Routes | Rothar Routes

Antequera – an Iberian Newgrange & Burren rolled into One!

The historic quarter of Antequera is a glorious monument to the rich history of Spain and its Christian and Islamic past. it even extends way past those influences with the location near the old town of impressive passage graves – on a scale not too dissimilar to Newgrange at Brú na Bóinne, which I recently cycled around. Most people will visit Cordoba and Granada to explore the magnificent Alhambra and the other stunning Moorish architecture but here has its own attraction. Antequera has so many gems, without the mass tourism that is a perfect place to be paced for a few days of exploration.

My interest in Antequera was piqued by talk of the largest Dolmen in Europe – a boast we have for our own Browneshill Dolmen just 2 kms out the road. The Dolmens of Antequera are passage tombs more comparable with Newgrange. Like passage tombs in Ireland, they were used for burial purposes. Their construction remains a mystery, being built from large carved rocks, they were obviously created to endure for eternity. The first passage tombs appeared on the Iberian peninsula and in Brittany before the construction of similar passage tombs on the island of Ireland. There are three tombs very close to the centre of Antequera, El Romeral, Menga and Viera. All three are located in a heavy industrialised area which does take away from the natural beauty. All three are really interesting places worthy of visits.

**View from the entrance of Mega, is aligned with Peña de los Enamorados**

Video – Menga Dolmen

About 12kms away is the amazing El Torcal region high above Antequera. Like the Burren in Clare, this is a karst limestone landscape, with a ruggedness full of unique rock formations and natural sculptures. El Torcal, the Dolmens and Peña de los Enamorados were designated a World Heritage Site in 2016. There are two walking routes through El Torcal, the shorter takes about an hour to complete and the longer takes two hours. Delighted to catch glimpses of the Iberian Ibex grazing high up among the rocky outcrops but unfortunately too far away to photograph with my phone. We took the longer route and would loved to have stayed to also complete the shorter version but we had a lift to catch!

Video – a tight squeeze!

The Alcazaba of Antequera is a Moorish fortress that was erected over Roman ruins in the 14th century to counter the Christian advance from the north. The fortress is rectangular in shape, with two towers. Its keep is considered amongst the largest of Al-Andalus – the Muslim ruled area of the Iberian Penisula. It’s a magnificent ruined fort. The Church of Santa Maria La Mayor’s Collegiate Church alongside the Alcazaba was constructed between 1514 and 1550 and was the first Renaissance-style building to be erected in Andalucía. The town is packed full of other old churches scattered all over the old town. The narrow streets and row upon row of white houses give Antequera a really picturesque back drop that you could spend hours wandering around.

Street scene, evening time Antequera

Many streets are connected by steep rows of steps in hilly Antequera

Antequera has a very relaxed atmosphere and a place you feel very welcome and safe. We were particularly taken with the sense of community as we descended, one evening, the winding streets down from the Ermita. It reminded me of photos I’ve seen of Bridewell Lane back in the 1950s – families out on the street, a young woman sowing a dress on her doorstep, elderly grandparents out chatting with neighbours and everyone looking out for each other. It felt good!

Spain is one of the best countries to cycle in – the roads are safe and there’s lots of off road tracks to take as well. We were delighted to get the opportunity to cycle a section of the Camino Mozárabe back from Cartoaojal to Antequera. A common sight I’ve seen while cycling in Spain are the local village deliveries – be they bread men, or fishmongers. A toot of the horn tells the locals to come out on to the street to buy their fresh anchovies and squid, from a little van just like this:

Peña de los Enamorados – Lovers Rock

Camino Mozárabe route

If you like an active holiday, it’s hard to beat Spain – it has the weather, the roads, the friendly people, good food and so much history. Next time we go here we will book a place in the old town to stay in as we were located a little bit too far out of town and faced a lengthy uphill walk before we started to explore each day! Here’s a You Tube video to give a real flavour of Antequera.

Holy Wells, High Crosses & Swearing Stones

This is a fabulous 50 kms cycle route featuring interesting and important historical sites and surprising stunning hills scenery, which I really enjoyed completing on a windy February 4th morning. Hard to believe but I’d say once I left Carlow, and excluding Castledermot village I met less than 10 cars on these quiet country roads. I’m at a loss to understand why cyclists use our busy main roads when we have this glorious spiders web of bóithríns connecting up our towns and villages.

Most evenings I take the road out past Oak Park and Ballaghmoon and so the first part of this route is very familiar – or so I thought! I’ve loaded up the Ordnance Survey Maps on my phone and they are brilliant for highlighting heritage sites. Many of these are but ruins, and often long gone but at least I can be on the look out for them. I noticed a church marked near the river Lerr at Newtownallen but I could see no sight of it on the way out. I continued on this well surfaced road passing close to Kilkea Castle and heading towards Belan, Moone.

My first stop was another gem marked on the map, a holy well at Belan. It’s a small oval well covered by a fine corbelled structure with clear water inside which runs under a flag stone and into the River Greese.

Crystal clear water in St. Patrick’s Holy Well

St Partick’s Well, Belan

Local folklore, says that St Patrick was chased out of Belan and this is supposedly reenacted every 17th March with a procession from the High Cross Inn! Sounds like a tale that originated in the Inn!

Not far away is the sleepy but historic village of Moone which is home to one of the best preserved High Crosses in the country, the tallest in fact at 5.4 metres. The carvings are so good, so well preserved and they feature many scenes from the Gospels. The monastery here was founded by St Palladius who came to Ireland in 431 AD.

I was at the northernmost point of my route here and headed east in the direction of Kilelan Abbey ruins. One of the great advantages of slow travel is the ability to stop and admire things that catch your eye. This is a unique church ruin with a square tower incorporated into the church building. Founded by the Knights of St John of Jerusalem in the 13th century, it’s a pretty site worth investigating. It’s possible to get to the top of the tower but honestly, when I saw part of the tower held together with rope I didn’t even give it a second thought!

Leaving Kilelan Abbey behind I continued on a lovely quiet rural road along the side of Sheriff Hill and then Frocken Hill, as my father used call it, but I see it named on the Ordnance survey map as Corballis Hill. This is a great road with pretty scenery all round and some nice hills to climb. I should taken a few more photos!

I turned right then for Castledermot and a look at the famous monastery of Diseart Diarmada, founded in 812 AD, now St James Church of Ireland. This is a stunning site that is so easily overlooked which is on our doorstep. There are two very decorative High Crosses, one on the Northside and the other on the Southside, a Round Tower, a hog back stone and a swearing stone! The original monastery was plundered twice by the Vikings in the 9th century.

The Round Tower, which is just over 20 metres tall, was used to store valuables and this one is unusual as the entrance is just above ground level and is located to the north of the church instead of on the usual west side of the church.

Round Tower at Castledermot

There are a couple of other unique features worth investigating. A very rare, possibly the only one now in this country, a hog back stone. This is a Scandanvian type grave marker with carvings on both sides. These are covered in lichen now and hard to make out.

The Swearing Stone is another great feature. The “Leac na Mionn” or ‘Stone of the Oaths’ bears a circular hole in the centre of the carved head. This stone was used for swearing oath, sealing promises and making deals!

There are a host of other smaller crosses and markers worth checking out including another holed stone:

Roma Arch and Round Tower.

I was heading back for Carlow now and the best way by bike is out by the GAA field and over by Newtownallen. This allowed me look to see of there was anything remaining of the church ruins that I mentioned at the start and though I have travelled this road on hundreds of occasions, today was the first day I glimpsed these ruins. They are located on the other side to the River Lerr and I’ll have to find an away across at some stage to have a gander! All in all another lovely cycle with loads of interesting sites to visit.

Rathvilly Rothar Route

The best way to get to know your county is either on your two feet or on your bicycle! Last cycle of the Christmas break took me on a lovely route across to Rathvilly with lots to see along the way. I keep saying it, but we have an amazing network of local roads criss crossing the country, linking up interesting little places to visit!

Is this the smallest graveyard in Carlow?

I’d never dream of taking the main road to Rathvilly on the bike, so it’s always a little cross country, out through Palatine, into County Kildare and up to Knocknacree Cross. It’s a short steep little climb rewarded with an equally steep downhill towards Graney, site of the infamous 1922 ‘Graney Ambush’ in which the IRA attacked a convoy of the National Army during the Civil War. 3 soldiers were killed and 5 badly wounded. Graney was also the site of a Nunnery founded by the Augustinians around 1200 AD until Henry VIII’s dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539, granting the substantial lands to Sir A. St Leger. Is it any wonder we’re not too fond of that nation! I passed on by and headed for Bigstone, located on the Carlow /Kildare border. I’d say the border runs right beneath it!

It is what it says on the tin…. Bigstone

I read a lovely story on the Dúchas website about the Bigstone; its an amazing repository of Irish folklore, have a read of this:

As I left the Bigstone behind and headed towards Ricketstown, I couldn’t but think of this great yarn, again from The Schools Collection on the Dúchas website, and hoped I wouldn’t be shamed by this ‘Quick Walker’. These stories are form the 1930s but look at the names of the student and her uncle – McGuirk and Molloy, still prominent names in the Rathvilly area.

The road through Ricketstown passes the impressive Beechy House Stud, owned by racehorse trainer Jim Bolger. It was once owned by Benjamin D’Israeli, uncle of the former British Prime Minister of the same. He gifted a sum of money to enable the construction of a school in Rathvilly, and the beautiful building at Bough is that old school. It’s an iconic school building, which you wouldn’t expect to see in its location. It closed its doors as a school in 1977 and I have memories of playing Badminton in it many years ago when I was working and lodging in Baltinglass!

It was on up to Rathvilly village then and a stop at the Kevin Barry memorial. Rathvilly has a fairly unique achievement in winning the National Tidy Towns on three occasions. It would be nice to see them back competing at that level again as it is a very picturesque and historic village. And forgetting about the football….

Kevin Barry Statue, Rathvilly – he was only 18 years old….a boy…

In Mountjoy Jail one Monday morning
High upon the gallows tree
Kevin Barry gave his young life
For the cause of liberty
Just a lad of 18 summers
Yet there's no one can deny
As he walked to death that morning
He proudly held his head on high
Just before he faced the hangman
In his dreary prison cell
British soldiers tortured Barry
Just because he would not tell
The names of his brave comrades
And other things they wished to know
'Turn informer or we'll kill you!'
Kevin Barry answered, 'No!'
Another martyr for old Ireland
Another murder for the crown
Whose brutal laws may kill the Irish
But can't keep their spirits down
Lads like Barry are no cowards
From the foe they will not fly
Lads like Barry will free Ireland
For her sake they'll live and die

Uo to the Moate cross roads, wheeled right and sailed down past Lisnevagh House, home of the Bunburys. The Bunburys descend from Baron de St. Pierre, a Norman knight who served with William the Conqueror at the battle of Hastings in 1066. Part of the Bunbury family left Cheshire in the 1660s and settled in Co Carlow as tenants of the Duke of Ormonde until they purchased Lisnavagh in 1702. They became an important part of the ruling elite in Ireland during the late 17th century and, by 1860, the estate at Lisnevagh had evolved into one of the most advanced farms in the country. They still reside at Lisnevagh, now a boutique wedding venue and of course Turtle Bunbury is a renowned Irish historian. This road took me down to Tobinstown, on the Carlow – Hacketstown Road, not a road I like to cycle on. But it was only for a few hundred metres as I got off it as quickly as possible at Ballybit, onto safer local roads that took me over to Rathmore bridge on the River Slaney. Someone seems to have recently demolished half of one side of the bridge and it’s quite dangerous. Had to be a heavy vehicle or a large tractor to do that damage.

Time was pushing on and I crossed over the Carlow – Rathvilly road at the Bullring Cross, heading on to one of Carlow’s nicest little churches, Kinneagh Church of Ireland.

Not long after passing Kinneagh I rejoined the route I came out at Knocknacree and home via Palatine. Haven’t enjoyed a cycle as much on a long time!

On the Trail of Saints, Kings & Vikings

The source of the Wren Boys tradition is lost in the mists of time and while I wasn’t partaking in any hunting of the wren on this St Stephens Day, I came across a few on my fantastic cycle today along the Nurney Plateau. The road up through Nurney across by Augha gives beautiful views of the Barrow Valley but also access to some great lesser known heritage sites of County Carlow.

I love the climb up to the highest point above Nurney village, its only 226 metres but it’s a good pull rewarded by views of the Wicklow Mountains to the east, the Blackstairs to the south, across the Barrow Valley and up onto the Killeshin Hills in the west, with Carlow Town spread out to the north. I sped down into Newtown and swung right towards the townland of Kildrenagh. There’s a well hidden large head of an old cross and a stoup, or holy well, located in a hedge along a cul de sac. If you didn’t know it was there you would never find it.

Kildrenagh Cross and Stoup.

The Dúchas website is an amazing anthology of folklore collected by school children in National Schools during the 1930s. Here are two stories written by a Joseph Mahon of Augha and a May O Brien of Ballybromell, Fenagh.They make lovely reading as the following extracts show about this site and Augha Church which was my next stopping off point.

Kildrenagh (Cill Droighneach) means The Church of The Blackthorn or Sloe Bush and there are remains of a monastic site and bullaun stones in the fields alongside the road dating back to the 2nd Century BC. The Celtic Cross is 10th or 11th Century and you can see the outline of carvings of a Christ figure in the central panel with various crucifixion symbols on the side panels, a ladder, nails, hammer. They were uncovered in the early 1800s by workmen laying a road for Captain Bruen of Oak Park to link Newtown with Ballywilliamroe Bog. They reerected them on the opposite side of the road to where they were discovered.

I love visiting this well which supposedly has the cure for warts. Time to keep moving and it was on then in the direction of Dunleckney – another interesting place to visit, but this time I turned in the direction of Augha. The 7th Century Church ruins at Augha are considered among the most beautiful pre-Romanesque architecture in Ireland. It’s amazing to see how the granite stones are so uniform in size and shape.

The Vikings paid it a visit in 866 and did their usual plundering and pillage…!

At Augha Church.

It was time to head for home now and I retraced my route from Nurney back towards Tinryland but first stopping off to visit Ballyloo Castle, built in 1390 by Art Óg Cavanagh, King of Leinster who was poisoned in 1417! Isn’t it amazing the history that is around us in plain sight but which we can’t see? The Castle ruin is barely visible as it has become overgrown with ivy. It is another important part of our heritage. All three sites today are in need of protecting or they will sadly crumble into heaps of stones in the next 50/100 years. And there will be no markers to our past.

It was a perfect day for a cycle, on lovely quiet scenic rural roads of the hidden Carlow. Well worth taking time to explore these historic sites!

Cupidstown Hill – Kildare County High Point

Cupidstown Hill short walk

It may have been the shortest High Point walk so far, but I was nearly blown off this little hill on the Kildare – Wicklow border this morning! Standing 379 metres tall, it has seriously good viewing across the plains of Kildare and on the opposite side towards the Wicklow mountains. This view is restricted however by the forestry plantation.

The best way to approach it is probably to take the Kilteel exit off the N7. Pass the Church on your right, take the next left opposite Brennans pub and then take the left at the fork in the road. Today was so windy; there is a 200 metres stretch of the approach road lined with old oak trees – a Kildare version of the Dark Hedges, if you have a good imagination! There are bits of branches flying in all directions and I had to run the gauntlet or head home! It was worth it though to complete the 15th County High Point. I’ve been picking off the low hanging fruit these past few walks – the weather isn’t conducive to tackling higher, wetter ground. I’m hoping to try a few over the Christmas break, but we will have to wait and see how the weather holds up!

Rothar Routes

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Posts from the ‘Routes’ category

Antequera – an Iberian Newgrange & Burren rolled into One!

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Holy Wells, High Crosses & Swearing Stones

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Rathvilly Rothar Route

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On the Trail of Saints, Kings & Vikings

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Cupidstown Hill – Kildare County High Point

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