Overview
The Cooley Peninsula is a hilly finger of north County Louth, wedged between Carlingford Lough and Dundalk Bay and rising to Slieve Foy, at 589 m the highest peak in the county. It’s an hour from both Dublin and Belfast on the M1, and most people do exactly that – drive past it – which is the main reason it stays quiet. For walkers it’s a gift: the Cooley Mountains are small but properly mountainous, and you’re rarely more than a mile from a road on them.
If you’ve a day, give the morning to the hills and the afternoon to Carlingford. The medieval town under Slieve Foy is the obvious base – walled streets, King John’s Castle over the harbour, good pubs, and the Carlingford oysters pulled from the lough in front of it.
One thing to know before you plan around it: the Carlingford Lough ferry between Greenore and Greencastle is not sailing at all in 2026. In normal years it’s a 20-minute hop across to the Mournes in Co. Down; for now, reaching the far side means the long road round by Newry, so don’t build a day out on the crossing.
Táin country
This is the setting of the Táin Bó Cúailnge, the Cattle Raid of Cooley – Ireland’s oldest epic, the one where Queen Medb of Connacht marches on Ulster to seize the Brown Bull, Donn Cúailnge, and the young Cú Chulainn holds her army off at the fords almost single-handed. The story is mapped onto the actual ground: Maeve’s Gap, the cleft she is said to have had cut through the ridge out of spite; the high pastures linked to the bull; and the 26-km Táin Trail, which loops the mountains and ties the sites together. That’s the long-distance route here. If it’s too much, the Carlingford tourist office points beginners to the Poc Fada path from Annaverna or the stretch of the Táin above the Lumpers Pub at Ballymakellett.
People were here long before the legend – Mesolithic hunter-gatherers were at Narrow Water some 8,000 years ago – and the peninsula kept being fought over: the Vikings held the lough for 150 years, the Normans walled Carlingford in the 1100s, and the Knights Templar ran a church and port at Templetown that still gives the beach its name.
Slieve Foy and the walks
The set-piece walk is Slieve Foy itself. The popular loop from Carlingford is around 8 km, climbing through woodland onto open heather and rock, with the whole of Carlingford Lough, the Mourne Mountains and the Irish Sea laid out from the top. The last pull to the summit is rocky and hands-on in places, and the mountain makes its own weather, so take boots and a layer even on a fine morning. For the big view without the scramble, the cairn-topped Clermont Carn (Black Mountain) gives a 360-degree panorama – north to Newry, west to Slieve Gullion, out over the lough to the Mournes. There’s free parking at the Mountain Car Park for the Slieve Foy routes.
At sea level, the Carlingford Greenway runs mostly off-road between Omeath and Carlingford along the old railway line, flat and easy, with the Mournes across the water the whole way – the best option here for families or anyone on a bike. Bikes can be hired in Carlingford.
Carlingford and the coast
Carlingford is the heart of it: a tight medieval grid of lanes under the castle, busy at weekends – it’s a known spot for stag and hen parties, so midweek is calmer – with the heritage centre in an old church telling the town’s Viking-and-Norman story. The tourist office there keeps spring hours of roughly Monday to Friday 10am–5pm and weekends 11am–4pm. Just outside town, the Cooley whiskey story is told through tastings and a small museum, booked ahead; the Cooley Distillery itself was founded by John Teeling in 1987 on a former potato-alcohol plant and was the first new Irish whiskey distillery in generations, though the working plant near Dundalk isn’t a visitor stop.
The coast road, the R173, rings the peninsula past Greenore and the shingle and sand of the south shore – Gyles Quay, Templetown, Shelling Hill – where the beaches are good for a walk and, on a calm day, a swim. The Proleek Dolmen, a big portal tomb near Ballymascanlon at the base of the peninsula, is the pick of the ancient sites; the tradition is to toss a pebble up and hope it stays on the capstone.
Getting there and practical
The M1 brings you within minutes: leave at Dundalk and follow signs for Carlingford and Greenore. Buses run from Dundalk to Carlingford and Greenore, thinning out at weekends, so a car helps for the quieter corners. Parking is free in Carlingford, just outside the old core, and at the Mountain Car Park. Pack for changeable hill weather, check tide times before the lower coastal walks, and remember the ferry isn’t running this year.
Time the climb so you’re off the top of Slieve Foy before the afternoon cloud comes down, and end the day with a pint over the harbour in Carlingford.