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RATHGORMACK

CO. WATERFORD · IE

Rathgormack
Ráth Ó gCormaic

The Ireland's Ancient East
STOP 07 / 07

Ráth Ó gCormaic · Co. Waterford

Closest village to Coumshingaun Lake. Also a football village, which surprises people.

Rathgormack is a small village in the northern foothills of the Comeraghs, twenty-seven kilometres west of Waterford city, on the road between Carrick-on-Suir and Mahon Bridge. A church, a primary school, a GAA pitch, one pub, a few rows of houses. You drive through it without realising — most people do. The reason you come back is the mountain behind it.

Five minutes up the road, in Kilclooney Wood, is the car park for Coumshingaun. The lake is one of the best-preserved glacial corries in Europe — a near-perfect amphitheatre carved out of Old Red Sandstone twelve thousand years ago, with cliffs that rise four hundred metres straight off the water. The loop around the rim is the headline walk in the county, and it is genuinely steep. People who have done Carrauntoohil have come back off Coumshingaun saying it was harder.

The other thing that has happened to Rathgormack lately is the football. The local club has won the last three Waterford Senior Football Championships in a row — 2023, 2024, 2025 — and twelve county titles in total going back to a legendary side that won six between 1909 and 1918. The Conway Cup has lived in the village three winters running. In a parish of a few hundred people that is the only news worth knowing, and they know it.

Population

~250

Pubs

1and counting

Walk score

The Comeraghs start at the back of the village

Coords

52.2606° N, 7.4878° 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 corrie lake

Coumshingaun is up the road.

One of the finest glacial corries in Europe sits in an amphitheatre of cliffs five minutes drive from the village. The loop walk starts at Kilclooney Wood. It is not a casual stroll.

Walks & outings → 02 The foothills

Where the Comeraghs begin.

The village sits where the south Tipperary lowlands run into the Comeragh Mountains. The land tilts upward at the end of the street. Most of the parish is sheep, sandstone and weather.

Stories & lore → 03 The footballers

Three Waterford titles in a row.

Rathgormack GAA won the Waterford Senior Football Championship in 2023, 2024 and 2025. Twelve county titles in the club's history. In a place this size, that is not a sideline.

Stories & lore →

02 / 07

The pubs.

None of these are themed Irish pubs, because they don't need to be. A few that earn the trip:

The Village Bar and Coffee Shop

Last pub in the parish, saved by the parish

Community-owned pub

Was Maudie's for fifty years under Maudie Kennedy. When she retired in 2021, nineteen locals put in twelve thousand euro each, bought it, and reopened it as The Village. The only pub for miles. The coffee shop side is daytime, the bar side is evenings. The story alone is worth a pint.

03 / 07

Stories & lore.

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

The corrie above the village

Coumshingaun

Twelve thousand years ago a glacier sat in a hollow on the eastern flank of the Comeraghs, slowly grinding a near-perfect bowl out of the sandstone. When the ice melted it left a lake fifty metres deep, ringed on three sides by cliffs four hundred metres high. Geographers call it one of the finest examples of a corrie in Europe. Locals call it the coum. The Irish, coum seangán, means the hollow of the ant — a small thing in a vast space. You stand on the rim and you understand the name.

Rathgormack's footballers

Three-in-a-row

In a county where hurling is the religion, Rathgormack is football country. The club won six Waterford Senior Football Championships between 1909 and 1918, then waited generations for the next great side. It arrived in the 2020s. They beat The Nire in the 2023 final, Abbeyside-Ballinacourty in 2024, and The Nire again in 2025 — three Conway Cups in three Octobers. Twelve titles in the cabinet. A parish of a few hundred people does not produce a senior-football team three years running by accident. Someone has been coaching the under-tens for twenty years and not telling you.

What the name means

Cormac's ringfort

Ráth Ó gCormaic — the ringfort of the descendants of Cormac. The g is Irish eclipsis on a personal name; the rath is the ringfort itself, a circular earthen enclosure built somewhere between the early Iron Age and the medieval period to house a single family and their cattle. There are tens of thousands of them across Ireland and a few of them survive in the fields around the village. The fort that gave the place its name is long gone, ploughed under or grown over. Cormac, whoever he was, is older than any record we have.

04 / 07

Things to do outside.

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

Coumshingaun Loop The headline walk. Start at Kilclooney Wood car park, five minutes drive from the village. Cross the stream, climb the north ridge, walk around the rim of the corrie four hundred metres above the lake, descend the south ridge. Steep both ways, a short exposed scramble on the upper section, and not to be done in cloud unless you have done it before in clear weather. Clockwise is the conventional direction. It rewards everything you put into it.

7.5 km loopdistance

3–4 hourstime

Lake-level approach to Coumshingaun Same car park, but instead of taking the ridge you follow the lower path along the stream into the bowl of the corrie. You end up on the boulder beach at the foot of the lake with four hundred metres of cliff overhead and no way out except back the way you came. The easier option, and arguably the more dramatic one.

4 km returndistance

1.5 hourstime

Rath Beag Loop A waymarked low-level loop from the village itself, through the foothills behind Rathgormack. Hedged lanes, forestry tracks, a bit of climb. The thing to do when Coumshingaun is wrapped in cloud and you still want a walk.

6 km loopdistance

1.5–2 hourstime

05 / 07

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar–May

Cold mornings, clear days, the ridge gets walkable from April. Lambs in every field on the way up.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun–Aug

The car park at Kilclooney fills early on a fine Saturday. Start at eight and have the lake to yourself.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep–Oct

The Comeraghs at their best — heather, low light, the championship final played in the village's own colours. Probably the right season for a first attempt.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov–Feb

The ridge in winter is a different proposition. Ice on the scramble, short daylight, weather closing in fast. Stick to the lake-level walk unless you know what you are doing.

◐ 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 Coumshingaun ridge in cloud

The scramble has drops on both sides and no chains. Map and compass do not save you from a low cloud base on the ridge. Wait for a clear forecast or stick to the lake-level walk.

Driving down to Kilclooney on a fine Saturday morning

The car park is small and fills by nine. Park in the village and walk in, or come on a weekday — half of Munster has the same idea on a sunny Saturday.

Treating Rathgormack as a base for the walk

There is no hotel, no B&B in the village itself. Stay in Carrick-on-Suir or Kilmacthomas; the trailhead is a five-minute drive either way.

Getting there.

By car

Waterford city to Rathgormack is 35 minutes on the R676. Carrick-on-Suir is 15 minutes north. The Kilclooney Wood car park for Coumshingaun is signed five minutes west of the village.

By bus

No regular service through the village. The nearest scheduled buses are at Carrick-on-Suir or Kilmacthomas.