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Dublin: Wild Wicklow Shore Tour- Glendalough & Guinness Lake
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From €85 per person
This tour is designed specifically for cruise passengers arriving at Dún Laoghaire Port. It’s a shore-excursion version of the full-day Wild Wicklow experience, paced and timed to work comfortably within your port window. The smaller coach is a deliberate choice - it gets you to quieter viewpoints and mountain lanes that larger buses can’t reach, which makes a real difference for photographers and anyone who wants to feel like they’re actually in the landscape rather than watching it through a window.
The day starts at Glendalough, where you get an extended visit: a 30-minute guided introduction to the monastic site, followed by 90 minutes of free time. That’s enough time for a gentle walk between the Upper and Lower Lakes, a closer look at the ancient ruins, or simply sitting with the peaceful atmosphere of this remarkable glacial valley.
From Glendalough, the tour moves to the nearby village of Laragh for a relaxed pub lunch at your own cost - classic Irish food, warm local welcome.
After lunch, the route climbs higher into the Wicklow Mountains to Lough Tay, better known as Guinness Lake. The black water and sandy shore really do look like a pint of Guinness from the viewpoint above. To mark it properly, the tour includes a complimentary Glendalough Whiskey toast at the lake.
The journey continues across the Sally Gap, through open bogland and panoramic mountain vistas. This stretch of landscape has been used as a filming location for Braveheart, P.S. I Love You, and Vikings. The return route passes through the quieter Glencree Valley - a peaceful finish before heading back to Dún Laoghaire.
This tour departs from and returns to Dún Laoghaire Port, designed around cruise ship schedules. Duration is approximately 5 hours. The smaller coach format means group sizes are limited.
Use your 90 minutes at Glendalough well. The Green Road from the visitor centre runs flat along the Lower Lake, past the round tower, through the oak woods, and out to the beach at the foot of the Upper Lake - about 3km return and entirely comfortable in under an hour. That leaves time to look properly at the monastic ruins. The round tower is thirty metres of mica-slate and granite, with its door three and a half metres off the ground: the monks pulled the ladder up when the Vikings came. St Kevin’s Church - the one with the chimney-shaped belfry - is just beyond the main gateway and often overlooked by visitors heading straight for the tower. The Upper Lake is quieter than the Lower and worth reaching.
Lunch in Laragh: go to Lynhams or the Wicklow Heather. Laragh is the actual village behind the Glendalough visit - 1.5km east of the monastic site at the junction of three mountain roads. Lynhams of Laragh is a pub that has been on this site since the 1770s, which makes it older than the Military Road running outside its door. The Wicklow Heather next door has a proper restaurant with a bar you can use while you wait for a table. Both are significantly better than eating at the visitor centre. The village is small and lunch service on a busy day can be quick, so order promptly.
The Sally Gap stretch is the best of the mountain road. The route north from Laragh on the R115 climbs through open blanket bog to the Sally Gap at 470 metres. On a clear day you can see Dublin Bay from the junction. The bog colour changes with the season - the burnt orange of autumn, the green wash of spring, the silver greys of winter. This is what “wild Wicklow” means; the smaller coach gets you to viewpoints the big buses can’t reach and that matters on this section.
Getting back to Dún Laoghaire. The tour starts and ends at the port, so the timing is managed for you. If you have time to spare before boarding, Dún Laoghaire’s East Pier is a 1.3km walk of solid Dalkey granite out to a lighthouse and back - the kind of thing Dubliners do with a thermos when they need air. The pier was built 1817-1842 and at the time it was finished, Dún Laoghaire had the largest man-made harbour in the world.