EUROPE · EXPEDITION E20 · EU TRIP
Fourteen days, and the file that picks up exactly where the Gentle Crossing stops. Passage tombs older than the pyramids, the raised bogs of the midlands, Connemara and Mayo, the Céide Fields — stone walls under five metres of peat, laid out in 3500 BC — Benbulben, Slieve League, golden eagles back in Glenveagh since 2001, and Malin Head. A step up from E01 in weather and road width, and nowhere near it in crowds.
01 / MISSION PROFILE
E01 runs Rosslare to Loop Head — Wicklow, Cork, Kerry, Dingle. This one starts at Dublin and takes everything north of it. No day is repeated between the two.
Ireland is not in the Schengen area, so none of these fourteen days count against your 90/180. That makes it the single most useful file in the archive for anyone who has already spent their allowance elsewhere — and the same is true of E01.
Ireland holds a large share of Europe’s remaining raised and blanket bog, and most of it has been cut. The restrictions on turf cutting have been one of the most bitterly argued conservation issues in the country. Clara Bog explains it properly, and it is free.
Pine martens were down to a few hundred animals by the 1970s. They recovered on their own — and as they spread, grey squirrels retreated and red squirrels came back into woods they had been driven out of. Nobody planned it. It simply worked.
Cut the Boyne and the midlands and go straight west from Dublin. You keep Connemara, Mayo, Sligo and all of Donegal — and the Boyne makes an excellent long weekend on its own another time.
02 / JOURNEY LOG
North-west out of Dublin to the Boyne, across the midland bogs to Connemara, up through Mayo and Sligo to Donegal and Malin Head, and back down the country to the boat.
Three hours across and straight out of the city. The M50 ring is barrier-free and bills your plate — pay it the same day.
NIGHT BASE Drogheda / Slane
Newgrange and Knowth, older than Stonehenge and the pyramids, with the largest collection of megalithic art in Europe round one of them.
NIGHT BASE Drogheda / Slane
Hilltop cairns aligned to the equinox, then west into raised bog country — the habitat Ireland holds more of than almost anywhere.
NIGHT BASE Tullamore / Clara
Across the Shannon and into Irish-speaking Galway. Quartzite peaks, a bog of pools so intricate it is used as a textbook, and signs in Irish only.
NIGHT BASE Clifden / Letterfrack
Diamond Hill for the view over the Twelve Bens, Kylemore below, and the Sky Road out to the Atlantic.
NIGHT BASE Letterfrack / Clifden
North into Mayo past the pilgrim mountain, then over the bridge onto Achill — the highest sea cliffs in Ireland and a deserted village on the hill.
NIGHT BASE Keel / Dugort
Eleven thousand hectares of unbroken Atlantic blanket bog, and a gold-tier dark sky park over the top of it. Stay up.
NIGHT BASE Ballycroy / Bangor Erris
Stone walls under five metres of peat, laid out around 3500 BC — the oldest known enclosed landscape on earth. Then Downpatrick Head and its blowhole.
NIGHT BASE Ballycastle / Killala
A limestone table sheared flat by ice, holding arctic plants on its north face that grow on no other Irish mountain. Carrowmore below it.
NIGHT BASE Sligo / Mullaghmore
Close to six hundred metres of cliff straight out of the Atlantic. The upper road narrows to a gate and a shuttle in season.
NIGHT BASE Carrick / Killybegs
Golden eagles were extinct in Ireland by 1912 and released back here from 2001. Also one of the largest Atlantic oakwoods left in the country.
NIGHT BASE Church Hill / Dunlewey
The northernmost point of the island, a weather station since 1870, and the place aurora gets reported from most often.
NIGHT BASE Malin / Ballyliffin
The long run back down the country. Park outside the city and take the bus or the tram.
NIGHT BASE Dublin outskirts
Three hours back across. The shortest crossing home in the whole archive.
NIGHT BASE — aboard —
The M50 will catch you if you let it. Dublin’s ring road is barrier-free — a camera reads the plate and there is nothing to pay at the road. Pay online by eight the following evening or the charge escalates sharply, and it is pursued to UK addresses. You will cross it twice on this file, on day one and day thirteen. Set a reminder both times.
03 / OPERATIONS BRIEFING
04 / THE ACCESS STACK
Glenveagh, Connemara and Wild Nephin are all free to enter. Glenveagh takes no cars beyond the visitor centre and runs a shuttle up the glen; Slieve League runs one to the upper viewpoint in season. Neither is optional.
Newgrange and Knowth can only be entered on a guided tour from the visitor centre, and you cannot drive to the monuments. Book ahead in summer. Solstice places are drawn by lottery each year, and thousands enter for a few dozen spaces.
National Trust covers Northern Ireland and nothing on the continent; English Heritage has no reciprocal arrangement anywhere here. Budget an access line for this file.
Most of these bodies protect land that is already free to walk on — joining funds the work rather than buying entry. The exceptions worth real money are the Dutch Museumkaart, the Irish OPW card, and DNT or STF if you will use the hut networks.
05 / THE EUROPE MATRIX
Golden eagles put back after ninety years, pine martens that brought the red squirrels with them, corncrakes held on by paying farmers to mow late, and a breeding curlew population down by more than ninety per cent. Plus bog that preserves Iron Age bodies, an orchid found nowhere else in Europe, and a whitefish that lives in a handful of Irish loughs and nowhere on earth. The whole archive lives on the Europe Matrix page.
★ RARE
Extinct in Ireland by 1912 and released back into Donegal from 2001 with Scottish birds. The population is small, watched, and breeding.
COMMON
A field system of stone walls under five metres of blanket bog, laid out around 3500 BC. The oldest known enclosed landscape on earth, and it was farmed before the bog grew over it.
★ RARE
A rasping two-note call all night from hay meadows in Donegal and Mayo. Down from every parish in Ireland to a few hundred calling males, held on by paying farmers to mow late and from the middle out.
★ RARE
Ireland’s breeding curlew have fallen by more than ninety per cent in thirty years. The bubbling display call over a bog in April is now a rare thing to hear at all.
COMMON
Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth — passage tombs older than Stonehenge and the pyramids, and Newgrange is aligned so the sun reaches the chamber floor at midwinter.
LUCKY
The second largest fish on earth, gathering off the Donegal headlands in early summer, and Irish waters hold one of the great aggregations.
COMMON
Sea cliffs rising close to six hundred metres straight out of the Atlantic — among the highest in Europe, and reached by a road that narrows to nothing.
LIKELY
Curved red bill, red legs, and a ringing call. Ireland holds a large share of the world population and the north-west coast is thick with them.
LUCKY
Peregrines on every big cliff, and merlin — the smallest Irish falcon — hunting low over the blanket bog.
★ RARE
Declining hard as conifer plantations mature and close over. The male is grey enough to look white against dark ground.
LIKELY
The Greenland population winters on the Mayo islands and the Donegal machair in thousands, and leaves in April.
LUCKY
A distinct population that breeds in Greenland and winters almost entirely in Ireland and western Scotland.
COMMON
Arriving from Iceland each autumn, louder and wilder than the resident mutes, and on every callow and flooded field.
COMMON
One of the largest surviving Atlantic oakwoods in the country, in a glen with a castle at the end of it and a deer herd around it.
LIKELY
A large introduced herd on the Donegal hills, and the rut in October is loud across the whole glen.
COMMON
Shell-sand grassland behind the Donegal and Mayo beaches, flowering in a solid sheet, and among the rarest habitats in Europe.
COMMON
The northernmost point of the island, a weather station since 1870, and the place aurora is reported from most often.
LUCKY
Ireland is far enough north to see it on a strong night, and Malin and Fanad are where people go.
COMMON
Quartzite headlands with seabird ledges, and a lighthouse road that is narrow enough to concentrate the mind.
LUCKY
Manx shearwaters shearing the swell offshore, and storm petrels no bigger than a swallow living out on the open Atlantic.
LUCKY
On Tory and the offshore stacks, and gone back out to sea by August.
COMMON
Irish is the everyday language across much of west Donegal, Connemara and Mayo, and the road signs there are in Irish only.
COMMON
A limestone table mountain sheared flat by ice, with a north face that holds arctic-alpine plants found almost nowhere else in Ireland.
★ RARE
Fringed sandwort and other ice-age relicts survive on these ledges and on no other Irish mountain.
COMMON
Passage tombs on a Sligo ridge and one of the largest megalithic cemeteries in Europe below it, both older than Newgrange.
LIKELY
A distinct subspecies of the mountain hare found only in Ireland, and it stays brown through the winter.
LUCKY
Down to a few hundred animals by the 1970s and now widespread again — and their return is pushing grey squirrels back out of Irish woodland.
LIKELY
Coming back into woods the greys had taken, because the pine marten came back first. One of the neatest conservation stories in Europe.
LUCKY
A distinct subspecies, smaller and darker than the British one, and hunting stone walls at any hour.
LIKELY
Ireland holds one of the healthiest otter populations in Europe, on rivers that were never industrialised.
LUCKY
Setts under the field banks throughout, and a well-worn path nothing else would make.
COMMON
Eleven thousand hectares of Atlantic blanket bog and mountain, and one of the largest areas of unbroken bog left in western Europe.
LIKELY
A gold-tier dark sky park over the Nephin bog — among the darkest measured skies in the northern hemisphere.
COMMON
Reached by a bridge, with the highest sea cliffs in Ireland at Croaghaun and a deserted village on the slope of Slievemore.
COMMON
Climbed barefoot by pilgrims on the last Sunday in July, and by everyone else in boots the rest of the year.
COMMON
A sea stack cut off from the mainland, with a blowhole behind it that fires spray on a big swell.
LIKELY
The only native Irish horse breed, bred on the Galway bog and mountain, and now exported worldwide.
COMMON
Quartzite peaks over Connemara, bare, steep and far harder walking than their height suggests.
COMMON
A lowland blanket bog of pools and hummocks so intricate it is used as a textbook example, and utterly unwalkable in a straight line.
LIKELY
Long-established herds through Connemara and the Donegal hills, keeping the scrub down and the walls busy.
COMMON
Beautiful, introduced and catastrophic — it shades out everything beneath it and clearing it is a decades-long job in Killarney and Connemara alike.
COMMON
Ireland was almost treeless a century ago and is now heavily planted with one non-native conifer. The result is contested, and worth understanding rather than admiring.
COMMON
Domed peat bogs formed over ten thousand years, and Ireland holds a large share of what survives in Europe. Most have been cut.
COMMON
Cut by hand and machine for fuel for centuries, and now restricted on protected bogs — which has been one of the most bitterly argued conservation issues in the country.
COMMON
One of the best surviving raised bogs, with a boardwalk across it and a visitor centre that explains why the argument matters.
COMMON
White heads across the whole bog in June, and a carnivorous plant underneath living on insects because the peat has no nitrogen.
COMMON
Yellow spikes and pink-fringed white flowers in the wettest hollows.
COMMON
The peat preserves everything. Iron Age bodies, wooden trackways and kegs of butter buried a thousand years ago all come out of Irish bogs.
COMMON
A cutaway industrial bog turned into a park of lakes and sculpture, with grey partridge reintroduced onto it.
★ RARE
Down to a single wild population in the Offaly bogs and brought back from around twenty birds by a deliberate rescue.
★ RARE
A protected butterfly of damp unimproved grassland, and Ireland holds a strong share of the European population.
★ RARE
A small white orchid found in Ireland, western Scotland and North America, and nowhere else in Europe at all.
★ RARE
The chamber lights up for a few minutes at midwinter sunrise. Places are drawn by lottery each year and thousands enter.
COMMON
The largest collection of megalithic art in Europe, carved into the stones round the base of one mound.
COMMON
Hilltop cairns aligned to the equinox sunrise, on a ridge you walk up to, with far fewer people than the Boyne.
COMMON
An earthwork complex used for two thousand years, and the seat of the high kings. It reads as a field until you see it from the air.
COMMON
The Shannon callows flood every winter and hold whooper swans, wigeon and godwits, and corncrake in the summer.
LUCKY
Feeding along the west and south coasts, individually catalogued by fluke and dorsal fin, and increasingly regular.
LIKELY
Both along the north-west coast, and Risso’s scarred pale grey with age.
COMMON
Grey seals pupping on the western islands in autumn, and commons on the sheltered inlets.
★ RARE
The largest turtle on earth, following jellyfish into Irish waters each summer, and warm-blooded enough to survive the Atlantic.
LUCKY
On the western rivers, with strict catch-and-release on most of them, and the runs a fraction of what they were.
★ RARE
Can live over a hundred years and needs water clean enough that most Irish rivers no longer qualify. Critically endangered and legally protected.
★ RARE
A whitefish left behind by the ice and found in a handful of Irish loughs and nowhere else on earth.
★ RARE
Another glacial relict, in cold deep western lakes, and lost from many of them within living memory.
★ RARE
The Irish western counties hold an internationally important population, roosting in old estate buildings and cellars.
COMMON
The north-west takes the full ocean. Named storms close roads and ferries, and the swell at Mullaghmore is surfed by very few people.
LIKELY
A serious flush in the Atlantic oak and hazel, in woods that are mossy enough to look tropical.
The field law. Corncrakes nest in the grass and are killed by mowing, which is why the whole scheme pays farmers to cut late and from the middle outward — keep dogs and feet out of meadows in May and June. Breeding waders on bog and machair are on the ground and invisible. Never publish an eagle nest location. Bog boardwalks exist because peat does not recover in a lifetime. And the freshwater pearl mussel needs water clean enough that most Irish rivers no longer qualify.
05B / THE ENGINE ON THIS FILE
The same figures the Europe Engine ranks this file on, shown here so you can judge it before you plan around it.
best monthsworkablemost Matrix entries in season
55 of 68 Matrix entries on this route are in season in June — the most of any month, worth 197 points. The leanest is April with 40.
1 day of the 14 are transit or at sea. Everything else is time in the seat getting there and back, and the engine counts it against your window whether you enjoy it or not.
Ireland is outside the Schengen area, so this file costs you nothing against the rolling ninety. If you have already spent your allowance, it is still open to you.
Out of season: none — no month is ruled out. May to July for corncrake, machair and long light; September and October for the deer rut and the colour. Winter brings the geese and the aurora, and takes the ferries away in a storm.
05B · NEAR NEIGHBOURS
Ranked by shared ground first, then by tier and demand — the files most likely to come up in the same search.
14d · EU TRIP · Ireland
14d · EU TRIP · Netherlands
21d · EU MEGA TRIP · France
06 / EXPEDITION TOOLKIT
Ireland sits outside Schengen, so these fourteen days do not touch the 90/180 allowance. Run the Europe Engine and watch this file stay available when everything else has been spent.
Not water in the tank — water in the van. Run the off-grid core assuming the heating runs to dry the air rather than to warm it, because on the Atlantic coast that is what it is doing.
Run the budget core with a three-hour crossing each way and no toll line beyond the M50. This is one of the cheapest files here to reach, and the pitches are the largest single cost.
Eagles over Glenveagh, choughs on the cliffs, geese on the machair and basking sharks off Malin are all distance work. Binoculars are the minimum.
07 / DEPARTURE CHECK
08 / OPEN MAP
09 / WHERE NEXT
Rosslare to Loop Head — Wicklow, Cork, Kerry and Dingle. Run both and the island is covered, with 148 Irish Matrix entries between them and not a single repeated day.
Flat, short, tidal and easy. Between them, E01, E18 and this file are the three to hand somebody working up to a longer continental trip.
Green Spain is the same Atlantic weather, the same oakwoods and the same rain, two thousand kilometres south. The similarity is startling once you have seen both.
FOUND THIS USEFUL?
Everything here is free and always will be — the expedition files, the Nature Matrix, the seven calculators and the Trip Engine. Nothing sits behind a paywall, and nothing unlocks if you pay.
But if a file saved you a wasted weekend, or the Matrix put a puffin in front of your children, you are very welcome to stand us a coffee. It goes on diesel, ferries and the next expedition — which comes back up here, free, for you.
Fuel for the Nebuchadnezzar£10 · ONE PAYMENT →Entirely optional. One payment, never a subscription — and you can set any number up to ten at the checkout if you are feeling especially kind. No perks, no supporter tier, and absolutely no hard feelings either way.