Overview
Manor Kilbride is a small village in the Wicklow foothills, north of Blessington. It is the first village the young River Liffey reaches, a few miles below its source in the hills, where the Brittas River joins it just north of Blessington Lake (the Poulaphouca Reservoir). Most people pass through on the way to somewhere higher up. From the village the R759 climbs east towards the Sally Gap, and the ridges around carry some of the county’s oldest monuments.
Don’t come expecting a day’s worth of things in the village itself. Come for the setting and the history, and use Blessington for services.
The ridges above
West of the village, Golden Hill is topped by a cluster of four cairns and a ringfort, Neolithic or Bronze Age in date. The bigger monument is on Seefin, the flat-topped hill to the south, whose summit holds a Neolithic passage tomb under a broad cairn, with a second cairn on Seefingan a little higher again. These are upland sites on exposed blanket bog, and no public access to them has been confirmed, so enjoy them as part of the landscape rather than as a destination, and see the village from public roads and respect private entrances.
The Sally Gap road
The R759 out of Manor Kilbride is the western start of the run to the Sally Gap, the crossroads of high mountain roads at the heart of the Wicklow uplands. Check road and weather conditions before taking the mountain route, and keep passing places and entrances clear. Wicklow granite was cut at Goldenhills, on the high ground to the north-east, and hauled down for building in Dublin.
A bit of history
The church of Kilbride first appears in the records in 1291, as ‘Kylbryde in the Colach’, when this corner of the mountains formed part of the estates of the Archbishop of Dublin. The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage records the house known as The Manor in Kilbride, the house that puts the ‘Manor’ in the name, which was home to the Moore family until the 1950s. A grander neighbour, Glen Heste, had its own private airstrip in its heyday before fire destroyed the house in 1958.
A marked walk nearby
The Blessington Greenway starts in Blessington and follows the lake through woodland towards Russborough. Check the route description before setting off and return by the same path if you have no onward transport.
Getting there
Manor Kilbride is signed off the N81, the Dublin–Baltinglass road, with the R759 branching off for the Sally Gap. Public transport is thin, so check current Dublin Bus services along the N81 before relying on them; this is really a place you reach by car or bike. Lanes are narrow, so leave room for farm traffic. Check the forecast before heading up, as the tops cloud over quickly.
Manor Kilbride Church Co Wicklow, Hamish Bain, CC BY-SA 2.0.