Overview
Glencree holds Ireland’s only German war cemetery: 134 graves gathered from more than a hundred crash sites and shorelines across the country into a disused quarry beside the river. That, and a peace centre in a Napoleonic-era barracks, are what set this valley apart from the dozens of others in the Wicklow Mountains. Glencree (Gleann Criothach, ‘Valley of the Shaking Bog’) runs through the hills about 40 minutes south of Dublin, the River Dargle dropping down its floor toward Enniskerry. If you only have an hour here, spend it at the cemetery – the setting does as much as the graves. The valley walks, the cemetery and the grotto are all free.
A layered history
In the medieval period Glencree was Ireland’s only royal forest, a wooded hunting reserve for the Crown – the name of one royal forester survives, Sir Thomas Fitzadam, appointed in 1219. The valley’s modern shape dates from after the 1798 rebellion, when the British Army drove the Military Road across the mountains to flush out the United Irishmen, and built a barracks at the head of the glen in 1806. The army left after the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815, and in 1858 the empty buildings became St Kevin’s Reformatory, run by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate – one of the first reformatory schools in Ireland, holding boys sent here for petty theft and vagrancy in the hungry decades after the Famine.
Walking the valley and the River Dargle
The riverside walk is the main outing for most visitors. Marked trails follow the Dargle River downstream over low stone bridges and through old oak woodland, generally flat and family-friendly, though some older sections are narrow and uneven. The valley has doubled as a film set more than once: the spoof Casino Royale (1967) used it for Bond’s home, and The First Great Train Robbery (1978) was shot here, along with Where’s Jack? (1969), Zardoz (1973) and Green Journey (1990).
A short riverside path also leads to the Lourdes Grotto, dedicated to Our Lady of Reconciliation – a quiet detour that ties into the valley’s modern role as a place of peacemaking.
The Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation
Since 1974 the old barracks has been home to the Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation, set up to help bridge the divide between communities during the Troubles and still running mediation and youth programmes today. It’s a working organisation rather than a museum, but you can drop into the Operation Shamrock exhibition, which tells how the site sheltered German war orphans in the years after 1945.
The Armoury Café occupies the old barracks armoury, with a terrace over the valley and artefacts from the orphanage era inside. It’s open 9.30am–5pm Monday to Friday and 9.30am–5.30pm at weekends and on bank holidays. One honest caveat: the café and centre keep set hours, but the valley itself – walks, cemetery, grotto – has none, so don’t time a whole trip around the kitchen.
The German war cemetery
A short walk from the centre, on a slope beside the river, the Glencree German War Cemetery sits in an old quarry whose rock-face was once cut for the barracks. It was built by the German War Graves Commission between 1959 and 1961, dedicated on 9 July 1961, and gathers remains brought in from over a hundred scattered locations around Ireland. There are 134 graves – mostly Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine personnel, 53 of them identified and 28 unknown – along with six First World War prisoners of war who died while interned in Ireland, and civilian detainees lost when the SS Arandora Star was torpedoed in July 1940. The reinterred Abwehr agent Hermann Görtz lies here too. A large Celtic high cross stands at the top of the quarry, and a poem by Professor Stan O’Brien marks the entrance. It draws a thin, steady stream of visitors rather than crowds, which is the whole point of it.
Practical information
Most of Glencree is open access and free – the valley paths, the cemetery and the grotto charge nothing. Parking is free at the Glencree Centre entrance and near the Armoury Café; note that car parks elsewhere in the wider Wicklow Mountains National Park can charge. The wheelchair-friendly facilities are at the visitor centre and café; the surfaced and hard-packed routes near them are the ones to stick to if mobility is a concern, as the older woodland trails are narrow and root-covered. Dogs are welcome on leads along the riverside walk.
Getting there and nearby stops
By car: about 40 minutes from Dublin city centre and 15 from the M50, roughly an hour from Dublin Airport. From Enniskerry village it’s 15 minutes on the L1011.
By public transport: buses run from Dublin to Enniskerry; from there it’s a short taxi up into the valley, as there’s no bus to Glencree itself.
With more time, the Military Road carries on to Sally Gap and the dark-and-pale waters of Lough Tay (the ‘Guinness Lake’), and Powerscourt Waterfall – Ireland’s highest – is a short drive back toward Enniskerry. Arrive early to catch the river in morning light, take a coffee on the Armoury terrace, and walk the valley floor at an unhurried pace.