest one is the Wicklow Mountains National Park located (obviously) in Co. Wicklow. With an area of around 200 km² (20,000 hectares), it is the main subject of this post. To give you a better idea of big this is we decided to compare Phoenix Park, the largest closed park in Europe, the area which is only slightly over 700 hectares.
Of course words alone cannot describe the beauty of this national park but we hope that our photos and videos will help you get a more detailed picture.
From the name of this park it isn’t hard to deduce that its main attraction is the mountains that the park is built around; which by Irish standards are quite big. The largest mountain in Wicklow, the Lugnaquilla Mountain, stands 926 metres tall and is the runner up to Ireland’s largest mountain, the Carrantuohill Mountain. Also upon entering the park you will probably drive through Roundwood village, which claims to be the highest village in Ireland, but truthfully it’s only one of the largest.
So because of the fact that the mountains are located all over the place but still stand quite tightly together the park is a geographical hotspot for bogs and ponds. Because of this, on the lower part of the mountains, Mountain Rivers form Loughs/lakes.
So apart from the two lakes in Glendalough, you can also find two large Loughs; the Bray Upper and Bray Lower Lough’s and four relatively smaller lakes. These lakes are easily viewed from the designated ‘Boardwalks’ and ‘Green Road’ there.
The gem of this entire park is the Glenmacnass Waterfall. The view of the waterfall from its highest peak is so beautiful that even in Victorian Era it was called ‘Little Swiss’. Finding this waterfall is quite easy, all you have to do is drive from Glendalough in the direction of Sally Gap.
Continuing down this road to the centre of the park the mountainous view slightly changes. The mountains become surrounded by forest and them the forest slowly recedes and landscape turns in to something resembling a savannah, with bare mountains and dry grass at the bottom. And the mountains even start turning into different shades of red the further you.
The final touch to this amazing landscape is the wild deer and goats that run along the plains along with sheep that love to walk onto the road. It is these unique characteristics that attract tourists from all over the world to this place. Also the fact that this park is located not far from Dublin helps.
Special sidewalks were built to give access to the park. They vary in navigation difficulty, ranging from a couple of kilometres to tens of kilometres, like for example ‘The Wicklow Way’ which starts in the South of Dublin, goes through Wicklow National Park and ends in Co. Carlow. We think that for people that like travelling by foot this is a big plus when travelling to Ireland.
So it’s no surprise that these places are loved by film producers, and that scenes from famous films were shot in Wicklow National Park. The most famous film that was shot here was ‘Brave Heart’ which, if you remember, was also shot in Trim Castle. Some other films that were shot here include ‘King Arthur’, ‘General’, ‘P.S. I love you’, ‘Veronica’ and ‘Reign of Fine’.
It seems that Hollywood likes to film films in the place where they got the name Hollywood from, and that place is located in Wicklow National Park. But that is a story connected to the name of Saint Kevin and Glendalough, the holly place in Wicklow National Park, and about which we will talk about in our next post.
