... Not at the moment anyway. Why not? I’ll get to that. But first the getting up. The cluster of keep-out signs mentioned by Voodoonoel at the track entrance are off-putting, including one which declares something like ‘No Unauthorised Entry’. If you ignore the signs there is a gauntlet of three locked or tethered gates to be clambered over before the track curves into the trees.
The steep uphill path on the LHS has become narrow and overgrown. Plenty of stooping and dodging called for, not easy with wet foliage slapping into you and slippery damp underfoot conditions. A tree is down halfway up the path. It appears to be, well, reinforced a bit to make it even more of a barrier. At this stage I was thinking somebody was trying to block access. However it’s possible to skirt around this tree on the left as you ascend. The path is a severe enough climb. To cap it all, when you reach open ground up high the stile is broken but it’s easy enough to get over the barbed wire fence. If access is not an issue then whatever authority looks after this place needs to work on the path and clear the overhanging branches blocking the stile – oh and fix that stile, too.
One big surprise lies in store up top. Just before the trig and cairn area, I thought for a moment I was looking at the outline of a passage grave, maybe ten or twelve metres in length. Closer scrutiny revealed it to be, in fact, a gigantic phallic symbol. I kid you not. Whoever put it there went to the bother of removing flat stones from the cairn to create a huge cartoonish penis. I am not making this up. I considered taking a photo of it from the cairn but the elevation isn’t high enough to reveal the true nature of this crude creation. Maybe it’s an art installation – more likely it’s what kids get up to when they’re bored during the long holidays. So don’t bring your granny up Keadeen – she’ll write you out of her will. As for treating grand-auntie Sister Josephine to a mountain walk on her day out from the convent, naw, forget it, bring her somewhere else. Afternoon tea in some sedate location, perhaps. Linkback: https://mountainviews.ie/summit/186/comment/19715/