National Famine Way Walking Holiday — 8 Days

Your holiday begins at Strokestown Park, where the National Famine Museum holds the estate archive that makes this trail possible, including the record of the 1,490 tenants cleared from the land in 1847. Take your time here; the walking makes far more sense once you have stood in these rooms. Collect your Passport before you set out.

20.2 km · about 5 hours · country roads, then canal towpath

Quiet Roscommon roads carry you out of Strokestown and down to the Shannon at Clondra, where Richmond Harbour marks the western end of the Royal Canal. From here the towpath runs unbroken to Dublin. The first of the bronze children's shoes appears along the way, there are over thirty of them set into the route.

32.4 km · about 8 hours · level canal towpath

The longest day of the week, and a committing one, flat the whole way, but 32 kilometres is 32 kilometres. You pass Keenagh and the turn for the Corlea Trackway, an Iron Age bog road from 148 BC, before the canal brings you into Abbeyshrule. Carry food and water; services on this stretch are thin.

25.7 km · about 6 hours · level canal towpath

Through Ballynacarrigy and on past Coolnahay Harbour, where the canal reaches its summit level. The walking is easy underfoot and the day ends at Mullingar Harbour, the largest town on the route and the halfway mark in spirit if not quite in distance.

34.0 km · about 8 hours · level canal towpath

The hardest day on the trail. 34 kilometres of towpath through Riverstown and Thomastown Harbour to the hamlet of Hill of Down. There is no accommodation at Hill of Down itself, so we transfer you the short distance to your guesthouse at Enfield and back out again in the morning, your bags go on ahead as usual.

29.3 km · about 7 hours · level canal towpath

Back to the canal at Hill of Down for a long but straightforward day east through Moyvalley, Enfield and Kilcock. Look for the Famine Pot at Enfield, one of the cauldrons used to serve the soup that kept people alive. The day finishes at Maynooth Harbour, with Maynooth Castle and St Patrick's College a few minutes from the towpath.

27.3 km · about 6½ hours · canal towpath into the city

The last day, and the one the whole trail has been pointing at. Through Leixlip, Clonsilla and Ashtown as the canal threads into Dublin, finishing at the Famine sculptures on Custom House Quay, the quayside where the 1,490 boarded for Liverpool. Your certificate of completion is waiting at the end.

Breakfast and onward travel. If you can spare the morning, the Jeanie Johnston famine ship is moored a few minutes from where you finished, and EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum is next door, both pick up the story exactly where the trail leaves off.