Tag Archives: Wicklow Mountains

Hiking Lugnaquilla

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Saturday, 07-March-2026


Exploring! Hiking! The kind of thing that I started this blog specifically to write about!

You know? That thing that I’ve barely done since moving to the Island that “absolutely has amazing hiking, which is why I don’t have to even check it”? Yeah… Well, I’ve learned the error in the assumption / statement that I made back in 2023. I’ve learned it HARD.

I do still get out to some hiking, though – and this one was a great example.

A neighbor of ours invited me along to hike a nearby mountain, one of his favorites, nice and near the city. It was a perfect chance to get out of town, get to catch up with him, and to just decompress a little bit.

So… Here’s pictures of it. It was pretty!



Of course, I did need a minor reminder as to some of my concerns about staying in Ireland long-term, though. That there are some cultural differences, and that this hike, regardless of how pretty it was, was still very much not public space and was only available at the permit of the landowner.

I… uhh… I am not a fan of the sign at the entrance to the hike. But I won’t be going into that any further.


(Okay, I’ll go into it a little bit further. I looked it up, and this is just so incredibly illegal here in Ireland. While there are some instances where it could be legal (if the dog was repeatedly attacking sheep) they’re very few and far between. That being said… would the Gardaí actually prosecute someone?)

A drive home through the Wicklow mountains

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Saturday, 26-July-2025


After hiking, and after acapella Elvish, we took a quiet road home. And that made all the difference.

How an adventure ends is important, we can all agree. This ending was beautiful – scenic, calm driving back into the city, while watching the hills and countryside slip by. Those long, seemingly endless roads through the Irish hills…

They’re lovely, they’re calming, and I’m thankful we could experience them.

Hiking Glendalough, a second time, with the MBA folks!

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Saturday, 28-Sept-2024


I’m still getting my Irish hiking legs under me – I don’t know the areas, the rules, or the systems nearly as well as I’d gotten to know New Hampshire, or Oregon, and so adventures are a bit more challenging to put together.

Thankfully, the MBA program comes pre-equipped with friends who are in the same boat as me, and are interested in getting adventures in!


This time, we headed to a spot that I’d gotten to know earlier in the year – Glendalough, a beautiful circuit hike around a lake down South of Dublin in the Wicklow Mountains. I met up with my friends in the morning, we grabbed a rental car, and took to the road on our way to adventure!

The drive was lovely – I’d gotten comfortably used to driving on the left side of the road by this point, though I did still need to keep one part of my brain focused on it, and so was able to chat pretty easily while we ground out the miles (kilometers) to our adventure. We talked, we listed to music, we enjoyed the escape from the city.


We hiked, I flew the drone a bit, we said hi to the natives (deer!), and enjoyed the clear air and lovely weather. We snacked, we got some food from the nacho truck at the parking lot, and reveled in the fact that we were in Ireland!

It was, as always, absolutely lovely.