About Mare’s Tail Waterfall
Mare’s Tail Waterfall is said to be the tallest waterfall in Ireland (let alone the Ring of Beara; according to a sign near the Adrigole Harbour viewpoint).
It’s where the Coomadavallig and Coomarkane Lakes drain towards the Adrigole Harbour via the Valley of Coomgire over a slope dropping with a proclaimed total height of 685m (though this seems kind of exaggerated from what we could tell).
Nevertheless, you’d think that a waterfall with this kind of association ought to be very popular and well-touristed.
However, it turned out that both the waterfall and its access are on private land, and the owners don’t seem interested in opening it up for visitation.
The best sanctioned way to even witness this waterfall was from a lookout over Adrigole Harbour backed by the waterfall among the mountains in the background.
During our July 2024 visit, the waterfall had a bit of a lighter flow so it was hard to distinguish it from the rest of the scenery.
I’m sure in times of heavier flow, the Mare’s Tail Waterfall would be an impressive sight from this lookout.
Now we did explore the area around the Mare’s Tail thinking there might be closer access, but the narrow roads were merely accesses for the local owners.
When we got to the road’s end, there were plenty of “No Trespassing” signs, which made it very clear that visitors are not welcome.
As a result, I tend to think of the Mare’s Trail Waterfall as a roadside waterfall (despite its distance from the Adrigole Harbour lookout).
Any other way of experiencing this waterfall besides the roadside lookout would pretty much be unsanctioned or at least trespassing.
Authorities
The Mare’s Tail Waterfall is near the Beara Peninsula town of Adrigole in County Cork, Ireland. It is on private land and has neither official access nor infrastructure for visitation. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, you can try visiting the Beara Tourism website.
The Mare’s Tail Waterfall resides in the Beara Peninsula near the town of Adrigole.
Since we approached this waterfall from Kenmare, I’ll describe the driving directions from there first.
Then, since we went to Glengarriff afterwards, I’ll also describe the driving directions as if we went from Glengarriff.
Drive from Kenmare to the Adrigole Harbour Lookout
As far as driving here from Kenmare, which was where we were staying, we followed this basic route.
From the one-way triangle in the Kenmare town centre, we went south on the N71 for about 900m, then turned right and followed the R571 for a little over 23km (keeping left to stay on the R571 after 13.4km after leaving the N71).
Then, we turned left onto the R574 Road (signed for Healy Pass), and we then followed this road for another 12.7km to get to its junction with the R572 Road (Beara Way).
At this point, we’d then turn left to go east on the R572 Road, and continue for another kilometre to a pullout or lay-by with a view towards Adrigole Harbour and the Mare’s Tail Waterfall behind it.
Overall, this drive took us about an hour.
Drive from Glengarriff to the Adrigole Harbour Lookout
If coming from Glengarriff, the most straightforward route would be to head southwest from the R572 Road towards Castletownbere and the Ring of Beara.
From there, we’d drive about 16.6km west on the R572 to the lay-by on the left with the view of Adrigole Harbour and the Mare’s Tail behind it.
This drive should take around 15 minutes.
Getting A Closer View of Mare’s Tail Waterfall
While the view of Adrigole Harbour leaves a lot to be desired, it begs the question whether it’s possible to improve the view.
Well, the answer to that is yes-and-no because there’s certainly better spots to get a closer look at the Mare’s Tail Waterfall, but the problem is that you’re contending with private property.
For the record, we did manage to get an unsanctioned view from across someone’s farm along the L8949 Road.
Unfortunately, this road ends up at someone’s driveway or farm entrance, and the owner expressly put signs there to prevent parking and even using the nearby spaces to turn the car around on the one-lane road!
There may also be another road along the L8950 to get closer to the Mare’s Tail, but we didn’t go that way, and I’d imagine you’ll likely face similar resistance from landowners at the end of this road.
For context, Adrigole is about 18km (under 30 minutes drive) west of Glengarriff, about 37km (about an hour drive) southwest of Kenmare, about 85km (about 90 minutes drive) south of Killarney, 148km (about 2.5 hours drive) southeast of Dingle, 160km (about 2.5 hours drive) south of Tarbert, 128km (about 2.5 hours drive) southeast of Portmagee, 108km (about 90 minutes drive) west of Cork, about 194km (about 3 hours drive) southwest of Limerick, and 361km (over 4 hours drive) southwest of Dublin.
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Brief sweep looking over someone's farm towards the stringy Mare's Tail on the L Road
Distant sweep of the scenery at Adrigole encompassing the hard-to-see Mare's Tail
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