Overview
The gateway is the whole joke of the place. Two castellated towers and an ornamented bridge, built in the 1830s to impress visitors on the sweep up to a mansion – a mansion that was never built, because the money ran out first. What is left is one of Waterford’s odder sights: a grand Gothic entrance to nothing, standing in quiet woodland about 2.5 km from Lismore, reached by a short and easy loop walk.
One thing to get straight, as older write-ups muddle it: the Towers stand at Ballysaggartmore, close to Lismore. The village of Ballysaggart itself is a separate place around 8 km further out – a church, a pub, a shop and a GAA field – and not where the walk is.
The story behind the Towers
The Towers went up for Arthur Kiely-Ussher, an Anglo-Irish landlord, to designs by his own head gardener, John Smyth. Kiely-Ussher held an estate of around 8,000 acres, most of it let to tenant farmers, with roughly a thousand kept as his own demesne. The story goes that his wife wanted a house to match her relatives’; the entrance was built first – the towers, the bridge, the flanking lodges – and by the time it was done there was nothing left for the house. They settled for something far more modest, since gone.
The follies are the pretty part. The rest is grim. Kiely-Ussher is remembered as a hard landlord through the Great Famine, evicting tenants who could not pay, and an attempt was made on his life. The main house was burned during the Civil War in the early 1920s and later cleared away, leaving the towers and the bridge to the trees.
Walking the trail
It is a straightforward 2 km loop, 30 to 45 minutes at a gentle pace, free and open dawn to dusk with no booking. From the information boards at the car park the path heads into mature woodland; bear left at the first fork for the easier gradient. A small wooden bridge and a stone gate come first, and then the towers show through the trees – Gothic arches, battlements, weathered stone against the canopy. A picnic table sits by them.
Beyond the towers the trail reaches the ruined gate lodges, roofless now, that once housed the staff who worked the gate. Further on, the ornamented bridge spans a shallow ravine with the stream running below. The wood is a mix of native and planted trees: ash, oak, sycamore and horse chestnut alongside spruce and fir, with holly, hazel and bramble underneath, and a run of tall poplars and rhododendron that colours up in late spring. Benches are dotted along the way. The path is well kept, though the last descent to the car park has exposed roots and a steeper pitch – the part to mind after rain.
Practical information
- Location: off the R666, about 2.5 km from Lismore
- Distance & duration: 2 km loop; 30–45 minutes at a relaxed pace
- Grade & terrain: easy; mostly flat woodland path with one short steep section near the end
- Parking: small free car park at the trailhead. It rarely fills, but weekends are the exception, so come early
- Admission: free, open daily dawn to dusk
- Facilities: no toilets and nowhere to buy food or drink on site. Picnic tables and benches only
- What to bring: shoes with grip, water, a rain jacket, and midge repellent in summer
- Dogs: welcome on leads; mind the slippery ground by the stream
- Getting there: from Lismore, follow the R666 towards Fermoy and watch for the signed entrance and small car park on the right
What to see nearby
The Towers make an easy add-on to a Lismore day:
- Lismore Castle Gardens: about 3 km away, with formal terraces, glasshouses and one of Ireland’s oldest continuously cultivated gardens.
- The Vee Pass: a scenic drive through the Knockmealdown Mountains, famous for its purple rhododendron in late spring.
- Cahir Castle: about a 40-minute drive north, a medieval stronghold on an island in the River Suir with guided tours.
- Copper Coast: head south for a coastal drive through the UNESCO Global Geopark, with cliffs, old mine workings and quiet beaches between Dungarvan and Tramore.
It is a half-hour walk, not a hike – best treated as a stop on a Lismore day rather than a day out in itself.