Emlagh lies at the west end of a small ridge of hills on the southern side of the Dingle Peninsula. This ridge starts with Lack Mountain near Baurtregaum and ends with Emlagh at the village of Inch. I reached Emlagh at the end of a walk of this ridge which comprises of a few other small summits, including two 500m hills. Emlagh commands excellent views north to the high mountains of the Dingle Peninsula, and south across Dingle Bay to the Iveragh peninsula. Arriving from Beenduff to the east was easy as there was not much ascent and it was only a traipse across the bog. The only difficulty was forging a path through this unspoiled area of heather and bog. Arriving at the summit of Emlagh one is presented with two summit cairns a hundred metres apart. Although the map shows the more easterly of the two cairns to be the summit, my gps stubbornly insisted that the more westerly of the cairns was higher by a couple of metres! However I don’t believe gps units to be accurate within 10 metres or so, but curious nonetheless!

The ad on TV used to say ‘where an Inch is a mile’, referring to a signpost indicating the village of Inch being a mile away. Well I can tell you that arriving from Emlagh from the east I was suddenly presented with the village of Inch almost half a kilometre below. (and 1 ½km distance) The steep slopes of Emlagh mean that there are uninterrupted views of all 5 kilometres of Inch Strand, Rosbehy Point and further afield to the McGillicuddy Reeks and Iveragh Mountains. Dingle Bay glistened in the sun and boats could be seen plying their trade in Castlemaine Harbour.

I descended to the west of Emlagh which was tough due to the steep slopes. The west slope was rock strewn in places, and large areas of dense fern made the descent a slow, careful affair. I headed for the bridge over the Emlagh River at Q649 025 B and had a long tramp back to the car at Q716 048 C, where I had parked at a track for the start of the walk. I did manage to get a lift for a few kilometres but I had to walk the last 3 kilometres which was all uphill, so others might avoid this by planning a bit better than I did! Linkback: https://mountainviews.ie/summit/506/comment/3919/