Last Sunday was a simply beautiful day, and whilst driving back down the M7 from Kildare the day before the Slieve Blooms had been calling my name. The Ridge of Capard looked glorious under the sun on that bright Saturday afternoon, and I knew that I’d much rather be up there, than down here, driving on the motorway. Plans were then made, that if Sunday morning was even half as sunny as Saturday had been, we would head up to the Ridge of Capard, and pay a visit to The Stoney Man.
Situated just below the summit of Clarnahinch Mountain, some claim that The Stoney Man is the finest viewing point in the centre of Ireland, and it is often asserted that on a clear day you can see at least six counties from there. My mother and I had made a half-hearted attempt to visit the Stoney Man previously, but time constraints on that occasion meant we had to turn back and head home that time, without reaching our goal.
As you might expect on such a sunny day, the car park was almost full when we arrived, and the steps up to the nearby viewing platform were full of families, making the most of the beautiful day to visit this popular local beauty spot. Having been up to the viewing platform a few times, we instead took the boardwalk path off to right, out of the car park, and soon spotted our desired destination for today’s walk, The Stoney Man, way off in the distance. Dolly had a ball leaping on and off the boardwalk, to investigate the heather and bog holes. She miss-judged one of the bog holes at one point and, to her surprise, got much more soggy than she expected.
We followed the boardwalk until it met up with the Slieve Bloom Way, where we then left the looped trails and joined Slieve Bloom Way to begin picking our way through the firmer sections of heather and bog, from marker post to marker post. On reaching the spot where my mother and I had been compelled to turn around on an earlier visit I was relieved to see that some bog bridges had been installed across some of the wetter, deeper sections of bog. Given the recent dry weather and low rainfall I was surprised at how wet the ground was up there.
At a couple of different points we spotted stone piles off to our left. I’ve come across smaller ones in various places where we’ve walked, and they always remind me of Inukshuks. We made a small divert to visit one of them, we nicknamed this one “The Stoney Boy”. Having seen, from a distance, another walker take a stone from the pile, presumably as a souvenir, we looked for a suitable stone to add to it instead. The walker had walked past us, on his way back to the car park. with his rock in hand, and I’m never sure whether to say anything in these situations?
Whilst researching for info on The Stoney Man I came across this: [link to original article]
“As a one-time resident of the Slieve Bloom Mountains I was always intrigued by the presence of quasi-orderly heaps of stones at various points on the mountains, the most prominent being ‘The Stoney Man’ near Capard.
Carter explains that it was customary for travellers in the area to leave a stone, the symbol of self, as one passed certain points and he references an ancient Irish tradition which tells us that five stones constitute a cairn since they represent the five old kingdoms of Ireland.“
It seems that travellers in this area have been doing this for generations, and we unwittingly continued the custom by add our own ‘Symbol of Self’. That makes me smile.
The boggy ground briefly gave way to these curious rippled rocks, and we spent a while pondering on how they might have been formed. The Slieve Bloom mountains are claimed to be the oldest mountains in Europe, and it is understood that their height has been substantially reduced over time, by weathering, from 3,700m to 527m. We came up with several crazy theories on these ripples, which could be totally wrong (most likely), or miraculously correct (unlikely), but neither of us are geologists, so I think there’s little point in sharing our ideas.
Rippled Rocks
Soon enough we were back on boggy ground, but the Slieve Bloom Way trail developers had thoughtfully installed a narrow section boardwalk to take us over the worst of it, and to bring us almost all of the way up to The Stoney Man.
Nearly there…
Oh boy, what a spot, what a view! Even on a hazy day, you felt you could see the whole of Ireland, let alone the alleged six counties. Whilst snacking on our snacks and supping on our tea, we sat there…soaking up the sun and soaking up the views. I had wanted to visit the Stoney Man for a long time, and he hadn’t let me down with his promises. It had taken us just under an hour to get here, but we had done our fair share of dawdling and diverting to look at interesting ‘stuff’ so I’m sure it won’t take that long, next time! It was a relatively easy hike to a spot that delivered breathtaking views, and I can see us visiting this place often in the future.
Adjacent to The Stoney Man is this deep hollow area, which previous visitors have sadly used as a rubbish bin for their fruit peel, tea bags and treat wrappers, so before we left this beautiful spot we picked up as much as we could find to bring back with us. Leaving litter like this really does spoil the area for others, and it is potentially dangerous for wildlife. To paraphrase Leave No Trace – Ireland; if you brought it out with you, take it back with you, please!
One of the things that caused much of our dawdling on the way up was my delight at finding so much frogspawn. It was almost literally everywhere! If anyone is planning on dong this section of the Slieve Bloom Way in the near future, please do watch where you step, because several lady frogs have got a little confused and deposited their spawn in the middle of the path. It may have looked like the perfect tadpole nursery when they laid them, but the tadpoles might disagree when they hatch out!
I think the last time we got out for a decent walk was in January, with crappy weather and my annoying bad hip interfering with our free time in the interim period. So it felt mighty good to get back out on the Slieve Blooms again. The weather was perfect, I felt good, my legs felt strong, and my hip remained pain-free. Long may it continue!
The Curvy Hiker 