Walks & Trails in County Longford

Most of these seven walks sit in the north of the county, in the drumlin and lake country around Lough Gowna and the Granard road. Aughnacliffe holds the tightest cluster: the dolmen, a two-capstone portal tomb and the third-largest in Ireland, stands a short walk north of the village, and Leebeen Park’s flat 1.5km boardwalk loops the lake shore below it, with a short waterfall trail on the River Pulliness nearby.

Derrycassan Wood, at Mullinaghta, follows the Lough Gowna shore on way-marked trails past a walled-garden ruin, an ancient ringfort and a lakeside viewing platform; a playground and a coffee van at the entrance make it the easiest family morning here. Ballinamuck, west of that, pairs the 1798 battlefield and its visitor centre with bogland and quiet lakeside walking. Clonbroney, six miles west of Granard, is the sparest entry on the page: an old graveyard and farmland, with little upstanding left of the early convent.

The two greenways are the outliers. The Royal Canal reaches Longford at its western end, where the towpath finishes at Cloondara and the canal meets the Shannon, and the built section of the Dublin–Galway route uses the same level towpath further east. Both stay flat and firm year round; the woodland and bog trails to the north walk better after a dry spell.