Overview
The Esker Riada is a chain of low ridges of sand, gravel and boulders, dumped by meltwater streams running under a glacier and left behind when the ice melted. Geological Survey Ireland’s Offaly audit identifies parts of this landscape. The ridges run roughly east to west across the middle of Ireland, and they stood just high and dry enough to give firmer footing over a midlands that was otherwise wet bog and low fields.
Manage your expectations before you go looking for it: this is a subtle, low ridge, not dramatic scenery. Its interest is almost entirely in what it meant, and parts of it have been quarried away for their gravel. The rewarding way to ‘see’ it is to understand it, then notice it – the dry rise a road or footpath is sitting on as the bog spreads out either side.
The Great Way
The name says what the ridge was for. Eiscir Riada combines the Old Irish escir, a ridge, with ríad, the riding or driving of horses and oxen – a road, in other words. The ridges carried stretches of the Slí Mhór, the ‘Great Way’, an east–west route across the country, and it linked the great monasteries: Clonard in Meath, Durrow in Offaly, and Clonmacnoise on the Shannon. After a 2nd-century battle at Mag Lena, the line of the eskers became the agreed boundary between Leath Cuinn, Conn’s Half in the north, and Leath Mogha, Mogh’s Half in the south – a partition of the whole island that followed a gravel ridge.
The N6 Dublin-to-Galway road still roughly follows the same general line. The threat to the ridges is gravel itself: quarrying and development have altered some sections, and most of the Rathmoylon esker in Meath, for instance, has been quarried out. The ridges also cross land with different owners and access arrangements.
Walking the ridge
The Esker Riada is a landform and historic corridor, not a single public route. There’s no waymarked Dublin-to-Galway trail along it. What you’ll find are particular local walks where the ridge can be seen from public paths, such as the Clara Esker loops in County Offaly. Check the route, permitted access and parking for the stretch you want to see, and follow the signs.
In County Meath the ridge gives long views across the Boyne Valley, and it runs close to Bective Abbey, a 12th-century Cistercian ruin that makes a natural short stop. Check access arrangements for any stretch before you set out, and stay on signed public paths.
Esker Hills and Shane Lowry
One of the more memorable places to feel the esker underfoot is, oddly, a golf course. Esker Hills Golf Club, near Tullamore in County Offaly, opened in 1996, and its architect Christy O’Connor Jr kept the earth-movers off it. The course uses the natural slopes of the esker, routed through its sand-hills and valleys. It’s an 18-hole course with sand-based greens.
It also produced a major champion. Esker Hills is the home club of Shane Lowry, who won the 2019 Open, and where in 2009 he became the first amateur in the professional era to win the Irish Open. Check the club’s booking information for a round. The golf course is a private business, so for walking use signed public trailheads rather than the club grounds.
Practical information
- Access: the ridge is a corridor crossing land with different owners, so there is no blanket right of access. Use signed public trails such as the Clara Esker loops, and check the route and parking for your chosen walk.
- Public transport: limited. Check current services from Tullamore, and expect a car to be much easier for reaching the ridge itself.
- What to bring: sturdy shoes for sandy tracks, which soften after heavy rain, and a light waterproof, as weather rolls through the midlands quickly.
If you want the esker to come alive, drive a stretch of the N6 west of Kinnegad and watch the road ride a low, straight ridge while the bog falls away on both sides: that’s the Great Way, doing the same job it has done for two thousand years.