Overview
Manor Kilbride is the first village the young River Liffey reaches, a few miles below its source in the hills, where the Brittas River joins it just north of Blessington Lake (the Poulaphouca Reservoir). It’s a small place — a shop with an antiques shop attached, a primary school, a community hall — and most people pass through on the way to somewhere higher up. From the village the R759 climbs to the Sally Gap, one of the best-known mountain drives in Wicklow, and the ridges on either side carry some of the county’s oldest monuments.
Don’t come expecting a day’s worth of things in the village itself. Come for the hills above it, and eat in Blessington, six minutes down the N81.
Up onto the ridge
West of the village, Golden Hill is topped by a cluster of four cairns and a ringfort, Neolithic or Bronze Age in date — a short, steep pull off the road for a lot of prehistory in one spot.
The bigger objective is Seefin, the flat-topped hill to the south. Its summit, around 620m, holds a Neolithic passage tomb you can still get inside: a stone-lined passage under a broad cairn, with a second cairn on Seefingan a little higher again. There’s no ticket desk and no path signed from a car park — it’s an open-hill walk across exposed blanket bog, so pick a clear day, wear boots that don’t mind wet ground, and keep to the firmer going to spare the peat. On a good afternoon the view runs the length of the Liffey’s headwaters.
The Sally Gap drive
The R759 out of Manor Kilbride is the western start of the Sally Gap run, the crossroads of high mountain roads at the heart of the Wicklow uplands and one of the most popular drives in the county. It’s a slow, narrow climb through bog and old quarry ground, with a few safe pull-ins for a photograph — better taken unhurried than as a shortcut. Wicklow granite was cut at Goldenhills, on the high ground to the north-east, and hauled down for building in Dublin.
A bit of history
The church of Kilbride first appears in the records in 1291, as ‘Kylbryde in the Colach’, when this corner of the mountains formed part of the estates of the Archbishop of Dublin. Kilbride Manor — the house that puts the ‘Manor’ in the name — was home to the Moore family until the 1950s and now runs as a guesthouse, known for its gardens and, lately, for Mont Lager, a beer brewed on site by its owner, Margaret Cully. A grander neighbour, Glen Heste, had its own private airstrip in its heyday before fire destroyed the house in 1958.
Getting there and practicalities
Manor Kilbride is signed off the N81, the Dublin–Baltinglass road, with the R759 branching south-east for the Sally Gap. Public transport is thin: Dublin Bus route 65 runs along the N81, and the nearest stop is at Kilbride (the antiques shop), a good walk from the higher ground — this is really a place you reach by car or bike.
Parking is roadside, in lay-bys along the R759 and near the village green; the lanes are narrow, so leave room for farm traffic. The village shop covers the basics, but for groceries, an ATM or anything more, Blessington is the nearest town. Check the forecast before heading up — the tops clag over quickly, and there are no facilities once you leave the road.