🇮🇪 Ireland · Dublin and the East
Barely an hour south of Dublin, County Wicklow unfolds a world of rounded mountains, glacial valleys, dark lakes and woods that have earned it the nickname 'the garden of Ireland'. It is the most accessible and at the same time the most spectacular nature near the capital, a landscape that has been the setting for countless films and series, and that changes character with each season: green in spring, purple with heather in summer, golden in autumn.
The heart of Wicklow, and the reason many travellers come this far, is Glendalough: 'the valley of the two lakes'. In this corner of serene beauty, among mountains and still water, St Kevin founded in the sixth century a monastic settlement that became one of the great religious and learning centres of early medieval Ireland. Today its ruins — the unmistakable round tower, the stone churches, the Celtic crosses — are reflected in the lake in one of the most emblematic scenes in Ireland.
This guide covers the essentials of Wicklow and Glendalough with a practical, warm eye: how to visit the monastic valley and walk its trails, what other treasures the county hides (Powerscourt, the Sally Gap, the coast), how to get here from Dublin and how to enjoy the mountains safely. It is the perfect destination for combining history, spirituality and nature a short hop from the capital.
Glendalough began as a monastic settlement in the sixth century, founded by St Kevin (Caoimhín), a hermit who sought retreat and solitude in this remote valley among mountains and lakes. What started as an eremitic life grew until, between the sixth and twelfth centuries, it became one of Ireland's great 'monastic cities': a centre of prayer, study and pilgrimage that drew students and the faithful from all over Europe, with schools, workshops, churches and a large community. Like so many Irish monasteries, it suffered Viking raids and, later, Anglo-Norman attacks. In 1398 it was sacked by English troops and went into decline, though it remained a place of pilgrimage for centuries. The Wicklow mountains, for their part, were long a refuge for Irish rebels: after the rising of 1798, the British army built the Military Road, a military route across the mountains, to control the insurgents hiding in them. In the twentieth century, the region was protected as Wicklow Mountains National Park, the largest in Ireland. Today Glendalough combines its extraordinary monastic legacy — round tower, churches and crosses included — with the protected natural beauty of the park. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓Ireland's historic and political heart: the Dublin founded by the Vikings and capital of the Ascendancy and of the 1916 revolution, the medieval Kilkenny of the Normans and the Pale, and the monastic valley of Glendalough in the Wicklow mountains.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The history of Glendalough begins with a man looking for solitude. In the sixth century, St Kevin (Caoimhín, meaning 'of gentle birth'), an ascetic of noble origin, withdrew to this remote valley in the Wicklow mountains to live as a hermit, in prayer and penance, far from the world. He chose 'Gleann Dá Loch', 'the valley of the two lakes', a place of extraordinary beauty and isolation, where tradition says he lived in a cave above the Upper Lake known as St Kevin's Bed.
As often happened in early medieval Ireland, the hermit's reputation for holiness drew disciples, and what had begun as a solitary retreat gradually became a monastic community. Around St Kevin a monastery grew that, after his death (tradition places it around the year 618), went on expanding and became one of Ireland's great religious centres.
The figure of St Kevin is surrounded by legends that reflect his communion with nature: the most famous tells that, while he was praying with his arms stretched out through a window, a blackbird built its nest in his open hand, and the saint stayed still until the chicks flew, so as not to disturb the birds. These stories, later taken up even by poets such as Seamus Heaney, made St Kevin a symbol of Celtic spirituality bound up with love for creation.
Between the seventh and twelfth centuries, Glendalough became one of Ireland's great 'monastic cities', comparable to centres such as Clonmacnoise. It was not a monastery in the enclosed sense of European cloisters but rather a centre of population built around religious life: a large community with churches, schools, workshops, dwellings, gardens and areas for pilgrims, all within an enclosure that was sometimes walled.
Glendalough was an important centre of learning and faith. In its monastic school, Scripture, theology and the arts were studied, at a time when Irish monasteries were beacons of culture in a turbulent Europe: it was part of that 'Ireland of saints and scholars' that helped preserve classical and Christian learning and sent missionaries across the continent. The monastery drew pilgrims from all over Ireland and beyond; it was said that seven pilgrimages to Glendalough were worth one to Rome.
From that golden age date the buildings we admire today in ruins: the round tower (bell tower and refuge), the cathedral, St Kevin's 'kitchen' church with its distinctive bell tower, the stone crosses and the monastic gateway. The monastery came to have its own diocese. Like all the great centres of its time, it suffered attacks — including Viking raids after its wealth — but it always rebuilt, remaining a spiritual focus of the first order for centuries.
The long history of Glendalough as a monastic centre was marked by episodes of violence and, in the end, by decline. Like other great Irish monasteries, it was a target for the Vikings, who on several occasions between the ninth and eleventh centuries sacked and burned the settlement, drawn by its wealth and its relics. Even so, the community managed to rebuild again and again, which gives a sense of its importance and vitality.
A profound change came with the arrival of the Anglo-Normans in Ireland in the twelfth century. The church reforms of the period reorganised the Irish Church along continental lines, with territorial dioceses, and in 1214 the diocese of Glendalough was absorbed into that of Dublin, which cost it institutional importance. The centre of religious power was shifting towards the capital.
The decisive blow came in 1398, when English forces sacked and destroyed much of Glendalough amid the struggles for control of the region. From then on, the great monastic centre went into steep decline and was reduced to ruins. Its spiritual prestige, however, did not disappear entirely: for centuries it remained a popular place of pilgrimage, especially around the feast of St Kevin, and the faithful went on coming to the valley of the two lakes long after its churches had lost their roofs.
Beyond Glendalough, the Wicklow mountains have a history of their own, bound up with resistance and rebellion. Their rugged terrain, full of isolated valleys, bogs and natural hiding places, made them for centuries an ideal refuge for anyone fleeing authority: bandits, outlaws and, above all, Irish rebels. So close to Dublin and yet so inaccessible, the mountains were a headache for the English authorities.
That became dramatically clear after the Irish rebellion of 1798, a rising of the United Irishmen against British rule that was harshly crushed. Many rebels, among them the famous leader Michael Dwyer, took refuge in the Wicklow mountains and kept up a guerrilla war for years, using their knowledge of the terrain to escape the troops.
To put an end to this centre of resistance, the British army took a drastic decision: to build a military road across the heart of the mountains, allowing troops to move quickly and the territory to be controlled. So the Military Road was born, built between 1800 and 1809, crossing the Wicklow tops from north to south by way of points such as the Sally Gap and Glenmacnass, with barracks along the way. What was built as an instrument of repression is today, paradoxically, one of the most beautiful and best-loved scenic routes in Ireland, opening up the wild mountain landscape to visitors.
County Wicklow has long been known as 'the garden of Ireland', a nickname that recognises the exceptional beauty of its landscapes: mountains rounded by glacial erosion, deep valleys, dark lakes, waterfalls, woods and extensive heather moorland. That natural wealth, together with its historical value, led to official protection in the twentieth century.
In 1991 Wicklow Mountains National Park was established, the largest of Ireland's national parks, protecting thousands of hectares of mountain, upland blanket bog, woodland and the habitats of characteristic wildlife and plants, such as red deer, birds of prey and upland wetland vegetation. The park includes the valley of Glendalough and its lakes, combining the conservation of nature with that of the extraordinary monastic heritage.
Today Wicklow is one of the most visited nature destinations in Ireland, above all because it is close to Dublin. Glendalough draws pilgrims, historians and walkers; the mountains attract hikers and lovers of scenic routes; and the landscapes, so cinematic, have made the county a regular film and television set. The great contemporary challenge is to balance this enormous appeal with the protection of fragile ecosystems and an irreplaceable historic heritage, so that the 'garden of Ireland' remains so for future generations.