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Irish Post

Malcolm Rogers recommends some of the easier and rewarding walks in and around the Mourne Mountains.

Slieve Donard, at just under 3,000 ft, is a tough walk rather than a dangerous climb.

Depending on your fitness level three hours should get you up to the summit even if you’re not an experienced hill walker. Straight up the Glen River from Newcastle, and turn left at the granite ridge that rises steeply above the forest.

A few birches still manage to cling on for a few hundred metres, but you’re soon into open uplands, with only a few sheep as companions. When you finally stumble to the top, the view across Ireland is unsurpassable.

Out over Carlingford Bay and on towards Dublin and the hazy infinity of Ireland’s farmscape and boglands. And of course from that elevation there is a staggering view of the other Mourne mountains — Commedagh, Slieve Bearnagh, Slieve Binian — shaped by a million years of belligerent storms. The light show is similarly spectacular — bright sunlight, blue skies, huge phalanxes of cumulo-nimbus and searing rain follow each other in random succession.

If you’re really lucky you may encounter the Brocken Spectre. No, this isn’t some scary Celtic ghost — merely a very spectacular atmospheric phenomenon. Climb out of the clouds to the summit of the mountain and if the angle of the sun is correct — early evening is favourite — occasionally when atmospheric conditions are right if you look down some thousand feet below into the clouds you should see a huge enlarged shadow of yourself, etched out in the colours of the rainbow!

Well worth the toil of getting there. (Neither the Northern Ireland Tourist Board nor The Irish Post will be held responsible if your spectre fails to materialise).

However, you don’t have to see spooky rainbows or scale the North’s highest mountain to get a real flavour of the Mournes. In spring or summer you can take less energetic walks without the aid of any special clothing or equipment, save a decent pair of walking boots.

One walk I can highly recommend is the Pigeon Rock River to Windy Gap trek, which takes you through some dramatic countryside, the rival of anywhere in Ireland.

To get to base camp leave Kilkeel and drive west along the Rostrevor Road. Just under two miles outside the town you’ll come to the sign for Attical on the right. Keep on that road for about another two miles until you come to Holy Cross Gaelic grounds.

A left turn here, and in another mile or so the road runs out. Dump the jalopy — because it’s Shank’s pony from here onwards. Your destination is the Windy Gap, some three miles distant, with an elevation of some three hundred metres — so a fairly easy uphill walk of about an hour.

Behind you is Carlingford Lough, ahead the peaks of Shanslieve, Slievemagogh and Eagle Mountain. The walk along the Pigeon Rock River is well marked and fairly easy going underfoot — but remember, if you are thinking of leaving the path, even in the summer, the barest minimum you’ll need are waterproofs, a map and a compass.

However, if you stick to the path, it’s well sign-posted. After half an hour or so, you’ll reach the Great Gully with views across the valley past the Crocknafeola Wood to Slievenagore. There seems to have been a cuckoo in those woods every time I’ve ever gone past there — but as I first did the walk about 35 years ago, I doubt if it’s the same bird.

But somehow the two-toned call across the bog adds to the atmosphere of the place.

The path, broad and stony here, now gets steeper, and the river falls away to your right. Good place to stop and have your wheaten bread ham sandwiches bought in Kilkeel en-route. Sit back and enjoy your supplies as well as the ocean of silence surrounding you. Fortified, it’s onwards and upwards. Soon you’re at you’re destination — the Windy Gap with a view across the boggy land to Tievedockdarragh and Hen Mountain — an unimaginably beautiful wilderness.

From here you can journey further into the Mournes — but the going is much tougher, so you’d really need to know what’s what about mountain walking if you’re tempted to go further. If you’ve no equipment with you, and you’re not that experienced, then it’s back the way you came. It’s an easy dander down the hill and it’ll give you time to contemplate not just the scenery, but some of the wonderful names round these parts: Slievefadda, Slievemoughanmore, Wee Slievemoughanmore and The Creaghts. Just like poet John Hewitt said way back at the beginning of the last century:

“I’ll take my stand by the Ulster names
Each clean hard names like a weathered stone
Tyrella, Rostrevor are flickering flames
The names I mean are the Moy, the Mourne
Strabane, Slievegullion and Portglenone.”