Is Glendalough worth seeing? It really is. Even if you are not interested in monastic and religious sites, Glendalough is definitely worth a visit for its nature, stunning views and location. It’s just the perfect escape from the city, one of the best ways to experience the best of Ireland and soak up its atmosphere.
Reasons Why Glendalough is worth seeing
Heritage, History, Beautiful Nature and Hiking. Glendalough is a glacial valley in County Wicklow, Ireland, famous for early medieval monastic settlement, built in the 6th century by St. Kevin. From 1825 to 1957 there was a Galena lead mine at the end of the Glendalough Valley. Glendalough is also a recreational area for picnicking, walking on manicured trails of varying difficulty and rock climbing.
History of Glendalough
Kevin came from one of the ruling families of Leinster and studied as a boy under the tutelage of three holy men: Eoghan, Lochan and Eanna. During this time he went to Glendalough. He later returned with a small group of monks to found a monastery where “two rivers meet”. Kevin’s writings speak of his fighting “gentlemen” at Glendalough; Scholars now believe this refers to his process of self-examination and personal temptations. His fame as a holy man spread and attracted numerous followers. He died around 618, traditionally on June 3rd.
Over the next six centuries Glendalough prospered, and the Irish annals contain references to the deaths of abbots and attacks on the settlement. Around 1042 oak from Glendalough was used to build the Viking longship, the second oldest in length (approx. 30 m). A modern replica of this ship was built in 2004 and is currently based in Roskilde, Denmark.
At the Synod of Rath Breasail in 1111, Glendalough was made one of the two dioceses of North Leinster. The Book of Glendalough was written there about 1131. St. Laurence O’Toole, born in 1128, became Abbot of Glendalough and was known for his holiness and hospitality. Even after his appointment as Archbishop of Dublin in 1162, he occasionally returned to Glendalough, to the solitude of St Kevin’s Bed. He died in Normandy, Europe, in 1180. In 1176, the Tigernach Annals record that Glendalough was “sacked by foreigners”. In 1214 the dioceses of Glendalough and Dublin were united. From that point on Glendalough’s cultural and ecclesiastical status declined.
The destruction of the settlement by English troops in 1398 left it in ruins but it survived as a locally important church and place of pilgrimage. Glendalough appears as “Glandalag” on Abraham Ortelius’ 1598 map “A Modern Representation of Ireland, One of the British Isles”. Descriptions of Glendalough from the 18th and 19th centuries contain references to “tumultuous gatherings” on the feast of Saint Kevin on June 3rd.
Remains at Glendalough tell only a small part of its history. The monastery in its heyday included workshops, areas for writing and copying manuscripts, guest houses, an infirmary, farmsteads and living quarters for both the monks and a large lay population. The surviving buildings probably date from the 10th to the 12th century.
Lower Glen Monuments in Glendalough worth seeing
The gateway to the monastic city of Glendalough
The gateway to the monastic city of Glendalough is one of Ireland’s most important monuments and is unique today. It was originally two stories with two beautiful granite arches. The anten, or projecting walls, at each end suggest it had a wooden roof. In the front door, on the west wall, there is a stone with a cross engraved on it. This denotes the sanctuary, the boundary of the sanctuary realm. The paving of the street in the monastery town is still partially preserved, but there are only very few remains of the enclosing wall.
Round Tower
This beautiful tower of granite interspersed mica schist is about 30 meters high and has an entrance 3.5 meters from the base. In 1876, the conical roof was rebuilt using the original stones. The tower originally had six wooden floors connected by stairs. The four floors above the entry level are lit by a small window; while the upper floor has four windows overlooking the cardinal points. The circular towers, landmarks for approaching visitors, were built as bell towers, but sometimes also served as camp and shelter from attack.
St. Peter and St. Pauls’ Cathedral
The Cathedral of Saint Peter and Saint Paul Is the largest and most imposing building in Glendalough, the Cathedral had several phases of construction, the first being formed by the current ship with its antae. The large micaschist stones that can be seen up to the level of the square headed west portal were reused from an earlier, smaller church. The presbytery and the sacristy date from the end of the 12th and beginning of the 13th century.
The chancel arch and east window were finely decorated, although many of the stones are now missing. The north portal of the nave also dates from this period. Under the south window of the sanctuary is an ambry or closet and a piscina, a basin for washing sacred vessels. A few meters south of the Cathedral is an ancient cross made of local granite with an unpierced ring, commonly known as the Cross of Saint Kevin.
The Priests’ House
Based on a sketch by Beranger in 1779, the priest’s house is a small Romanesque building with a decorative arch at the east end, rebuilt almost entirely from the original stones. It takes its name from the practice of burying priests there in the 18th and 19th centuries. Its original purpose is unknown, although it may have been used to hold relics of St. Kevin.
St. Kevin’s Church
This stone-roofed building originally had only one nave, with an entrance on the west side and a small arched window on the east gable. The top of the window can be seen above what became the chancel arch when the chancel (now missing) and sacristy were later added. The sloping roof, made of stacked stones, is supported internally by a semi-circular vault. Access to the garret or croft was through a rectangular opening at the west end of the vault. The church also had a wooden first floor. The bell tower, with its conical cap and four small windows, rises from the west end of the stone roof in the form of a miniature round tower. It is commonly known as St. Kevin’s Kitchen due to the clock tower resembling a kitchen fireplace. However, no food was cooked here.
St. Ciarán’s Church
The remains of this nave and choir church were discovered in 1875. The church probably commemorates Saint Ciarán, the founder of Clonmacnoise, a monastic settlement associated with Glendalough in the 10th century.
St. Mary’s or Our Lady’s Church
The Church of Our Lady or Our Lady is one of the oldest and best built churches and consists of a single nave with a later chancel. The granite west portal with architrave has sloping jambs and a solid lintel. The lower part of the lintel is inscribed with an unusual saltire, or x-shaped cross. The east window has a round head, with belfry and two heavily weathered carved heads on the outside.
Trinity Church
Simple church with nave and choir, with a beautiful choir arch. The Trinity Church is off the main road. A square-headed door in the west pediment leads to a later addition, possibly a sacristy. In this chamber, a round tower or bell tower was built on a vault. It fell in a storm in 1818. The portal in the south wall of the nave also dates from this period. Protruding brackets on the gables would have supported the roof edge beams.
St. Saviour’s Church
Glendalough’s youngest church, St Saviour’s, was built in the 12th century, probably in the time of St Laurence O’Toole. The nave and chancel, with its fine ornamental stones, were restored in the 1870s using stones found on site. The Romanesque presbytery arch consists of three orders with richly decorated capitals. The east window has two round spotlights. Ornate elements include a snake, a lion and two birds holding a human head between their beaks. A staircase in the east wall, leading from an adjacent dwelling, would have given access to a room above the choir.
Monuments near the Upper Lough in Glendalough worth seeing
Reefert Church
The church with a nave and chancel, located in a grove, dates from around 1100. Most of the walls surrounding the church are modern. The name is derived from Righ Fearta which means the burial place of the kings. The simple style church has a granite portal with sloping jambs and a flat lintel and a granite chancel arch. Projecting corbels from each gable carried edge beams for the roof. To the east of the church are two notable crosses, one with an ornate interlocking pattern . Across the River Poulanass, near Reefert, are the remains of another small church.
St. Kevin’s Cell
Built on a rocky outcrop overlooking the lake, this stone structure was 12 feet in diameter, had walls 3 feet thick, and had an entrance on the east side. Today only the foundations remain and the cell may have had a corbelled roof, similar to the beehive huts in Skellig Michael, County Kerry.
St. Kevin’s Bed
St. Kevin’s Bed is a cave in the cliff some 25 feet above the level of Lake Superior on its south side (with the cliffs of The Spinc above). It is said to have been a retreat for St Kevin and later St Laurence O’Toole. Partly man-made, it descends 2 meters into the rock.
The “Caher”
This circular enclosure with stone walls at ground level between the two lakes is 20 meters in diameter and is of unknown date. There are several crosses nearby, which apparently served as stations on the pilgrimage route.
Temple-na-Skellig
This small, rectangular church on Lake Superior’s south shore is only accessible by boat, down a set of steps from the dock. To the west of the church is a raised platform surrounded by stone walls, which probably contained dwelling huts. Partially rebuilt in the 12th century, the church has a granite portal with sloping mullions. There is an inscribed Latin cross on the east pediment, as well as several simple grave slabs and three small crosses.
Another Place that is worth seeing in Glendalough is the Miner’s Village
Camamadery Mountain 699 meters (2,293 ft) overlooking upper Glendalough Lake from the north shore contains the Luganure mineral vein which is a source of lead in the form of galena (PbS) and also contains trace amounts of silver. While Camaderry’s main mines were in the neighboring Glendasan Valley, a second mining village and processing plant was established at the end of the Glendalough Valley, nicknamed Van Diemen’s Land by the miners after .
In 1859, the Glendasan and Glendalough mines were connected by a series of adits, called adits, through Camaderry Mountain, now mostly flooded. These tunnels helped drain the ore seam and facilitated the transportation of the ore to Glendalough where it could be more easily processed. The rusted remains of the ore crushers can still be seen in the Miner’s Village, but the tram and incline railway are gone. The mining at Glendalough/Glendastose was carried out in three phases. The first phase from 1825 to 1890 by the Irish Mining Company. The local Wynne family operated a second phase between 1890 and 1925. The mines reopened briefly between 1948 and 1957, after which mining ceased altogether.
The Natural beauty in Glendalough that is worth seeing
Glendalough Valley was formed during the last ice age by a glacier leaving a moraine at the mouth of the valley. The Poulanass River, which tumbled into the valley from the south through Poulanass Falls, created a delta that eventually divided the original lake in two . Surrounding Glendalough are the mountains of Camaderry 699 meters (2,293 feet), the Hydroelectric at Turlough Hill 681 meters (2,234 feet) and a large massif of Conavalla 734 meters (2,408 feet) dominating the head of the valley and the peaks of Lugduff 652 meters (2,139 ft) and Mullacor 661 meters (2,169 ft).
Glendalough is surrounded by semi-natural forests of oak trees. Much of it was harvested (periodically cut down to the base) to produce lumber, charcoal and bark. In the spring, the oak parquet floor is laid out with an exhibition of bluebells, sorrel and forest roses. Other common plants are wood rush, bracken, polypod fern and various species of mosses. The undergrowth consists mostly of holly, hazel and rowan.
Glendalough is a good place to look out for some of Ireland’s newest breeding species, such as Goosander and Great Spotted Woodpecker, as well as some of the oldest rare ones, such as the Redstarts and the Winger; Peregrine Falcon, Dipper, Common Cuckoo, Common Magpie and Common Buzzard can do this too be seen.
Walking Trails in Glendalough
There are nine marked trails of varying difficulty around Glendalough maintained by Wicklow Mountains National Park (and which provides a map of all trails). Some of the trails remain largely intact There are flat terrain trails around Glendalough’s two lakes (The Miner’s Road Walk, Green Road Walk), others lead to the Poolanass waterfall area with options on a network of forest trails (e.g. Derrybawn Woodlands Trail). The most notable walks are via the steep 600-step Path (with railway sleepers) from Poolanass Waterfall to the strategic platform The Spinc (from Irish ‘An Spinc’ meaning ‘pointed hill’) which overlooks the upper lake and valley from Glendalough below.
Spinc’s most famous trail is the White Route, which follows another scenic boardwalk west along the cliffs of Lake Superior to the Glenealo Valley (home to herds of red deer) and over stone trails to Miner’s Village and back along Miner’s Road on Lake Superior’s north shore, ending at the Lake Superior parking lot. / sand paths or planked railway sleepers), can be completed with shoes and does not require climbing shoes; the entire 9km loop of the White Route, beginning and ending at the Lake Superior parking lot, takes 2-3 hours. Wicklow Way, a marked long-distance footpath, also passes Glendalough. The 30-kilometer medieval pilgrimage route of St. Kevin’s Way begins in Hollywood and ends in Glendalough.
Rock climbing at Glendalough
The south-facing granite outcrops of Glendalough, perched on the slopes of Camamaderry above the northwest end of the valley (just above Miner’s Village), have been a rock climbing site since 1948. span> span>The north facing cliffs above Lake Superior are not considered suitable for climbing. The Mountaineering Ireland 2009 Climbing Guide for Wicklow, as well as the online – Guidebooks for Glendalough, they list around 144 routes in all levels of difficulty up to E5 6b (Bathsheba and The Wake); The cliffs are particularly notable for their long multi-pitch VS/HVS routes.
The climbs vary between one and four pitches and can be 100 meters long. There are several sectors: Twin Buttress, found at the west end of the cliffs overlooking Miner’s Village, is a large buttress cut by a seasonal waterfall (which often splits into two streams) is shared, with the top Popular Uploads divided into WestButtress, Expectancy Slab, and Main Face. Upper Cliffs, a band of cliffs high on the slope east of Twin Buttress.Acorn Buttress, a small pier just below Twin Buttress, a popular base camp location.Hobnail Buttress, a small, easy-to-climb pillar on the hillside one kilometer to the east.The Irish Mountaineering Club has operated a climbing hut since the 1950s. Under the cliff is a large rock field that is also used for climbing activities.
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