Dublin to Newgrange returning via Tara - 130km of neolithic Meath

I used Paddy’s day to cycle a 130km loop out from Dublin to the Neolithic sites of Meath.  It's not far as the bike cycles from Dublin City to the neolithic and Bronze Age sites of Meath including Fourknocks,  Newgrange and the Brú na Bónnie other monuments and then Tara. And you get the battle of the Boyne site thrown in as a bonus, that's a lot of history!

Here I show you how to cycle this using the quiet country backroads of north Dublin to avoid the very very busy National and Regional roads in the area. This route follows the walkway south of the Boyne that gives you an excellent view of Newgrange across the river and brings you past the pool where the Salmon of Knowledge was caught. If you are on a road bike you might want to stick to the parallel road for this bit as its a packed earth track, the road is about 50m away along the 3-4km length.

To visit Newgrange and/or Knowth you need to go to the visitor centre which is also south of the river and get a ticket - at peak times you should probably book in advance. You can just stop and visit Dowth by cycling to it directly. No ticket is needed for Tara but for Fourknocks you need to call in at the local family they hold onto the public access key for the site.

This route which starts and returns to the Phoenix Monument in the Phoenix park is about 130km in length and has about 1000m of ascent including 3-4 steep ridges near Naul. If that sounds too ambitious you could just use the easterly or westerly route to just go to one of the sites and return by that same route for a 80-100km trip depending on site.

Video at https://youtu.be/T5Px5eBoW0Y

Photos from the route on My Instagram

100km loop through Connemara including Inagh valley

Day 36 of the Irish Coast Cycle was a 100km loop in Connemara including the small island of Inishnee near Roundstone and on through the Inagh valley to pass Lough Fee and Lough Muck to do the coastline to Tully Cross before swinging back in via Letterfrack and Clifden to return to my starting point.

I was essentially filling in parts of the coast that I had skipped over on days 4 and 5 of the cycle - as I point out in the video the coast of Connemara is very convoluted indeed, if you were to cycle to every beach and harbour you'd probably spend 7 or 8 days doing so rather than the 5 I have spent so far.

12 minutes video of the route https://youtu.be/q7ckjxyedbw

Dublin to Dunmore East

Considering the bike was fully laden with tent & sleeping bag day 1 of this route was a little too ambitious, the last 20km to my overnight stop at a lockgate on the Barrow navigation required a lot of will power.  The stops marked were at various stone circle and standing stones in West Wicklow & East Kildare as I was doing the trip over Lughnasadh.  For a heavily laden bike some of the hills were tough, with a little bit of walking up the worst towards the end of the day but they' probably have been manageable with a lighter load if I B&Bed it.  Covid19 times meant that everywhere was booked out as people holidayed in Ireland, even the wild camping spot had 4 other tents at it when I arrived.

I cycled some of the Barrow way which is unsurfaced (I'm on hybrid). Slow going which is no harm as it's mostly for walkers and quite narrow in parts but the river side view is beautiful.  St Mullens is a great stop off with the ruined monastery, Norman Motte and a holy well that was a place of pilgrimage in previous pandemics.  Maybe if I'd walked around it three times it all would have ended.  I got a bit lost on the road out which meant I ended up passing through New Ross rather than going East of there and then roughly following the coast to the ferry crossing to Passage East (bicycles 2 euro).  That coast and much of the coast onto Dunmore East also has a lot of hills but the roads themselves are very quiet except for one or two sections when I ended up on N roads.

video at https://youtu.be/PCSvknTo2rM

Photos on my Instagram

Ballymote to Boyle, Strokestown & Dublin

Cycling from Ballymote in Sligo first to the Neolithic sites of the caves off Kaesh and Carrowkeel in the Bricklieve Mountains before overnighting in Boyle. Next day on to the Iron Age sites at Rathcroghan (very quiet roads following the hill ridges across bog & forest) before turning to head to the Shannon after which I followed the Royal Canal to Mullingar. Continued following the canal the following morning although the surfaced track vanished after Maynooth so had to switch to the roads at Lexlip for the final return to Dublin.

242km, 1100m of ascent

One of the reasons I started cycle touring in order to visit neolithic sites in Ireland and to visit them at a speed that I thought was more in keeping whit the way that the people who built them would have travelled between them. I've a playlist with a few of these on it now in terms of Ireland, Scotland and Anglesey in Wales which you can view at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRcr37Lk8e4UhtLQs4PBGpFIM7IQ4Ozf4

Today we are getting the train to start off with from Dublin to Ballymote . And then from Ballymote we are doing a very short trip to the Caves of Kesh. After visiting the caves I'm then going to go on to the megalithic complex at Carrowkeel . And then I go on to Boyle where I spend the night and the next day I get up and I cycle to Rathcronghan where I'm visiting two places, one is the4 cave of the Cats and main Iron Age fort at Rathcronghan.

And then after those visits are done I then set out on what turns out to be a very very long cycle back towards Dublin, I've a hotel booked in Mullingar. So I'll bring you through that but most of this cycle happens along the Royal canal.

For Live Photos and video as do new eBike cycle tours Instagram account is at https://www.instagram.com/ebiketouringlife/

Video of this trip at https://youtu.be/ewcqtsEzVxw