Meigh, An Mhaigh, Co. Armagh

An Mhaigh · Co. Armagh

A scatter of houses at the foot of Slieve Gullion. The mountain does the talking.

Meigh is a village in the way that a junction is a village - a chapel, a school, a few rows of houses on the B113 between Newry and Forkhill. The map calls it a settlement; the postman knows better. What it really is is the doorstep of Slieve Gullion, and that's enough.

The mountain behind the village is older than language. It's an extinct volcano with a passage tomb on top - the highest passage tomb in Ireland, built somewhere between five and six thousand years ago. A small lake sits beside the cairn. The story says Fionn mac Cumhaill was tricked into bathing in it by the Cailleach Bhéarra and came out an old man. People tell that story like it happened last week.

Down the slope, the ruins of Killevy Old Churches sit in a graveyard at the foot of the hill. Saint Moninna - a contemporary of Saint Patrick, by tradition - founded a convent here around the year 517. Two stone churches built back-to-back, the west one eleventh-century, the east one fifteenth. The round tower that used to stand here collapsed in the 1700s.

Stay if you're walking the Ring of Gullion. Killevy Castle, the restored estate hotel just outside the village, will sell you the comfortable version. Otherwise, drive in, look up, walk somewhere, drive on.

Population

~440

Walk score

A handful of houses, a chapel, a road that climbs

Coords

54.1314° N, 6.3819° W

01 / 07

At a glance.

Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.

01 The mountain

Slieve Gullion sits over the village.

573 metres of old volcano. A passage tomb on top - the highest in Ireland. A small lake the Cailleach is supposed to have tricked Fionn into.

Stories & lore → 02 Killevy

A monastery older than most things.

Saint Moninna founded a convent here in the early sixth century. Two ruined churches sit back-to-back on the mountain's east flank. The round tower fell in the 1700s.

Stories & lore → 03 The Forest Park

A one-way drive up and round.

Eight miles of scenic road climbing through forestry to the back of Slieve Gullion. A walled garden, a children's storybook trail, a courtyard at the bottom. The drive is the point.

Walks & outings →

02 / 07

Where to sleep.

Place	Type	Local note
Killeavy Castle Estate	Hotel & spa	A nineteenth-century house that sat derelict for a decade until the Boyle family put twelve million pounds into it. Re-opened to the public Easter 2019. Spa, restaurant, sweeping views of Slieve Gullion. The expensive option, and probably the best one south of Newry.

03 / 07

Stories & lore.

The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.

The convent at Killevy

Saint Moninna

Her real name was Darerca. She founded the monastery here around 517 - one of the most important nunneries in early medieval Ireland. She died in 518 and was buried under a stone that's still in the graveyard. The site ran as a religious community for over six hundred years before the Vikings burned it in 923. The two ruined churches you see today are from after that - the west one Romanesque, the east one late Gothic, joined back-to-back in a way you won't see anywhere else.

The lake on the summit

The Cailleach and Fionn

Sliabh gCuilinn - the mountain - turns up in the Fenian cycle. Fionn mac Cumhaill comes across a young woman crying at the edge of a small lake on the summit. She's lost a ring, she says. Fionn dives in. When he climbs back out, ring in hand, the woman is the Cailleach Bhéarra, the old hag of winter, and Fionn is suddenly an old man. The Fianna make her undo most of it but she won't undo all of it - Fionn's hair stays white. The lake is still up there. Don't bathe in it.

Older than Newgrange

The cairn on top

Five thousand years ago, someone hauled stones up to 573 metres and built a passage tomb. It's the highest surviving one in Ireland - a stone chamber 3.6m wide with a corbelled roof, all under a cairn 30 metres across. Radiocarbon dates put it between 3500 and 2900 BC. They got it up there before the wheel. Stand at the entrance and look out at the Mournes, Carlingford Lough, the plain of Louth - and try to imagine what they thought they were doing.

A geological accident

The Ring of Gullion

Slieve Gullion sits at the centre of a near-perfect ring of smaller hills - the world's first recognised ring dyke, mapped here by geologists in the 1870s. The rim formed when an old volcano collapsed in on itself sixty million years ago. It looks, from the air, like a halo. The villages on the inside - Meigh, Killeavy, Mullaghbawn, Forkhill, Drumintee - sit in the basin. The whole thing is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty now. The geologists got there first; the tourists are catching up.

04 / 07

Things to do outside.

Wear waterproofs. Bring a sandwich. Tell someone where you're going if it's the mountain.

Slieve Gullion Forest Drive One-way scenic loop from the courtyard at the bottom up the back of the mountain and round. There are two car parks on the drive - the second one is where you start the walk to the summit. Open-top works. So does a small car.

8 miles / 13 kmdistance

40 min by cartime

The summit and lake From the upper car park on the Forest Drive. Boggy in patches, signposted, climbs to the cairn and the small lake. On a clear day you can see the Mournes, Carlingford, and most of north Louth. On a cloudy day, you can see the next ten metres.

4 km returndistance

1.5-2 hourstime

Killevy Old Churches loop Walk up from the graveyard at Killevy through the trees on the lower flank of the mountain. Quiet. Mossy. Saint Moninna's grave at the start.

2 kmdistance

30-40 mintime

Fionn's Giant Adventure A storybook trail through the forest park for kids - wooden carvings, story stops, the lot. Starts at the courtyard. Free.

1.5 kmdistance

30 mintime

05 / 07

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

Heather not yet out, but the light on Slieve Gullion is unreal and the Forest Drive is empty mid-week.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

The Forest Drive gets busy on Saturdays. Go early or go on a weekday. The summit is glorious in long evenings.

◐ Mind yourself

Autumn

Sep-Oct

Best season here. Heather purple, bracken gold, the cairn at sunset. Bring a layer.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Forest Drive can close in ice. Killevy graveyard in low cloud is the moodiest place on the island, mind.

◐ Mind yourself

06 / 07

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.

Doing the summit in cloud

It's a bog with rocks in it. You won't see the cairn from twenty paces and you won't see the view at all. Wait for a clear hour.

Bathing in the summit lake

The story says you'll come out an old man. Even if you don't believe it - it's a tarn at 570m and the water's freezing. Don't.

Driving the Forest Drive the wrong way

It's one-way. Signposted. People still try it and meet a tour bus on a single-track corner. Don't be that person.

Getting there.

By car

Off the A1 Newry by-pass, take the B113 signed for Forkhill. Meigh is about 10 minutes south of Newry. The Forest Park entrance is signed off the Drumintee Road just past the village.

By bus

Translink Ulsterbus 42 from Newry runs through Meigh towards Forkhill, a few times a day on weekdays. Less on weekends.

By train

Nearest station is Newry (Bessbrook), 8km north. Then bus or taxi.

By air

Belfast International is 90 minutes; Dublin Airport is 75 minutes - closer, and the road is straight motorway most of the way.