It’s not far as the bike cycles from Dublin City to the neolithic and Bronze Age sites of Meath including Fourknocks, Newgrange and the Brú na Bónnie other monuments and then Tara. And you get the battle of the Boyne site thrown in as a bonus, that’s a lot of history!
Here I show you how to cycle this using the quiet country backroads of north Dublin to avoid the very very busy National and Regional roads in the area. This route follows the walkway south of the Boyne that gives you an excellent view of Newgrange across the river and brings you past the pool where the Salmon of Knowledge was caught. To visit Newgrange and/or Knowth you need to go to the visitor centre which is also south of the river and get a ticket. You can just stop and visit Dowth by cycling to it directly. No ticket. is needed for Tara but for Fourknocks you need to call in at the local family they hold onto the public access key for the site.
This route which starts and returns to the Phoenix Monument in the Phoenix park is about 130km in length and has about 1000m of ascent including 3-4 steep ridges near Naul. If that sounds too ambitious you could just use the easterly or westerly route to just go to one of the sites and return by that same route for a 80-100km trip depending on site. You’ll find the route map from which you can download a GPX file at https://cycle.travel/map/journey/545415
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So it’s saint Patricks day in Dublin and I’m about to set off on a long 130 kilometre route up to Bru na Boinne and then back via Tara. And I was going to say it had no Saint Patrick themes but I’ve realised that’s not quite
Right as I may stop at Slane on the way and specifically the abbey and tower above Slane where according to legend Patrick took over the lighting of the fires that used to be used to signal possibly the equinox, I can’t quite remember which but they used to be lit
By the High King and it took it over to demonstrate that christianity was in charge now, make of that what you will.vBut more of that as we go. We are starting off at the Phoenix monument here in the centre of the Phoenix Park.
I use that as the starting point for most of my videos when I’m leaving Dublin by other than a coast route as its easy to find, there are various cycle ways lead to it, it means you have a nice park journey for the early part as well which always helps.
And in terms of the more pleasant and safer routes that exit Dublin on the landward side it’s a pretty good starting point for reaching each of them. So today I’m doing an entirely new one most of which I havent done before.
In terms of the Dublin exit which is going out via Castleknock, Blanchardstown and Mulhuddert. So will will see what that’s like. Like most big cities the initial getting out of the city can be the most unpleasant bit of the cycling you know a lot of busy high traffic roads.
It shouldn’t be too bad today because it’s Saint Patricks day. There are plenty of other cyclists heading out too. We will see how this route works out anyway, its one Cycle Travel suggested I’ve generally found its suggestions to be pretty reliable.
Anyway I’ll spin the camera around and you can have a look at the road. For those not familiar with Dublin I’m cycling up Chesterfield aven=ue, a 4 kilometre long route that runs through the centre of the Phoenix park.
The parks on the western end of the inner city its huge, its 11 kilometres in circumference and it provides excellent access to a lot of the surrounding suburbs. This first suburb we are coming through now is called Castleknock ..