Overview
The dark lake below Luggala’s cliffs is Lough Tay, though almost nobody calls it that. The black water and the thin crescent of white sand at its head have made it the ‘Guinness Lake’, and it sits on land the Guinness family owned for most of the 20th century. The mountain above (Irish: Log an Lágh, ‘hollow of the hill’) is only 595 m, low for the Wicklow range, but its east face drops in a single sheer wall of granite straight to the shore. The whole 5,000-acre Luggala Estate is an EU Special Area of Conservation, a landscape of heather, dry-stone walls and old cottages.
History
Peter La Touche, of the Bank of Ireland family, built Luggala Lodge in 1787 as a hunting lodge; its Gothic Revival look – battlements, quatrefoil windows, a silhouette sometimes compared to Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill – came with later remodelling. The La Touches sold to the Viscounts Powerscourt in the mid-1800s, and in 1937 Ernest Guinness bought the estate and gave it to his daughter Oonagh.
Under Oonagh and then her son Garech Browne, Luggala became one of Ireland’s great houses for artists and musicians. Browne co-founded Claddagh Records in 1959 and launched The Chieftains; his guests over the years included the Beatles, Mick Jagger, Anjelica Huston and Seamus Heaney. Tara Browne – the young Guinness heir whose death inspired the Beatles’ ‘A Day in the Life’ – is buried by the lake beside an ornamental temple. The estate is now owned by Luggala Estate Ltd.
The view, and where to stop for it
For most visitors the point of Luggala is the view of Lough Tay from above, and the best of it is from the R759 between Roundwood and the Sally Gap. This is a roadside pull-out, not a built viewpoint – a paved lay-by on the edge of a working private estate, with the lake and its white beach below. From here the water really does read as a pint of stout with the head on top.
Parking is the catch. A free car park opened near Lough Tay to take the cars off the verges, but it is open weekends only, 9am to 6pm. On a fine weekday you are down to a handful of roadside spaces, and the gardaí ticket and tow cars left on the yellow lines or blocking gateways. There is no public right of way onto the estate itself, and the lodge and grounds are not open to the public — the view from the road is what there is to see.
Access to the mountain
The summit and the east face are on the Luggala Estate, which is private land with no public right of way. We do not publish a route up.
The estate has at times allowed walkers and climbers through under its own conditions, but that is permission, not a right, and it can be withdrawn — which is effectively what has happened. The whole area is a Special Area of Conservation with active bog restoration under an environmental management plan, and the landowners have asked that visitors keep off. For a summit with comparable views on ground you are entitled to walk, Djouce Mountain is the obvious substitute, reached from the Ballinastoe Woods car park to the north.
Rock climbing
Luggala’s east-facing granite is one of the better mountain crags in Leinster, with 129 recorded routes, most between VS 4c and E1 5b and a handful of hard classics among them. The crag is entirely on private land, and access is a matter for the estate rather than something a visitor can assume. Climbers should go through Mountaineering Ireland for the current access position rather than turning up.
On screen
The valley has stood in for medieval Scotland, Dark-Age Britain and Viking Scandinavia: Braveheart (1995), Excalibur (1981), King Arthur (2004) and the Vikings series were all shot here, along with The Tudors and P.S. I Love You. A short walk from the R759 pull-out leads to the J.B. Malone memorial cairn, which honours the man who mapped out the Wicklow Way in the 1970s. The drive itself, on the R759 across the bog towards the Sally Gap, has lay-bys enough for a slow morning with a camera.
Nearby and practical
Roundwood is about 5 km to the south-east and Annamoe a little closer, both handy for food, fuel or a coffee; there is nothing on the estate itself – no visitor centre, no toilets – so bring what you need. The nearest facilities are at the Glendalough Visitor Centre, where parking is €4 a day. Public transport is thin: a bus reaches Roundwood, and from there it is a taxi or a long walk.
The estate is a Natura 2000 conservation site with active bog restoration under an environmental management plan, and walkers are asked to keep to marked paths. Weather here changes fast, so bring a windproof layer, sturdy boots and a map or GPS whatever the forecast.
The lake photographs best in autumn, when heather and bracken darken the slopes, and after the first frosts fringe the shallows with ice. Come at a weekend if you want the car park open; midweek it is a handful of roadside spaces, so arrive early.