ModerateGlen · Dingle

Gleann na
nGealt.

A compact loop through Gleann na nGealt (Valley of the Mad), roughly two miles west of Camp on the road to Dingle.

Also known as Glannagalt, or Valley of the Mad.

DISTANCE

7.64km

ASCENT

305m

HIGH POINT

301m

My time 2 hr 10 · short upland loop 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

70 m to 301 m.

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

Reading the forecast

305 m ascent · 306 m descent

THE LINE

The valley people came to be cured.

The route leaves and returns to almost the same point. It climbs from enclosed green lanes onto open hillside, then loops back past standing stones and old field boundaries.

Tobar na nGealt

Tobar na nGealt, the Well of the Mad, is a holy well in Gleann na nGealt, anglicised as Glannagalt. People came here to be cured, and they came for a very long time. The stories name Gall, a king of Ulster, restored after drinking the water and eating the watercress that grows in it, and Bolcán of France, who came here in flight from the battle of Ventry. The twelfth-century Buile Shuibhne puts Mad Sweeney in this valley, finding peace in the course of the year and a day he spent wandering Ireland.

Cloch na nGealt

The valley has been the resort of the afflicted since at least the seventeenth century. There are two wells, not one, and between them stands Cloch na nGealt, the Mad Stone, Cloghnagalt on the Ordnance Survey sheet: a block of sandstone barely half a metre high with a shallow bowl cut into its top, a hand’s span across and no deeper than your palm. The women of the valley left milk and food in it for whoever came. Two more hollows in the stone, natural ones, are said to be the handprints of those who drank.

Joyce set the whole route down in 1869: the sufferers crossed the stream at Ahagaltaun, the madman’s ford, passed the stone, drank at the wells and ate the cress at the margin.

2012 · Lithium in the water

Then in 2012 the water was tested, and the well came back at 55.6 parts per billion of lithium, far above the other samples taken nearby. Lithium is what modern medicine reaches for in the treatment of some mental illness. It does not make the legends true, and it does not make the water a treatment. It does mean that people walked to this particular well for centuries and were not simply imagining the reason.

01Green-lane startThe route opens through enclosed, grassy ground.
02Standing-stone hillsideStanding stones mark where the lanes give way to open hillside.
03Recorded high pointThe loop reaches approximately 301 m.
04Return to the laneDescending ground closes the circuit near its start.

The stone is Archaeological Survey site KE036-058; the wells are KE036-057 and KE036-071. The account of milk and food is from An Seabhac (1939), the seventeenth-century reference from de Brún (1973), and the visitors’ journey from P. W. Joyce, The Origin and History of Irish Names of Places (1869). Brigid O Connor’s local well account ↗ records the traditions as folklore. The wells are places of local devotion rather than medical ones: drink nothing on the strength of a story. The 2012 analysis by Dr Henry Lyons and Dr Páidí Ó Domhnaill is reported in the West Kerry account ↗ and the documentary is covered in Brian O’Connell’s Recovering well, The Irish Times, 23 October 2012 ↗.

Forecast for around 300 m

Reading the forecast…

NOW

WIND

TODAY’S PEAK RAIN CHANCE

PLANNING FORECAST · AROUND 300 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.

Wet grass and uneven ground can be slippery.

The route passes through working countryside and old boundaries.

Open hillside can become difficult to follow in poor visibility.

Standing stones and other features should not be climbed on or disturbed.

It’s a short loop, so if visibility or the ground gets worse before halfway, the safest choice is to go back the way you came.

FROM THE MOUNTAIN

My photographs.

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

A green lane between old walls with fields and low hills beyond — 01Into the green lane

A narrow standing stone on open hillside with the sea beyond — 02Stone and sea

A dark standing stone looking across patterned fields — 03Across the fields

A weathered stone basin set into short grass — 04The Mad Stone

A handmade sign carrying the Irish placename Tobar na nGealt — 05Tobar na nGealt

03 · GO

Getting there.

Start well.

STARTGleann na nGealt trailhead

Select coordinates to copy

There’s a small lay-by where the walk starts, about two miles west of Camp, and it finishes at almost the same point. Check current parking and access locally, respect farmland and never block gates.

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.

Download original GPXvalley-of-the-mad.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.