Range: Derrynasaggart Mountains
Mapsheet: 70
Distance: ????
Classification: Dillon, Hewitt, Marilyn
Height: 649 metres
County: Cork/Kerry
My Dillon Count: 7
Another day, another mast! While leafing through Paddy Dillon’s Bible on holidays in Kerry, I chanced upon Mullaghanish. I hadn’t intended taking in another mountain topped with a huge RTE mast so soon after Kippure but it presented the perfect opportunity to take the kids for a walk up its meandering access road. Indeed on the OS map, the access road appeared as series of corkscrew bends indicating that it wouldn’t be overly steep and that proved to be the case.
The mountain is a little bit awkward to find, signposted to an extent from Ballyvourney on the Killarney side of the village. Follow the cycle-route signs and you should find yourself at a locked gate at the foot of the access road. If anything, the road meanders a little bit too much meaning that for most of the walk, you don’t appear to be getting any closer to the top of the mountain but a straighter section towards the top eventually leads to the summit. The walk to the top does however give you ample time to enjoy the ever-widening views across to the iconic Paps in the near distance.
Even putting to one side the aforementioned mast, the summit of Mullaghanish was the most disappointing yet looking more like a building site than a mountain-top with a large portion of it cordoned off with steel fencing due to ongoing works. To add to our woes, thick cloud cover had closed in as we reached the top closing off any views we might have had from the part of the summit we were confined to. The walk back down the road was made before a spectacular sunset prior to the onset of twilight. All in all, a plain looking mountain not helped at all by the mast and the ongoing development on its summit - one to get out of the way and if you can combine it with a family walk then all the better!
Starting out on the access road
On 'the summit'
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