The Spinc & Glenealo Valley

Welcome to the Spinc. You're standing in the Upper Lake car park at Glendalough, and in front of you is the most famous walk in County Wicklow — a nine-kilometre loop that climbs to a narrow granite ridge nearly four hundred metres above the Glendalough valley, follows the ridge for two and a half kilometres along a wooden boardwalk, and drops back to the valley floor through the old lead-mining village of Van Diemen's Land. Allow four hours. Bring water. Bring a windproof. Wear boots with grip. This is not a flat trail.

The name Glendalough comes from the Irish Gleann Dá Locha — the valley of the two lakes. You'll see both of them from the Spinc ridge today. The word Spinc itself is Irish for a pointed rock or a cliff. Locals pronounce it spink. It is, depending on your source, either a shortening of the longer Irish word for a crag, or a nickname given by the monks who founded the monastery here in the sixth century.

The monastery. Let's start with that. Glendalough was established in the late 500s by Saint Kevin — Caoimhín in Irish — a hermit who came to this valley seeking solitude and instead found, within his own lifetime, one of the most important monastic centres in Ireland. At its peak, in the ninth and tenth centuries, Glendalough was a small city. Several thousand monks and scholars. A cathedral. A round tower — which you'll see from the boardwalk. Scriptoria producing illuminated manuscripts that rank alongside the Book of Kells. Pilgrims came from as far as France. The Viking raids damaged it repeatedly. The Anglo-Norman invasion in the twelfth century finished its political influence. But the site kept drawing pilgrims until the Reformation, and in truth, it's still drawing them today. You are one.

Set off from the upper lake car park, following the wooden boardwalk that runs along the southern shore of the lake. The boardwalk is a relatively recent addition — installed in the 2010s to protect the fragile vegetation and the medieval path beneath. Before the boardwalk, the route was notoriously boggy, and walkers regularly arrived at the top of the Spinc with their boots ruined. Coillte, the state forestry company, installed the boardwalk to route tens of thousands of walkers a year safely and without damaging the ground.

The first kilometre climbs gently through mixed woodland — oak, ash, hazel, with rhododendron in parts. Rhododendron, originally introduced to Irish estates in the nineteenth century as an ornamental shrub, has become a serious invasive species in Wicklow. Volunteers spend hundreds of hours a year cutting it back in the Glendalough valley. If you see a sign asking you to stay on the path, it's because rhododendron seed can be carried on boots.

The climb steepens. You're now going up a series of long, steep wooden staircases — six hundred steps in total. Take your time. There are resting benches cut from local oak. At about a third of the way up, look back. The view of the upper lake opens up dramatically — black water framed by the scree of Camaderry Mountain to the north and the wooded slopes beneath you. This is one of the most photographed views in Ireland, and for good reason.

Keep climbing. At the top of the staircase, the ground levels out and you emerge onto the Spinc ridge itself. Stop. Take it in. You are now on a narrow granite spine running east-west, with a sheer drop of several hundred metres to your right into Glendalough, and a gentler slope to your left down into the Glenmalure valley. On a clear day, you can see from here west to Lugnaquilla — the highest mountain in Leinster at nine hundred and twenty-five metres — north to the Sugar Loaf, east to the Irish Sea, and south-east to the Blackstairs Mountains. It is, quite simply, the best view in Wicklow.

The boardwalk runs for two and a half kilometres along this ridge. Walk it slowly. Every few hundred metres, there's a new angle on the valley. About halfway, look down and you'll see a patch of dark water — the upper lake — and at its east end, the ruins of a small stone building called Teampall na Skellig, or the Church of the Rock. It was built on a ledge directly above the lake, accessible only by a narrow path or by boat. Saint Kevin, legend holds, used it as his personal retreat — somewhere even quieter than the monastic city below.

A word on a legend. Saint Kevin, the story goes, was so devoted to his prayers that, at one point, a blackbird built a nest in his outstretched hand while he was kneeling in his oratory. Kevin refused to move until the eggs had hatched and the chicks had fledged — several weeks. The story is preserved in a poem by the late Seamus Heaney, our Nobel Prize-winning poet, who lived part of his life in Dublin and knew these hills. If you have a moment, look up Saint Kevin and the Blackbird online later. It's one of the finest short poems in the English language.

As you near the end of the boardwalk, the ground begins to fall away and the path becomes a rough, stony track. You are now descending into the Glenealo valley — a hanging valley west of Glendalough, largely untouched by grazing, populated instead by red deer, feral goats, and in the warmer months, large numbers of walkers. If you are quiet, you will almost certainly see deer. The goats are descendants of animals kept by lead miners in the nineteenth century. They're shy. Don't feed them.

The descent is steep in parts and can be slippery after rain. Take it slowly. At the bottom of the valley, you cross a stream and emerge into the flat expanse of the old lead mining village known as Van Diemen's Land. That unusual name comes from the early twentieth century, when locals compared the bleak, windswept valley to the old British penal colony of Van Diemen's Land — modern-day Tasmania. The mining operation ran from the 1790s until 1957. At its peak, over two thousand people lived here, in stone cottages built directly onto the mountain. The ruins of those cottages, the crushing mill, the miners' chapel, and the remarkable stone retaining walls are all still visible today.

The mining was hard, dangerous, and — for most of its history — profitable. Lead from Glendalough was shipped to Dublin, Belfast, and Liverpool. The industry closed because the price of lead fell below the cost of extracting it, not because the lead ran out. If you look at the ground carefully as you walk, you'll see flecks of mineral — galena — still visible in the path.

From Van Diemen's Land, the route follows the Glenealo river back towards the upper lake. This section is flat, easy, and exceptionally beautiful — oak woods on the left, the river rushing over granite boulders on the right. At the end of the valley, the path swings left and you find yourself back at the upper lake. From here it is a short walk past the Reefert Church — one of the oldest surviving structures in Glendalough, founded in the seventh century — and down to the car park where you started.

A few practical notes. The Spinc is an all-year walk, but conditions on the ridge can be severe in winter — wind speeds over a hundred kilometres per hour are not uncommon, and the boardwalk can ice up. Check the forecast. If fog is forecast, pick another day — the Spinc becomes disorienting in low visibility. There is a café at the Glendalough Hotel, next to the visitor centre, and a smaller café at the Glendalough monastic site a little further down. Both do excellent coffee and mediocre sandwiches. You've earned both.

Thank you for walking with us. Glendalough is magnificent. Be a good visitor. Stay on the path. Take your litter with you. And come back in a different season.