Walking

Stats: Weather, Wet drizzly and dank for the first 20 minutes, then sun breaking through to a glorious day where I got badly sun burnt over the rest of the walk, which ended with a shower as we got back to the cars and sure why not ; distance 57.7 Km, Height gain 1015m. (Alright, I forgot to turn off view ranger so that’s a total spoof) We had 6 out today, the Grand Master Dermot, Hugh, John, Rob & Ken (me) plus a new meetup friend Becca, she was not part of our meetup members due to our [...]

Stats: Weather, A little cloudy with sun breaking through, very windy on top ; distance 13.5 Km, Height gain 824m. We had 8 out on our annual trip up Lug., the Grand Master Dermot, Hugh, John, Rob & Ken plus a return from our meetup friends Cristine, Blundell and we were joined by a new hiker (and friend of Cristine) Adriana (from Columbia). After gathering at our usual starting point of Ballinteer we quickly got our logistics over with and set off leaving Hughs car at the walks end (the waterfall that flows from the zig zags to the [...]

Triangulation. Triangulation is a simple geometrically based process that makes accurate map-making possible. It works by determining the location and distance of a faraway object , by measuring angles to it from known points at either end of a fixed ,known ,baseline It is based on a system devised over two thousand years ago by Euclid, the father of geometry . Trigonometry (the study of triangles) emerged about the third century BC . It stated that a triangle has six parts—three sides and three angles,and it postulated that given almost any three of them--three sides, two sides and one [...]

Stats: Weather, A little cloudy, pleasant later as the sun broke through  ; distance 10 Km, Height gain 400m.   We had a large contingent out today, the Grand Master Dermot, myself Ken, Hugh, Norman  and John and we were joined by our friends from Meetup, Amer & Blundell (both would make excellent chaperones for the Rose of Tralee) plus Cristina (our Italian Rose), Tatiana (our Brazilian Rose) and a new walker Erica (our Carlow Rose). And who knew that the dark horse Blundell was the poster boy for modern multicultural Ireland, with him just back from South America, [...]

A Brief History. © Tom Barragry The oldest walking club in Ireland is the Brotherhood of the Lug. It dates from 1903. It currently numbers about  25 members and on every second  Sunday of the month  it organises walks  through the Wicklow & Dublin  mountains , valleys, and  forests  . Additional walks are held on Wednesdays, usually along a flatter  terrain to suit some older members  ,or simply to suit some of our younger members who just wish to get out and about in a not too exertional fashion ,midweek.  Other walks go to the Comeraghs,The Dingle Way, Carrantoohil or the [...]

Glencree Barracks -A Short History Tom Barragry © If you have ever rambled up to Prince William's Seat, or Knocknagunn,or indeed over to Lough Bray the Eagles Crag, and Kippure,then there's a high chance that you either started or ended your hike by having a leisurely coffee in the small cafe of the Glencree Centre. But have you ever reflected on the interesting history of this building , the locale & its surroundings.? This building ,the Glencree Barracks, was built in 1806 to house British soldiers employed in policing the newly built Military Road which wound its way through the [...]

Tom Barragry © Between 4 million and 10,000 years ago, Ireland was covered by ice and glaciers . About 50,000 years ago, as the climate began to warm up, the ice melted and by 10,000 years ago it was all gone The resulting glaciers of that era had a huge chiselling effect on the visible landscape .The glaciers were moving , were of high mass and density , and exerted colossal downward pressure,and shearing forces on the adjacent rock faces. They followed straightforward and predictable principles of gravity, physics, mathematics and chemistry. Freezing and thawing, masses of ice moving downhill [...]

Stats: Weather, GLORIOUS SUNSHINE  ; distance 8.24 Km, Height gain 492m. We had four Lugs out, myself Ken Keaveney, Hugh Sweeney, Norman Mc Lachian and John Cruise, unfortunately the Grand Master had family commitments and wasn’t able to join us on this walk and there was a slight mixup with Amer from Meetup and he missed this walk but he is due to join our next walk with other friends from Meetup. This is a two car walk and was recommended by Rob Dixon who suggested that it would be a more substantial walk than some of our [...]

Stats: Weather, cloudy with sun breaking through the haze ; distance 7 Km, Height gain 308m. Most of the usual suspects were out this week, The Grand Master (Dermot Gunne), The Master in the Field (John ), Hugh Sweeney, Ken Keaveney, Norman McCloughlan, Pat Cashin & Noel Doyle. Noel opted to skip the first stage of the walk and leaving his car at the walks end, he planned to meet us as we approached Enniskerry. Hugh also opted to leave his car at the end as we needed 2 cars at each side which left myself (Ken) and Pat [...]