Overview
As it crosses the flat floor of its valley toward Lough Dan, the Inchavore River loops in ox-bow bends so neat they look traced from a schoolbook diagram. This is a slow lowland river, not a mountain torrent. The name (Irish: Inse Mhór) means the Great Inch, where inse is a river meadow, the wide grassy plain that flanks the water.
The river rises on Duff Hill and empties into Lough Dan from the north-west. From there its water runs on through the Cloghoge River and into the Avonmore.
Landscape & Geology
The valley is a deep, U-shaped trough gouged out by a glacier in the last Ice Age, and the slow river has since cut those looping ox-bow bends across its flat floor. Across the valley the ground rears up into the steep, rocky slopes known locally as the Scoils or Scoyles, from the Irish scoilt, split, for the fissured, broken ground dropping away from the Cloghoge peaks. The valley lies within Wicklow Mountains National Park and the Wicklow Mountains Special Area of Conservation, which protects the mix of wetland, broadleaf woodland and open meadow.
Access
The Inchavore Valley floor includes working farmland and private estate land, with no public right of way. Wicklow Uplands Council records the closure of access.
Leave the valley floor, riverbanks and private approaches undisturbed. Use the national park’s marked Glendalough routes for a valley walk.
Wildlife & nature
The slow water and surrounding rushes make good habitat for wetland birds, and the valley supports breeding species that are sensitive to disturbance.
Conservation
The valley is a Special Area of Conservation and a Special Protection Area. The wetland, broadleaf woodland and open meadow here support breeding birds, red grouse, merlin and hen harrier among them, that are sensitive to disturbance.
Nearby, on public ground
- Glendalough – waymarked trails and two lakes.
- Glenmacnass Waterfall – a roadside stop off the Military Road.
- The Wicklow Way – the waymarked route along the ridge to the north-east.
- Ballinastoe MBT – mountain-bike trails near Roundwood.