Overview
The mountain everyone photographs from the N15 is a plateau, not a peak. Benbulben (Irish: Binn Ghulbain) is the eroded edge of a bed of Dartry Limestone: during the last Ice Age it stood above the glaciers as a nunatak while the softer rock around it was ground into the valleys, leaving the flat 526 m top and the sheer north face.
Most people who say they are ‘climbing Benbulben’ never reach the top. The plateau is an exposed, unmarked hill walk that wants settled weather and proper mountain gear. What suits an ordinary afternoon is the waymarked Coillte forest loop at the foot of the north face. If you have one visit and average legs, do the forest loop and drive to Yeats’s grave at Drumcliffe – that pairing is the trip.
Walking the Gortarowey forest loop
Beneath the north face, Coillte maintains a waymarked trail through the Gortarowey Forest Recreation Area. It starts from a free car park off the Barnaribbon crossroads and climbs through pine and broadleaf before opening onto ridges with views over Sligo and Donegal bays.
The main Benbulben Loop is 5.5 km and takes an hour and a half to two hours at walking pace – gentle gradients, but with uneven, root-covered sections where it climbs. A shorter waymarked option branches off for anyone who wants a taste without the full circuit. Signposts and interpretive panels mark the junctions. Dogs are welcome but should be on leads near livestock and ground-nesting birds.
One honest caveat: this is a forest walk, not the mountain. You look up at the cliffs rather than out from them, and the trees screen the view for much of the loop. Walkers set on the plateau itself should park at Luke’s Bridge, about 5 km north of Drumcliffe, where the separate summit route begins. That is a different and far more demanding day out.
Yeats’s grave at Drumcliffe
A short drive south brings you to Drumcliffe, where W.B. Yeats is buried in the churchyard of St Columba’s. His headstone carries the epitaph he wrote himself: ‘Cast a cold eye on life, on death, horseman, pass by’ – the closing lines of Under Ben Bulben, the poem he set against this mountain.
The churchyard is an early monastic site in its own right, with a 10th-century high cross carved with scenes from scripture and the stump of a round tower struck by lightning in 1396. Afterwards, the Pink Clover Café by the car park does tea and cakes, with a craft gallery next door.
The rock, and the myth in it
Benbulben’s cap is Dartry Limestone, and the fossil shells and chert nodules in it are the remains of a warm sea floor from long before the mountain existed. The softer shale of the lower slopes wears away faster, which is why the profile is a sheer cap over a sloping base. The high ground is a Special Area of Conservation, sheltering Arctic-alpine plants – among them the fringed sandwort – that have held on since the ice retreated. Keep to the marked paths near the top: the cliff edges are unfenced and the flora is fragile.
The mountain runs deep in Irish myth. It is one of the settings of the Fenian Cycle and the death-place of Diarmuid, gored by an enchanted boar on its slopes in the tale of Diarmuid and Gráinne. A fairy door is said to sit on the north face, a way into the otherworld.
Getting there and practical notes
- Getting there: N15 north from Sligo town, then the R293 at the Barnaribbon crossroads; the Gortarowey trailhead is signposted, about 11 km from the town centre. The nearest train station is Sligo (Mac Diarmada), and Bus Éireann services stop near Drumcliffe.
- Two car parks: Gortarowey serves the forest loop; Luke’s Bridge, 5 km north of Drumcliffe, serves the summit route. Don’t confuse them. Gortarowey has picnic tables and a toilet block but no shop, so bring water.
- Admission: free, and the mountain is open at all hours.
- What to wear: the weather turns fast up here. Waterproofs, boots with grip and a windproof layer, even in summer.
- Accessibility: the forest loop is graded gentle to moderate, but the surface is naturally rooted and stony, and not suitable for wheelchairs or buggies.
- Nearby: pair it with the Carrowmore Megalithic Cemetery, the sands of Bunduff Strand, or the passage tombs at Carrowkeel. The Devil’s Chimney waterfall on the same range only runs after heavy rain, so save that one for after a wet spell.
Go late in the day. The Gortarowey ridges face west, and evening light on the cliffs is why photographers time a visit for the last hour before sunset.