Glendalough, Gleann Dá Loch, Co. Wicklow

Gleann Dá Loch · Co. Wicklow

A 6th-century monastic city at the bottom of two lakes. The village is up the road.

Glendalough isn't a village. It's a graveyard with a round tower in it, at the bottom of a glacial valley with two lakes lying end to end. Saint Kevin came here in the 6th century to get away from people, and people followed him, and he built a monastery, and they kept following, and now a thousand-and-something years later the coaches arrive at half ten and leave at noon. If you're here at half ten, you've got the wrong day.

The actual village is Laragh, a kilometre and a half east, where three mountain roads meet and Lynham's has been pouring pints since long before the visitor centre was thought of. That's where you sleep, eat, and end the evening. Glendalough proper has a hotel, a car park, a café you can skip, and the ruins. Go down to the ruins at eight in the morning or four in the afternoon, when the day-trippers are somewhere else, and you'll see why Kevin came in the first place.

Don't make this a Dublin day-trip. The bus from town gives you ninety minutes between two queues for the toilet, and you'll see the round tower and miss the valley. Stay a night. Walk the Spinc above the Upper Lake and look down on it. Do the lower path at dusk when the deer come out of the woods. Sit in Lynham's afterwards and let someone tell you about Michael Dwyer hiding in St Kevin's Bed. Then drive home tomorrow.

Population

Laragh village ~342; Glendalough itself: a few rangers and the dead

Pubs

3and counting

Walk score

Lower Lake to Upper Lake in 25 minutes; Laragh to the round tower in 20

Founded

6th century

Coords

53.0103° N, 6.3275° W

01 / 10

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 monastic city

St Kevin built it. Vikings burned it. It still stands.

The round tower is thirty metres of mica-slate and granite, the doorway three and a half metres up the wall - a clue to what it was for. Around it: a cathedral, seven churches, a graveyard still in use.

Stories & lore → 02 Two lakes

Lower for the crowds, Upper for the silence.

A hundred metres apart and a different country. The Lower Lake takes the coach traffic. The Upper Lake takes a walk. Take the walk.

Walks & outings → 03 Laragh

The village is 1.5km east.

Glendalough has a visitor centre, a hotel, and the dead. The pints, the dinner, and the bed are in Laragh - at the junction of the R115, R755 and R756, where the Military Road still does its job.

Where to stay →

02 / 10

The pubs.

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

Lynham's of Laragh

Local, warm, talks

Pub & hotel bar

The village pub since long before the tour buses. Turf fire, old timber, a back bar that fills up after the last walkers come down off the Spinc. Food until late by Wicklow standards. If you're staying in Laragh, this is your sitting room.

The Wicklow Heather

Sit-down, evenings

Restaurant with a proper bar

More restaurant than pub, but the Writers' Room bar at the front is a fine place for a pint of stout while you wait for a table - and the table is worth waiting for. Walls of first-edition Irish literature. Look up, then look down at the menu.

Glendalough Hotel bar

Slow, scenic

Hotel bar by the Lower Lake

The only bar at Glendalough proper, ten paces from the round tower car park. A pint here at five, after the coaches have gone, with the river at the window - that's the trick. Food is hotel food, perfectly fine, no surprises.

03 / 10

Where to eat.

Place	Type	€	Local note
The Wicklow Heather	Restaurant	€€€	The serious dinner in Laragh. Wicklow lamb, Irish beef, game in season; a Writers' Room dining room walled in signed first editions of Joyce, Yeats and Heaney that the owners actually bought. Book ahead at weekends - the village isn't big enough to have a fallback.
Lynham's restaurant	Hotel restaurant	€€	Carvery and à la carte at lunchtime, proper dinners in the evening. The kind of plate you want after eleven kilometres on the Spinc and a wet walk back. Open late by Glendalough standards, which means about nine.
Trinity Mountain Bothy	Café & lunch	€	A small daytime café in Laragh village doing soup, sandwiches, big slabs of cake and decent coffee. The kind of stop that knows it's feeding walkers and behaves accordingly. Closes when the afternoon does.
Glendalough Green	Café	€	On the Laragh side of the road into the valley. Breakfast, brunch, soup-and-toastie territory. Fine for a refuel between the lakes and a walk; not a destination dinner.

04 / 10

Where to sleep.

Place	Type	Local note
The Glendalough Hotel	Hotel	The only hotel actually inside the valley, beside the visitor centre and the round tower. Rooms over the river. Walk to the monastic city in three minutes. Book months out for summer; it's the only one.
Lynham's Hotel, Laragh	Hotel & pub	Eleven rooms above the pub in Laragh. Plain, comfortable, run by people whose grandparents ran it. You're upstairs from a fire and a session. Trade the cathedral view for a shorter walk to your dinner.
Brook Lodge & Macreddin Village	Hotel & spa, 25 min south	If money is no object and you don't mind the drive, the Strawberry Tree at Brook Lodge in Macreddin is the only certified-organic restaurant in Ireland and is plenty of reason to be in this part of Wicklow. Spa, hotel, the lot. Twenty-five minutes south.
A B&B in Laragh	B&B / self-catering	Half a dozen small B&Bs and self-catering cottages run out of the village. Cheaper than the hotels, often with the better breakfast. Ask in advance which side of the village they're on - uphill at midnight after the Wicklow Heather is a different proposition.

05 / 10

Stories & lore.

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

The hermit and the woman who wouldn't go away

Kevin and Kathleen

The story goes that a young woman called Kathleen pursued Kevin into the valley and would not be put off. Kevin, who had taken vows and meant them, eventually pushed her into the Upper Lake - accidentally, or otherwise, depending who's telling it. He repented, did penance, and lived out his hermit years in a cave above the water that's still called St Kevin's Bed. Whether the story flatters him or not depends on you. The lake hasn't said.

A doorway off the ground

The round tower

Thirty metres of round tower, built sometime around the 10th or 11th century, with the doorway three and a half metres up the wall. The conical roof on top was rebuilt from the original stones in 1876 after a lightning strike. The high doorway wasn't symbolic - it was a defensive necessity. When the Vikings came up the valley looking for monastery silver, the monks pulled the ladder up after them. It worked some of the time.

A medieval city, in pieces

The Seven Churches

What survives of the monastic city is fragments - St Kevin's Church (the one with the chimney-shaped belfry, sometimes called St Kevin's Kitchen), the cathedral, Reefert Church above the Lower Lake, Temple-na-Skellig across the Upper Lake reachable only by boat, and a handful more. At its peak Glendalough was a town: scriptorium, schools, workshops, several thousand people. The grass came in slowly.

A name that explains itself

P.W. Joyce on the Deer Stone

P.W. Joyce, the great 19th-century Irish placename scholar, recorded the local tradition that the Deer Stone - a granite bullaun with a worn hollow near St Kevin's Church - got its name when a doe appeared each morning to fill the basin with milk for an orphaned baby Kevin had taken in. The stone was vandalised in August 2023 - the basin chipped - and the loss was felt locally well past what a stone normally rates.

06 / 10

Things to do outside.

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

The Spinc & Glenealo Valley (White Route) The big one. Climb the boardwalked staircase up the south side of the Upper Lake - the Spinc, from Irish 'an Spinc', a pointed hill - walk the high ridge with the lake below your feet, drop down into the Glenealo Valley past the ruins of the miners' village, and follow the river back along the lakeshore. Boots, layers, water. Don't underestimate the climb.

9 km loopdistance

4 hourstime

Lower Lake to Upper Lake The flat one. The Green Road runs from the visitor centre along the Lower Lake, past the round tower, through the woods, and out to the boardwalk and beach at the foot of the Upper Lake. Buggy-friendly, dog-friendly, and the only Glendalough walk that takes you past nine of the major monastic ruins. Do it at dusk.

3 km returndistance

1 hourtime

Poulanass Waterfall From the Upper Lake car park, cross the bridge and climb the Poll an Eas trail through the oak wood - 'the hole of the waterfall' - to a thirty-metre cascade tumbling through mossed-up rock. The river that made it is the same river that, ten thousand years ago, divided the original single lake into two.

1.5 km returndistance

40 mintime

The Wicklow Way (Glendalough section) The 131-kilometre Wicklow Way, the Republic of Ireland's first waymarked long-distance trail, passes straight through. The leg south from Glendalough over Mullacor (657m) to Glenmalure is one of the finest days on the whole route - open mountain, no road, no phone signal, and the welcome at the Glenmalure Lodge at the far end is the sort of welcome you remember.

13 km one-way to Glenmaluredistance

4-5 hourstime

07 / 10

Tours, if you want one.

The ones below are bookable through our partners - pick one that suits, or skip the lot and just turn up.

via Viator

Kilkenny, Wicklow and Glendalough Sheepdog Trials from Dublin

cultural

Full-day Dublin tour visiting medieval Kilkenny, the Wicklow Mountains, Glendalough's 6th-century monastery, and a traditional sheepdog trial on a Wicklow farm.

10 hours From €40

See tour → via Viator

Dublin to Glendalough, Wicklow and Kilkenny Full Day Guided Tour

day trips

Voted No.1 day tour on Tripadvisor. Guided visits to Glendalough and medieval Kilkenny, plus the Wicklow Gap, in a luxury coach with WiFi. Departs 8:45am.

9 hours 15 minutes From €40

See tour → via Viator

The Original Award Winning Wild Wicklow Tour incl. Glendalough

private tours

A small-coach journey through the Wicklow Mountains to Sally Gap, Lough Tay, and Glendalough - with a free tot of whiskey to round off the day.

8 hours 30 minutes From €55

See tour →

We earn a small commission when you book through our tour pages. It costs you nothing extra and keeps the village hubs free. All Co. Wicklow tours →

08 / 10

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

Bluebells and wood anemone come up under the oaks at the Lower Lake in late April. The lambs are out on Camaderry. Walkers, not coaches yet. The light at evening is the reason you're here.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

By half ten the car parks are full and you're queuing for the round tower photo. Come at half seven or after five and you have the place. The Spinc in July with a packed lunch is hard to beat.

◐ Mind yourself

Autumn

Sep-Oct

The oaks turn, the deer rut up on Camaderry, the coach traffic falls off after the schools go back. The locals' favourite. Bring a coat anyway.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Mist on the Upper Lake, frost in the graveyard, no one in the round tower car park, and the round tower itself doing exactly what it's done for a thousand winters. The most honest the valley ever is. Drive carefully on the Sally Gap.

◉ Go

09 / 10

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

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

The 90-minute coach trip from Dublin

You will see the round tower, queue for the toilet, eat a sandwich, and leave before you've walked as far as the Lower Lake. The valley needs an afternoon at minimum, and ideally an evening. Stay over.

The Visitor Centre café

It feeds the bus crowd at twelve and is fine at what it does. Walk the extra ten minutes back to Laragh and eat at Trinity Mountain Bothy or Lynham's instead. Both are better, both are quieter, both are run by someone who lives in the village.

Driving to the Upper Lake car park in summer

The road is narrow, the car park fills by ten, and the walk between the lakes is the actual point. Park at the visitor centre, walk the Green Road, earn the Upper Lake.

St Kevin's Bed by boat

The boat trips across the Upper Lake to St Kevin's Bed don't always run, and the cave is small, dark, and you can't go in. The view of the cave from the south shore - across the water - is the better view anyway.

Getting there.

By car

Dublin to Glendalough is 1h 15m via the M11 and R755, or 1h 30m over the spectacular Sally Gap on the R115 (the Military Road). Take the M11 in, the Sally Gap out. From Wicklow town it's 30 minutes via Rathdrum.

By bus

St Kevin's Bus Service runs once a day each way from Dublin (St Stephen's Green) via Bray, Roundwood and Laragh to Glendalough. It is the only public transport. Check the timetable the night before; it has been the only one for a long time and is run accordingly.

By train

No train. Nearest station is Rathdrum (15km, on the Dublin-Rosslare line) or Wicklow town (30km). Then taxi or hire car.

By air

Dublin Airport is 1h 30m by car via the M50 and M11.