The Táin Way: Walking in the Footsteps of Irish Legend

There is a hill above Carlingford where you can stand with one boot in myth and one in the twenty-first century. Below you, the medieval streets and the oyster beds. Across the lough, the Mourne Mountains. And all around you, the ground where — if you believe the oldest story in Irish literature — a queen's army came for a bull, and a seventeen-year-old boy held them off alone. The Táin Way is a 40-kilometre waymarked circuit of that ground, and it is one of the most rewarding trails in Ireland that hardly anybody talks about.

This post is part of our complete guide to Ireland's National Waymarked Ways — a series walking you through every long-distance trail in the country.

We should declare an interest here. Walking Holiday Ireland is based in Dundalk, fifteen minutes from the trailhead. This is our local mountain. We have walked the Táin Way in sideways rain and in that clear, still June light where you can pick out Wales on the horizon, and we still think it is criminally under-walked.

What is the Táin Way?

The Táin Way (An Táin Bhealach) is a 40km circular National Waymarked Way around the Cooley Peninsula in County Louth. It begins and ends in Carlingford, climbs around 1,025 metres of total ascent across the circuit, and is graded Moderate. Most walkers complete it in two days; give it three and you can actually enjoy it.

It was devised by J. B. Malone — the same walker who laid out the Wicklow Way — and opened in August 1986. That pedigree shows. Malone had a gift for stitching together forest track, open mountain and quiet lane so that the walking never gets monotonous, and the Táin Way is one of his most compact, most varied pieces of work.

What sets it apart from Ireland's better-known trails is scale. The Kerry Way takes nine days. The Wicklow Way takes seven. The Táin Way delivers ridges, forest, sea views and a medieval town in a weekend, an hour and a bit north of Dublin.

The story behind the name

The trail takes its name from the Táin Bó Cúailnge — the Cattle Raid of Cooley — the central epic of early Irish literature. The short version: Queen Medb of Connacht, in a fit of competitive pique with her husband, decides she must possess the Donn Cuailnge, the great Brown Bull of Cooley. She marches an army east to take it. The men of Ulster, laid low by an ancient curse, cannot rise to defend the province.

All except one. Cú Chulainn, barely more than a boy, invokes the right of single combat and holds the army at the fords, one champion at a time, through a long winter. It is a strange, brutal, beautiful story — and every bit of it is set here, on and around the peninsula you will be walking.

You do not need to know any of it to enjoy the trail. But it changes the walking. Ravensdale, Clermont, the pass under the Carn — these are not neutral names on a map. Reading a few pages of the Táin before you come is the single cheapest upgrade you can make to this walk.

The route, stage by stage

Carlingford to Ravensdale

You leave Carlingford by climbing, immediately and steeply, onto the northern flank of Slieve Foye (589m) — the mountain that leans over the town. Within twenty minutes the roofs are small below you and Carlingford Lough opens out to the north, with the Mournes stacked up on the far shore.

The path traverses high above the lough, then swings inland to cross Clermont Pass, below Clermont Carn with its unmistakable transmission mast. From there the route drops through the forestry of Ravensdale — dark, mossy, sheltering conifer that feels a world away from the open hillside you have just left. Ravensdale makes a natural end to a first day.

Ravensdale back to Carlingford

Day two is the mountain day. The route climbs back out of Ravensdale and picks up the ridge between Carnawaddy and Castle Mountain, running the spine of the Cooleys with Dundalk Bay laid out to the south and the whole peninsula falling away either side of you. On a good day this is as fine a ridge walk as anywhere in Leinster. On a bad day it is exposed, boggy and utterly committing, and you will want a map and compass rather than a phone.

The last act is the descent of the southern flanks of Slieve Foye back into Carlingford — a long, rocky, knee-testing drop with the town, the castle and the lough spread out below you the whole way down. It is the best finish of any short trail in the country, and it earns you your dinner.

How hard is the Táin Way, really?

Moderate is the official grade and it is a fair one — but read it properly. Forty kilometres is not far. A thousand metres of ascent packed into those forty kilometres, much of it on rough mountain ground, is another matter entirely.

Three honest observations from walking it repeatedly:

• The mountain sections are real mountain. Cloud comes down on Slieve Foye and the Carnawaddy ridge quickly, and the waymarking is far more helpful in clear weather than in mist. Carry a paper map and know how to use it.
• The ground is wet. This is the east coast, not the Wild Atlantic Way, but the high ground still holds bog. Boots, not trail shoes.
• There are road sections. A 2010 national review of the waymarked ways flagged the Táin Way's tarred stretches, and while work has been done, you will still walk some quiet lane. It is the price of a circular route through a lived-in landscape.

None of this should put anyone off. If you can manage a long hill day in Wicklow, you can manage the Táin Way.

How long to allow

Two days is the classic split, staying in Ravensdale or Omeath at the halfway point. It works, but it makes for two big days and leaves no room for weather.

Three days is better. It turns the Táin Way into a proper little holiday: shorter walking days, an afternoon spare in Carlingford, and enough slack that a wet morning does not wreck the trip. Most of our guests who walk this ground take a week and combine it with the Mournes across the water — which, if you have come all this way, is the version we would quietly recommend.

Best time to walk it

May to September, as with most of Ireland. May and June give you the longest evenings and the driest ground; September gives you the light and the empty trails. July and August are lovely but Carlingford is a popular weekend town — book accommodation early, particularly around the Oyster Festival in August.

Winter walking is possible on the lower sections, but the ridge in December, with four hours of usable daylight and cloud on the tops, is for experienced hill walkers only.

Carlingford: the best trailhead town in Ireland

Few trails begin and end somewhere you actually want to spend time. Carlingford does. It is a genuinely medieval town — King John's Castle above the harbour, the Mint, the Tholsel, narrow lanes that have not been widened in eight hundred years — squeezed between a mountain and a sea lough, with a food and pub scene far beyond what a town of a thousand people has any right to.

The oysters are farmed in the lough in front of you. The Mournes fill the window at breakfast. And when you come down off Slieve Foye on that final descent, everything you need is within four hundred metres of where the trail spits you out. It is very hard to beat.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Táin Way the same as the Táin Trail?

Yes. You will see both names used, and older guidebooks and newspaper articles tend to say "Táin Trail". The official designation is the Táin Way.

Do I need to walk the whole circuit?

Not at all. The Slieve Foye loop out of Carlingford uses part of the Táin Way and makes an excellent four-to-five hour day walk with the best of the views. Plenty of people sample the trail this way first.

Is it well waymarked?

Generally yes — the yellow walking-man markers are consistent on the forest and lane sections. On the open mountain, particularly the Carnawaddy ridge, they are more widely spaced. Carry the map.

Can I do it without a car?

Yes. Dundalk is on the Dublin–Belfast rail line and local buses run from Dundalk to Carlingford in about half an hour. Because the trail is circular, you finish where you started — no shuttle logistics at all.

Where does the Táin Way rank among Ireland's waymarked ways?

For scenery per kilometre walked, we would put it in the top handful. For fame, it is nowhere. That gap is precisely why we like it.

Walk the Táin Way with us

The Cooley Peninsula is our home ground, and our self-guided holidays here are built around the finest stages of the Táin Way — including that unforgettable descent from the Cooley hills back into Carlingford.

The 5-day Cooley Peninsula tour (from €645) gives you the highlights over three walking days. The 6-day Cooley Peninsula holiday (from €725) adds two gentler loop days from Carlingford so you never feel rushed. And if you want the full picture — Cú Chulainn's mountains on one side of the lough and the Mournes on the other — the 7-day Cooley & Mournes tour (from €799) crosses the water and walks both.

Every trip includes hand-picked B&Bs, daily luggage transfer, GPS route notes and our phone number in your pocket. See all our Cooley & Mournes walking holidays — or just come and stand on that hill above Carlingford and see what the fuss was about.