Mountains & Viewpoints in County Louth

Almost everything on this page sits on the Cooley Peninsula, the hilly finger between Carlingford Lough and Dundalk Bay at the top of the county, an hour from both Dublin and Belfast. Slieve Foye is the high point of it at 589m, the highest ground in Louth, rising straight off the lough shore. Waymarked loops climb from Carlingford village and from the Coillte woods below the summit onto a gabbro ridge, with a stretch of the long-distance Táin Way crossing the same slopes.

The walking therefore starts a few minutes from the medieval streets rather than a drive away. Carlingford has King John’s Castle, the Dominican Priory and Taaffe’s Castle within a short walk of each other, and the greenway runs 7 km from the town to Omeath. If you would rather drive the peninsula than climb it, the scenic route takes in the same mountains, the greenway and a Neolithic dolmen, free to drive and park. Magic Hill near Jenkinstown, where a car left in neutral appears to roll upwards, is a quick stop on the way.

Two places sit away from Cooley. The Hill of Faughart, just north of Dundalk, is the traditional birthplace of St Brigid, with her holy well, a 12th-century church ruin and the graveyard where Edward Bruce is reputed to lie after the battle of 1318. Port Oriel, on the north side of Clogher Head, is the biggest fishing harbour in the north-east, with a cliff path above it for seals and seabirds.