Slieve League
Interesting facts
- Despite their fame, these are only the second-highest sea cliffs in Ireland; the cliffs of Croaghaun on Achill Island are taller still.
- The Irish name Sliabh Liag is usually explained as "mountain of stone pillars", a fitting description of its weathered rock faces.
- The Geological Society of London lists the cliffs among its 100 Great Geosites of Britain and Ireland.
- Most of the cliff is ancient Dalradian quartzite and gneiss, while the summit is capped by a thin layer of much younger Carboniferous sandstone and conglomerate.
- Geologists reckon the present cliffs were carved over roughly the last 100,000 years, during and after the last ice age, and four separate glacial corrie walls scoop into the mountain.
- On the upper slopes, which reach angles of about 60 degrees, buttresses of quartzite up to 12 metres high stand out from the surrounding scree.
- The naturalist Robert Lloyd Praeger, writing in 1937, rated the traverse of One Man's Pass among the most remarkable walks to be found anywhere in Ireland.
- Praeger noted that the northern precipice falls some 450 metres into the hollow of Little Lough Agh, sheltering the richest group of alpine plants in Donegal.
- Áed mac Bricc, the sixth-century saint linked to the mountain's hermitage, died in 589 and was invoked in medieval charms as a healer of headaches.
Why it is worth it
Slieve League, Sliabh Liag in Irish, is a mountain on the south-west coast of County Donegal whose seaward side falls to the Atlantic in some of the highest sea cliffs in Europe. The summit stands at 601 metres, and from the Bunglass viewpoint the cliff face below it rises over 600 metres from the water, streaked with reds, ochres and greens where the rock, heather and grass change. On a clear day the view runs across Donegal Bay to the Sligo mountains.
The mountain has been a place of pilgrimage for well over a thousand years. Tradition credits a sixth-century hermit, Aedh Mac Bric, with founding a monastic settlement near the summit; the remains of a small chapel, a holy well and stone huts in the Celtic manner can still be found there. The old pilgrims' route, the Pilgrim's Path or Casán na Naomh, climbs through the interior of the mountain past these ruins, a mass rock and a Napoleonic-era signal tower.
For experienced walkers the classic route runs along the narrow ridge known as One Man's Pass, with the drop to the sea on one side and a steep fall into a corrie on the other; the northern face is steep enough to shelter alpine plants. Less ambitious visitors can reach Bunglass on a narrow road that climbs from Teelin, its last stretch cut along the edge of the precipice, and look along the full height of the face without any climbing at all. Boat trips from Teelin pier show the cliffs from below.
Getting there
The cliffs are reached from the village of Carrick: turn off in the village and continue about 2 km. From Donegal Town the way to Carrick runs along the N56 to Killybegs and then the R263. Sligo is about 43 km away as the crow flies, across Donegal Bay. Donegal Airport (CFN) is about 50 km away, and Ireland West Airport Knock is roughly two and a half hours' drive. There is free parking at the visitor centre, about 4 km from the cliffs, and paid parking closer in, with the Bunglass viewing platform beside the upper car park.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Slieve League is a mountain on the Atlantic coast of County Donegal, Ireland. At 601 metres (1,972 ft), it has the second-highest sea cliffs in Ireland, after Croaghaun, and some of the highest sea cliffs in Europe.
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