A truly tranquil walking experience

The Suck Valley Way offers a truly tranquil walking experience, meandering along the banks of the River Suck, with its numerous lakes and drainage channels. This circular walking route is 105km in length and passes through counties Roscommon & Galway.

The landscape on-route features bogs, callows, woodland and unspoilt traditional farmland of many tiny fields, and makes for wonderful and varied low-land walking. The terrain consists of a pleasant mix of cross-country paths through fields and woods, quiet side roads and there are a number of stretches along the banks of the river itself. Walkers are offered the opportunity to take in ‘the Nine Friendly Villages’ of Ballygar, Creggs, Glinsk, Ballymoe, Ballintubber, Dunamon, Castlecoote, Athleague and Mount Talbot at frequent intervals along the way, which offer refreshments for visitors and a chance to soak in all the culture and craic of rural Ireland. Local accommodation providers provide packed lunches and opportunities for less-ambitious walkers to take in smaller sections of the route.

The area is steeped in history and heritage with its ringforts, castles and ancient churches and you can’t miss the unique La Tène Stone, an ovoid boulder of granite richly carved and dating from the Iron Age along the route at Castlestrange. The river and surrounding landscapes are rich in biodiversity; the river is a designated European site for protection of habitats and rare species of birds and wildlife such as deer and red squirrels can be spotted en-route.

The creation of the Way is due to the dedicated work of the Suck Valley Development Co-Operative Society and the generous and enthusiastic co-operation of the farmers who allow the Way to cross their land.