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Wicklow, Glendalough and Sheepdog demonstration Private Tour
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From €675 per person
County Wicklow has been a favourite filming location for decades - Braveheart, P.S. I Love You, Irish Wish and the BBC series Ballykissangel and Vikings were all shot here, and it’s not hard to see why the location scouts kept coming back. Lakes, peatlands, glacial valleys and lush green hills on narrow winding roads, all within easy reach of Dublin.
Your driver-guide will take you through the best of it at a relaxed pace, covering the ancient monastic site at Glendalough, the striking Lough Tay (the Guinness Lake), the filming locations from P.S. I Love You, Powerscourt House and Gardens, and the quiet village of Hollywood with its famous sign. The optional sheepdog demonstration at a working sheep farm is a genuinely memorable add-on - you’ll see a shepherd use whistle commands to direct sheep across different sections of the farm with his dog, and you can hold a lamb and a puppy.
Hollywood Village - Drive through the unspoiled village of Hollywood in its lush green surroundings. Keep an eye out for the Hollywood sign. (pass by)
Glendalough Monastic Site - The ancient ruins of Glendalough, a monastic settlement founded by St. Kevin over 1,500 years ago. (60 min)
Glendalough Lakes and Visitor Centre - Walk the wooden boardwalk path through lakes and woodland, and drop into the visitor centre to learn about the deer, sheep and mallards that inhabit the national park. (60 min)
Lough Tay (Guinness Lake) - The distinctive dark lake with its white sandy shore, known as the Guinness Lake for obvious reasons. Scenes from the TV series Vikings and the film Irish Wish were shot here. (15 min)
P.S. I Love You Filming Location - Stop for photos at the Wicklow landscape where Gerard Butler and Hilary Swank filmed their scenes together. (15 min)
Military Road - Drive the scenic military road back through the mountains, boglands, valleys and woodland towards Dublin. (30 min)
Powerscourt House and Gardens - Powerscourt’s gardens are rated number 3 in the world by National Geographic. The estate is one of Wicklow’s most impressive spots. (75 min)
Sheep Farm and Sheepdog Demonstration (optional) - Visit a working sheep farm and watch a shepherd use whistle commands to direct sheep with his dog. You’ll have the chance to hold a lamb and a puppy. (60 min)
Hollywood village sits where the low farmland of the Kildare border meets the Wicklow Mountains - a genuinely small place (one pub, one church, a green) that has more history than its size suggests. The Hollywood sign on Dragoonhill is worth a glance as you pass through, but the quiet St Kevin’s Church of Ireland on the green is the real find: a late 17th-century building that heritage surveyors rate among the most intact of its age in Ireland, with five medieval grave slabs in the yard. The village is also the western trailhead of St Kevin’s Way, the 30km medieval pilgrim road that ends at Glendalough - the same route your tour follows by road.
At Glendalough, the boardwalk path from the visitor centre along the Lower Lake to the Upper Lake takes about an hour at an easy pace - flat, buggy-friendly, and the route that takes you past the round tower, the cathedral and most of the remaining church ruins. Your guide will steer you well, but if there’s time before or after the visitor centre, the Poulanass Waterfall trail off the Upper Lake car park (1.5km return, 40 minutes) is a less-crowded option that most day-trippers miss. The café at the visitor centre is functional; the better stop is in Laragh, a kilometre east, where Lynham’s and the Trinity Mountain Bothy both do proper food for walkers.
Lunch isn’t included in this tour, so if Powerscourt is your last stop of the day, it’s worth knowing that Poppies café on Enniskerry village square (five minutes from the estate) has been open since 1982 and is the local’s choice over the estate café inside the house. The estate itself covers 47 acres of formal terraced gardens - if you have any time before or after the sheepdog demonstration, the Italian terraces and the Triton Lake are worth a walk through. National Geographic ranked the gardens third in the world, behind Versailles and Kew.