HardHigh loop · Dingle

Doire Mhór
Glen Loop.

A demanding loop from Doire Mhór (Derrymore) Glen onto the high Slieve Mish ridge, with corrie loughs, broken rock and wide coastal views.

Also known as Derrymore.

DISTANCE

10.13km

ASCENT

837m

HIGH POINT

827m

My time 6 hr 15 · long circuit on an exposed high ridge GRADE GUIDE ↗

Reading the map…

INTERACTIVE TERRAIN · ACTUAL GPX TRACKACTUAL GPX TRACK

A recorded time is not a planning estimate. Build your own from pace, ascent, ground, weather and daylight.

GPX EMERGENCY

01 · DECIDE

Is this your day?

ELEVATION PROFILE

76 m to 827 m.

Every height on this profile was measured on the walk, not estimated between the ends.

Reading the forecast

837 m ascent · 843 m descent

THE LINE

The loughs that drove a mill.

Derrymore is Doire Mhór. The name is usually given as the great oak wood, and that reading is older than it looks: surveying here in 1840, John O’Donovan wrote it down as “large Derry or oak wood” and left both open. The Placenames Branch still brackets the oak, because doire covers any wood, grove or thicket and only comes from dair, oak, at one remove. Nothing recorded here says an oak wood stood in this glen. The lough above it is An Loch Meánach, the middle lake, which is not named after Derrymore at all. The route begins near the northern approach and climbs steadily into the Slieve Mish Mountains.

The loughs, and the sluice gates

The loughs above the glen are not left the way they were found. Stone walls are banked along their edges, built to hold the water back and send it down to a mill at Derrymore, and the account locally is that a man walked up here every morning to open the sluice gates and let it go, then climbed back to close them again, as many as three trips in a day. Whatever the ground feels like on the way up, somebody did it as work.

The mill at Derrymore

Morgan O’Flaherty’s local account places the mill in operation from the early 1800s and describes successive work with grain, wool and flax. It also recalls a railway platform serving the mill and its demolition in the 1960s. The story of the tower resisting demolition, its mortar mixed with sand and shell, is part of that telling.

The chair and the table

Two of Fionn’s things sit on this loop, and it’s the only route on the site that goes close to both. Ten metres off the track, a shelf of sandstone above the bay is Fionn MacCumhail’s Chair on the modern sheet and Fin Mac Cools Chair on the historic six-inch. Later, at the back of the glen behind the boulder field, is his table: King’s Table on the sheet now, Fin Mac Cool’s Table on the older one.

Above the corries

The route climbs over rough high ground to about 827 m and makes a broad circuit above the corries. On the way back down it comes out along the loughs, with views opening north across Tralee Bay.

01Derrymore Glen startThe walk begins near the northern approach at about 81 m.
02Climb above the glenThe line gains height through rough open mountain ground.
03High Slieve Mish ridgeThe route reaches approximately 827 m on exposed high ground.
04The dammed loughsThe circuit passes small mountain loughs whose banked stone walls held water for the mill below.
05Return to DerrymoreA separate descending line completes the loop near the start.

The mill and the dammed loughs are recorded on the ground by Morgan O’Flaherty, whose local account is the source here for the sluice gates, the railway platform and the mill’s run through grain, wool and flax. The operating dates, changes of use and demolition details are passed-down local history, rather than independently established dates. The chair and the table are read off the Ordnance Survey sheets, historic and modern, rather than from any Survey record. The schoolchildren of Drom an Tacair recorded the table as Fionn’s too, and that account is quoted on the King’s Table route; the chair is also passed by the Cathair Conraoi route. Distances from the recorded track were measured against the map positions.

Forecast for around 800 m

Reading the forecast…

NOW

WIND

TODAY’S PEAK RAIN CHANCE

PLANNING FORECAST · AROUND 800 M

Reading the forecast…

–cloud

–humidity

–km/h peak gust

Strongest wind today–

Peak gust–

RECENT RAINFALL · LIKELY GROUND

RAIN, GUST & VISIBILITY WINDOW

BEST HIKING WINDOW

DAYLIGHT PLAN

MET ÉIREANN · KERRY

NEXT SIX HOURS · swipe

Reading the forecast

Forecast. This is a modelled estimate for this route’s high ground; conditions can differ sharply across the mountain. Derived from Open-Meteo forecast data ↗.

HAZARDS & OPTIONSKnow the commitment.

This is a long mountain circuit with more than 800 m of ascent.

The upper ridge is exposed to wind and can lose visibility quickly in cloud.

Steep grass, loose rock and corrie edges require careful movement.

Navigation between the high points and descent line may be difficult in poor conditions.

Turn back along the known approach before committing to the high circuit if wind or cloud is building. Once on the ridge, avoid improvised descents into the steep corries.

FROM THE MOUNTAIN

My photographs.

9 photographsSwipe and tap to enlarge from the walk · select to enlarge

A hillwalker resting on a rock high above Tralee Bay and the north Kerry coast — 01A pause above the coast

A lone walker following the narrow grassy crest of the Slieve Mish ridge — 02Along the high ridge

A walker standing among jagged rock pinnacles with mountain country beyond — 03Among the pinnacles

A tall weathered stone on high ground beneath a bright Kerry sky — 04Stone on the mountain

Closely folded mountain rock rising from the grass below the ridge — 05The mountain folded

Two small mountain loughs lying below steep brown corrie slopes — 06Loughs below the ridge

A broad view from the high ground across fields and coast towards Tralee Bay — 07North towards the bay

Dark corrie cliffs falling sharply towards two small mountain loughs — 08The steep corrie

A walker crossing jagged rock with the Derrymore landscape far below — 09High above Derrymore

03 · GO

Getting there.

Start well.

STARTDerrymore Glen

Select coordinates to copy

The walk starts near the Derrymore Glen approach. Confirm current parking, land access and ground conditions locally before leaving.

ROUTE FILE

Take the route with you.

The original GPX, exactly as walked. Load it into your watch, phone or offline mapping before you leave signal.

Track, time and heights come from my GPX and GeoJSON.

Download original GPXderrymore-glen-loop.gpx · as recorded

More formats

GeoJSON KML

Confirm the download when your browser asks, then open the file from your browser’s downloads and your mapping app will offer to take it. HiiKER and Garmin Explore both do; the route loads on HiiKER’s free tier, though its EastWest mapping of the Irish uplands is a paid layer. Onto a watch: import the GPX into Garmin Connect, Komoot or Strava and send it to the device from there.