Source to Poulaphouca T


he source of a river is seldom spectacular. Te Liffey is no exception. Te actual source is a large, dark


Blessington


Kippure Mountain


puddle on a gently sloping saddle of moorland between Kippure mountain and Tonduff mountain. It’s in Wicklow but close to the boundary with County Dublin.


Poulapoucha


Blessington Lake


Ballyknocken Sally Gap


Te source is marked on Ordnance Survey maps. If you want to find it and you’re coming from the Dublin direc- tion take the Military Road past Glencree and Lough Bray. About five hundred metres after the gateway that leads to the RTE transmission mast on Kippure you’ll cross a small and inconspicuous bridge with low granite parapets. Tis is the rather grandly named ‘Liffey Head Bridge’. Park at the closest safe point to the bridge and put on your wel- lies. Ten walk eastwards, following the little streamlet, for about six hundred metres.


Te source itself may be a bit of an anticlimax but the sur- roundings are magnificent. Te expanse of moorland is as empty a wilderness as you’ll find anywhere in Ireland and in a straight line it’s little more than twenty kilometres from the centre of the capital city.


9


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17