About Poulanass Waterfall
The Poulanass Waterfall (or Poll An Eas) was my excuse to explore the Vale of Glendalough (pronounced “glen-da-LOCK”), which is a glacial valley that seems to play a pretty important role in Irish history.
The waterfall itself is modestly-sized as the Lugduff Brook tumbled in multiple tiers at a cumulative height of 15m.
Accessing the waterfall also meant hiking on well-established trails from the hamlet of Glendalough, and this includes walking parts of the Wicklow Way.
By the way, the Wicklow Way is one of the long-distance self-guided hiking trails throughout Ireland, but I’m under the impression that the Vale of Glendalough is where this trail is at its most dramatic.
In addition to the Poulanass Waterfall, the hike also featured the 6th century medieval monastic city founded by St Kevin, two glacial lakes, and distant cascades on the Glenealo Valley beyond the Upper Lake.
As for hiking to the Poulanass Waterfall, there were actually many options for doing this.
It could be as short as a 1.6km round-trip hike from the nearest car park, or it could be as long as a 4km round-trip hike from the hamlet of Glendalough.
The latter was the way that I did it, but it wasn’t exactly my choice due to how busy this place gets throughout the day (i.e. limited parking availability).
Nevertheless, I’ll do the trail description based on the longer out-and-back hike as I managed to do it.
Trail Description
From the car park at the Glendalough Hotel (see directions below), I had a choice of where to go before the paths converged along the wide and developed Wicklow Way.
One option was to walk along the Glendalough River towards Glendalough Hotel before going left into the north side of the Glendalough Monastic City.
The other option was to cross a bridge over the Glendalough River onto the Wicklow Way, and then walking about 200m to another bridge leading to the south side of the Monastic City.
Exploring the historic monastic settlement (now seemingly more like a cemetery) before or after visiting the waterfall is an arbitrary decision (I opted to do the latter).
From there, I pretty much followed the wide, flat, and paved Wicklow Way for the next 1.5km as it passed by the Lower Lake and approached the Upper Lake.
One thing worth mentioning about my experience with this part of the Wicklow Way was that there were numerous youth and student groups as well as older tour groups during my early July 2024 visit.
This meant that the trail was crowded with large clusters of low-moving people tending to take up the trail’s entire width thereby limiting opportunities to get their attention so you can pass them.
It’s not exactly the most relaxing experience to have to contend with so many people, but that’s kind of what you’re up against.
Anyways, once I got to the signed trail junction just to the west of the information office and museum, I then followed the inland path going up to the waterfall.
This was where the path started to climb alongside the Lugduff Brook along a series of concrete steps.
By the way, you will not want to take the ascending path on the left that was before (east) of the visitor centre.
That’s because that path switchbacks up to the continuation of the Wicklow Way along the opposite side of the Lugduff Brook (i.e. the side opposite where the views of the Poulanass Waterfall were).
Nevertheless, finally after about 200m from the signed trail junction, I reached a lookout peering right at most of the Poulanass Waterfall’s main tiers (the tallest of which is probably 5m).
The trail kept ascending beyond the waterfall to go higher up the Wicklow Way, but for the purposes of doing the waterfall, the lookout would be the turnaround point of the excursion.
Overall, my visit took a little over 90 minutes with the last 15-20 minutes spent checking out the monastic settlement.
I also spent a few minutes checking out each of the glacial lakes, where looking across the Upper Lake revealed a nice cascade on the Glenealo River.
Authorities
The Poulanass Waterfall is in the Glendalough Valley within the Wicklow Mountains National Park near the town of Laragh in County Wicklow, Ireland. It is administered by the National Parks and Wildlife (NPWS). For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, you can try visiting the NPWS website.
The Poulanass Waterfall resides near the town of Laragh.
I’ll describe the most straightforward way of getting there from the Dublin Airport since that was where we picked up the rental car and made our way to this waterfall.
From the Dublin Airport, we promptly made our way to the nearest entrance of the M50 Motorway (toll) some 5km from the airport.
This involved going down the R132 Road south for about 500-600m to its junction with the Old Airport Road.
We then turned right onto Old Airport Road and continued for about 850m before taking the 3rd exit at the roundabout to get onto the M50 Ramp.
Once on the M50, we would then follow it for about 35km as the M50 merged with the E01/M11 Motorway.
From there, we went another 7.5km to the exit 8 Roundwood/Kilmacanoge/R755, where we then kept to the far left lane as it became divided from the rest of the motorway.
After another kilometre, we then exited the motorway and followed the R755 Road for about 24km towards the town of Laragh.
Once in town, we then kept left at the next major fork in the road (1.7km from the start of the main drag of town), where we kept left the R755 Road and proceed on the R756 Road.
Finally, after another 100m or so, we then parked the car at the lot on our left next to the Glendalough Hotel, where the going rate during our early July 2024 Saturday visit was 4 euros per car.
Note this cost could be 5 euros per car at the Upper car park another 1.7km further along the R757 Road.
Overall, this drive should take around 1 hour (depending on traffic).
For context, Laragh is about 26km (over 30 minutes drive) southwest of Enniskerry, about 22km (30 minutes drive) west of Wicklow, about 51km (about 90 minutes drive) southwest of Dublin, 106km (about 90 minutes drive) northeast of Kilkenny, and 101km (about 90 minutes drive) north of Wexford.
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Downstream to upstream sweep of the stream and the falls from the main lookout area
Right to left sweep checking out the upper lake while also showing an interesting cascade at the head of the lake in the distance
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