Overview
Brackloon is one of the last scraps of Atlantic oakwood left in the west of Ireland – 74 hectares of it on the eastern slopes of Croagh Patrick, six kilometres south of Westport on the road to Leenane. The oaks are 150 to 200 years old, descendants of trees the O’Malleys would have known, and since the 1990s Coillte has been pulling out the conifers that were planted through them in the 1960s to let the native canopy recover. Under the oaks grow holly, birch, ash, willow and hazel, and the Owenwee River threads the middle of the wood, keeping the whole place damp and sheltered. It is now a Special Area of Conservation and a Natural Heritage Area, and was a pilot site for the national Native Woodland Scheme.
The walk
The one to do is the Brackloon Wood Loop, an easy 2.8 km circuit marked with purple way-markers that takes about an hour. It follows the Owenwee, passing the wood’s older features before returning to the trailhead. The main path is a gravel track, firm enough for pushchairs and sturdy wheelchairs – but be warned, after Mayo rain it turns to what’s locally called clarty, a good sticky mud, so pick your footwear to match the forecast. From the higher, more open ground in the area, the views open out across Clew Bay to Clare Island, once Gráinne O’Malley’s stronghold.
The trailhead has a small free car park. From Westport, take the N59 south for about 6 km, turn right for Owenwee, continue 500 m, then right at the crossroads and on 1.5 km to the trailhead on your right.
History and archaeology
The wood carries a long human story under its trees. Archaeological survey has found fulacht fiadh – Bronze Age cooking pits – near the riverbanks, and a stone ringfort of the early Christian period sits within the wood. It runs close to Tóchar Phádraig, the old pilgrim road from Rathcroghan in County Roscommon to Croagh Patrick. For centuries the wood was worked hard for timber and charcoal, and by the 19th century it formed part of the Westport House estate of the Marquess of Sligo, before the Irish Land Commission took it over in the 1940s and, later, the restoration began.
What grows and lives here
Spring and early summer bring the woodland floor to life with wood sorrel, hard fern and bilberry, and yellow flag iris along the river’s floodplain. Brackloon’s rarest resident is the white sword-leaved helleborine, one of Ireland’s most threatened orchids – it’s protected by law, so if you find it in flower in summer, look and leave it be. The damp, sheltered ground makes autumn the season for fungi, and the wood holds the usual west-of-Ireland woodland cast of badgers, foxes and pine martens, mostly seen as a tail disappearing into the undergrowth.
Practical information
- Access: open year-round, free.
- Parking: small free car park at the trailhead (directions above).
- Facilities: none – no toilets, no café, no shop. Bring water, a snack and a rain jacket.
- Dogs: welcome; keep them under close control to protect ground-nesting birds and the orchid ground.
- Further reading: the Mayo County Library book Brackloon – The Story of an Irish Oak Wood is the detailed account of the wood’s ecology and its restoration.
Come early on a still morning for the light through the oaks, and give yourself the extra ten minutes to walk the riverbank at the northern end of the loop – it’s the quietest, most sheltered stretch of the wood, and the one worth lingering in.