I had a few afternoon hours at my disposal on the way home for Christmas today so decided a long overdue saunter around Slievacarran was called for. I started at the park entrance at M33106 03293 A and followed the obvious track north to the charmingly located but underwhelming ruined church at M32869 04242 B.
From here I doubled back to the obvious signposts and followed the track posts in a generally northerly direction. After a few minutes I came upon some wonderful limestone pavement and here I decided to leave the track and followed the wall instead. A bit of sparse hazel had to be negotiated and upon meeting some thicker stuff I veered east and detoured around the messy stuff for a while. All the time I had an obvious way up in my sights - a relatively scrubless rocky and grassy shoulder at the end of the cliffs.
Before I started ascending I came upon the county boundary wall at approx M33938 05409 C and headed up using this as a handrail before being forced left because of some scrub. It was easy to avoid the latter and in no time I was jumping over a wall to stroll across the pasture with the endgame in sight. There was some easy scrambling to enjoy on the way up too. The summit is a massive cairn which gave great views of Turlough Hill, Abbey Hill and Galway Bay.

From the summit I headed south for about a km before swinging left to walk along the top of the cliffs with the obvious way down beckoning me ahead. This was an easy descent with a couple of electric fences to limbo under and I was soon happily back in my car listening to hailstones pelting the roof. The circuit took a leisurely 2hrs 45mins and was a perfect way to break up my drive south. Linkback: https://mountainviews.ie/summit/927/comment/21846/