The Beara Breifne Way

Trail Description

The Beara-Breifne Way is Ireland’s longest national waymarked trail.

The route has been created by local communities in a unique collaboration. It follows the legendary fourteen-day march taken by Dónal Cam O’Sullivan Beare and his one thousand supporters in 1603, and it visits many of the places and communities shaped by their story.

The Way runs almost the length of the country and takes the walker and cyclist to some of its most beautiful and least explored areas in Ireland.

Journey along the coast of the Beara Peninsula, across six mountain ranges, along the banks of the River Shannon and through the lake regions of Roscommon and Leitrim as you travel the Beara Breifne-Way and collect the stamps to fill the Way’s ‘passport’.

The dramatic history contrasts with the beauty and diversity of the landscapes along the Beara-Breifne way. the walk begins with a rugged coastline, then threads a barrier of hills. there are bogs and woodlands, riverbanks, rolling farmland and wayside villages. the route links counties Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Tipperary, Offaly, Galway, Roscommon, Sligo Leitrim and Cavan, and it also connects a series of rural communities along the entire way.

The finer detail of the route is supported by strong folk memory and there are unbroken clan connections with the story. The 400th anniversary re-enactment of the march galvanised the route’s communities to develop the walk. The venture could only have come from the ground up; almost all the land used is in private hands and access has been granted, neighbour to neighbour, for the greater good of the wider community. the route may be nationwide but the sense of ownership and heritage is emphatically local.

The section of the Suck Valley Way from Ballygar to Castlerea forms part of the Beara-Breifne Way, a walking and cycling route is currently under development, intended to run from the Beara Peninsula, County Cork to Breifne, County Leitrim, following the line of Donal Cam O’Sullivan Beare’s march in the aftermath of the Siege of Dunboy 1602.