Lough Bawn Loop

Lough Bawn, or the White Lake as it is known locally, is one of the greenest areas I have ever walked through. It is half in Meath and half in Westmeath so it has a strange otherland feel about it. From the air it is fish shaped. It is surrounded by the townlands of Carrick, Ballinlough (a different Ballinlough than the one in between Kells and Oldcastle) and Glenidan. Most importantly, it has a loop around it so it was high on my list for a ramble.

I parked up at a crossroads with an Irish flag waving on a telegraph pole. I sat for a while listening to the birds in the nearby trees until someone started up a weed-strimmer. I locked up the car and hit the road. I headed in the direction of Fore as I am a firm believer in getting the hard bits out of the way while I have the energy. It was long and straight but I was going downhill so it wasn’t so bad. I could just make out the shine of the lake to my right as I set off. I was eager to explore the lakeside but I was met by a sign telling me that this was no longer possible. This put a halt to my gallop, as my father would say.

lough bawn gate sign

I’m not a fan of keep-out signs but I could sense a good deal of frustration coming off this one. I got the impression that at one time you could mosey down to the lakeside through fields like this. I imagined that the owners got tired of their lands being left in a state afterwards. It seemed like an awful shame. I trundled on along the main road. The left ditch was high so I could not see a whole lot. To the right was deep and full of promise, but I kept my feet on the road. The last thing I wanted was to get into bother with a landowner on a sunny day. It was hard though. I could see trails heading off towards the lake through wild groves – just the sort of spot I like to explore.

The road curved around a corner into Westmeath to reveal Noggin Hill with sheep grazing on its slope. I assumed it was named after the wooden vessel used for eating porridge. It was a grand looking hill. Lovely profile with a steep elevation to 149m. A good climb. Bulges in all the right places. I’d love to sit ontop of it and look out at the lake below.

I passed a dilapidated old structure hidden in the trees but it was on the grounds of an animal feed company so I couldn’t get closer to it. I was surprised to discover that they made food for camels though. Camels! Imagine. That’s why I like going out walking. You discover so many unexpected things. Further down the road was the entrance to Lough Bawn House, an upscale Georgian B&B that was the home of the Battersbys who arrived here with King Billy back in the 1690s. I liked their entrance but I was more interested in the atmospheric old buildings that were turning back to nature.

lough bawn house entrance ruins

I came to a left turn with a whitewashed building on the corner with a red tin roof. I have to say I’m a sucker for a good tin roof. Next to thatch, it’s my favourite hat for a house. Someone had painted images of dancing on the windows so I guess that it may have been an old dancehall in its heyday. This junction would take me into Glenidan. Not that I wanted to go there. Its Irish name translates as the Glen of the Ivy. There are stories of fairy funerals, stray sods and geese that will cause you to get lost in Glenidan. A couple of loose turkeys gabbled about on the road, oblivious to cars and of course they ran off when I took out my phone to capture them.

glenidan house westmeath

I carried on and turned right opposite a house with a big black goat in the backyard. This was a lovely old boreen with a healthy strip of grass running the full length of it and lined with big old trees. This is my kind of road. Meadows were in full bloom either side with Yellow Iris peeping out here and there. They looked like they were crying out for the mower.

The meadows gradually disintegrated into a section of old woodland. The branches curled up and over my head so it was like walking through a green tunnel. You could smell the wood in the air. Something aniseed-y wafted about from the verges. Pigeons exploded out of the trees in fright as I walked along. I passed a house with a colourful flower garden. Tall pink things, bulging orange frillies and flowing Purple creepers lined each side of the road.

The next house had a pair of yappy dogs who were deeply unimpressed that I was out exploring their turf. I gave my walking stick a few twirls and they let me off with a good bark. The house after that was a wooden log cabin. It was patrolled behind a fence by a German Shepherd called Ollie. I know this because I was asking the owner about the junction ahead and he told Ollie to be quiet.

The road went on to Fore here but I turned right for the loop. I was on another long straight road now. I could see that it rose uphill. To my left were more meadows while the right was more tangled woodland which broke out into farmland with cattle. The first honeysuckle flowers were appearing on the hedges, bursting through clumps of ferns and walls of goosegrass that climbed up everything. Tendrils reached for the sun in curling shoots that seemed to have figured out how to ignore gravity. One field had a copse. At least I think it was a copse. It was a group of trees in the middle of a field. I remember my father telling me that he used to play in a copse when he was young, but it was ploughed up before my time. This one looked like it may have sprouted out of an old water hole possibly.

lough bawn loop copse

The road climbed and I followed with it. From the top I could see the distinctive Hill of Ben to my left with its rows of planted forest. It was named after St Patrick’s successor in these parts, Benigne. The sun was breaking through the clouds and the heat was a lovely 20 degrees. I stopped off at a bunch of old farm sheds in a hollow to eat my sandwich and enjoy the quiet, sitting on an old rusty gate and letting the sun heat my shoulders. It was glorious here. If there were fairies looking for somewhere to stay I’d say they’d like this place. I could hear the sound of buzzards somewhere but I couldn’t see them. They sounded like they were right above me but very high. I took out my phone and read a bit about Conor Sheridan in the Folklore Commission.

hill of ben westmeath

Depending on who told the tale, Conor Sheridan was either in league with the devil or had been blessed by the fairies. Either way, he could read people’s minds, find lost objects and stop milk turning bad. The stories say that he fell asleep around Lough Bawn when he was young and when he awoke there was a book and a fiddle beside him. As soon as he touched the book, the fiddle disappeared and he was told to take the book home and never let anyone see it. In the book he could read what was inside anyone’s head. The clergy tried to stop locals from going to him for help but they beat a path to his door if they lost an animal or a tool. I wonder did he regret not picking up the fiddle? He could have ended up in Carnegie Hall instead of becoming a local St Anthony.

Sandwich finished, I left my fairy farm below the Hill of Ben and followed the road uphill again. The way narrowed here even further. It was like walking through a tunnel of greenery. If two cars met here, they’d be fairly stuck. I hadn’t seen a car since I turned off the Fore road. To my right, the hill rose even higher, while the view to the left opened out even further. Beneath me, were what I had come for – the three Ben loughs. I had seen these on Google maps and wondered what they would be like in reality. I was familiar with Lough Bawn as I had driven the road to Fore once or twice before, but these were new to me. Maybe it was just the reflections on the day but I wasn’t expecting the waters to be so green.

ben loughs westmeath

I sat on a handy stump of a tree for a while looking out over the lakes. There was no signage here and the water looked lovely and cool below. The whoop-whoop of a helicopter (of all things) broke my daydreaming and I motored on. The road was mostly downhill now and as I curved towards the last leg of the loop I could just make out Lough Bawn again. When I got to the next junction I was met by a green and yellow flag letting me know I was back on Meath ground again in the townland of Ballinlough.

Consulting my trusty Folklore website it was here that I learned about a Mrs Gilsenan. She was another well known person around Lough Bawn. She had the cure for the “Crath crodhe” which translates as the heart ache. Unlike Conor, she didn’t get any grief off the church. Her cure was passed on from her parents and apparently, this was the natural way of doing things. I’m not sure what this illness was but she could tell you whether you had it or not. That was part of her deal. She would take three eggs, pass her hands over them and see if they sweated. If they did, you had the illness so you took the eggs home and ate them. That was the cure. At first I thought this whole thing of sweating eggs was the usual Irish folklore logic. Y’know like, run around the hill three times and if you get a pain in your left ear you’ll be rich but if you get a pain in your nose you’ll marry well. But apparently eggs do sweat. Or they get condensation, which looks like sweat. So it may have some basis in fact. Imagine though if you went to her and she told you that you didn’t have it. Wouldn’t you be in a right quandary then? What would you tell people was wrong with you then? Mrs Gilsenan also had the cure of a wasp sting. She would rub a dead chicken on it.

The last leg of the loop was back on a main road. It was quiet enough for butterflies and damselflies, with only one or two cars passing me. For most of the route I had a good view of Lough Bawn on the Ballinlough side as it curled down towards Noggin Hill. To my left were some more hills and a loop for another day which would bring me to a place called Dromone. The sun was blazing overhead now. Sheep were sheltering under trees. I even startled a napping buzzard on a nearby low branch and got to watch it flap off into the hills. Although the views were more open on this stretch, I found myself missing the deep overgrown meadows and the cool tunnels of trees from the Carrick side. This section of road had many access points to the lake but they were all covered in the signs that I had seen earlier. I passed a couple of teenagers on bikes who were parked up on the side of the road looking longingly at the lake. Seems like I wasn’t the only one with a bit of heart ache.

Google Maps: 53.688955, -7.153129

Distance: 9.5 km

Time: Three hours

Type of walk: Small roads that loop around a lake.

Views: Upland hills, meadows, farmland, lakelands

Animals: Sheep, cows, buzzard, German Shepherds, Collies, labradors, terriers

Plant of the Day: Goosegrass

Humans: 1 x person asked for directions, 2 x teenagers on bikes

Score: 7/10

Let me know if you know anything else about this magical place.

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