Gougane Barra National Forest Park

Irelands first national park was opened in 1964 one km from the hotel at the head of this very picturesque valley. Coillte, Ireland's leading forestry company, welcomes you to the huge range of recreation opportunities in Gougane Barra Forest Park. For more information, visit Coillte Outdoors.

The forest park covers around 142 hectares of the valley floor and was planted in 1938 with lodgepole pine, Sitka spruce and Japanese larch, leaving the leaving the high cliffs and crags exposed.

This forest park is unusual among forest parks in that it provides drive around facilities for the motorist and numerous signposted paths for the walker.

Popular walks include “Slí Laoi, which follows the infant Lee from the lower car park to the head of the great coom – a distance of about 1.5 km. and for the energetic there is a very fine walk called Slí Éasa which commands magnificent views of the whole glen and the great mountain wall that encloses it.

The park has an abundance of natural vegetation with grasses such as brents and fescues, heather and ling on the drier slopes and a large collection of purple moor grasses, bog mosses and cotton grasses on the moist slopes and wet hollows. Sedges and rushes flourish well here as do fox’s cabbage, butterworths and sundews.

The valley is a haven for wildlife including deer, badgers, fox’s, stoats and even the shy pine marten can be spotted in this secluded coom. There is a large variety of common bird species such as willow warblers, robins, thrushes and wagtails in the lower valley, while the great ravens and peregrine falcons guard the rocky crags above. In the wetlands and lake, you will find cormorant, herons and moorhens going about their daily duties.