(Roundwood, Ireland)

While in Ireland, Sasha and I were able to go camping two times. The first trip was to a campground near Clondalkin. Although set back in a park, we could still hear road noise from the nearby major motorway and wanted to try something a bit more rural. For our second trip, we found a private bus company (St. Kevin’s) which makes several daily trips between Dublin and Glendalough to the south. This bus dropped us off right in front of a campground in the village of Roundwood. The camp spot here is actually where we wanted to go on our first trip, but we could not make the bus times work out and the park was booked solid every time we called. Luckily, we were able to make a reservation for this particular weekend – although we had to prepay over the phone to hold our spot.

Due to other obligations back in Dublin, this turned out to be just a single night trip. We made the most of it, spending 24 hours exploring as much as possible. This was not too difficult since Roundwood village is only home to about 800 residents and zero stoplights. The walk between the campground and the village main street was roughly ten minutes, and there we found a small grocery shop, several restaurants and a few pubs. Since our grill melted out of commission on our last trip, we enjoyed a few meals at these local establishments. Particularly wonderful was brunch at the Sugar Mountain Café. This place was very busy, apparently a common stop for the weekend bicyclists. Sasha’s pancakes were enough to feed the both of us, while I went protein heavy with the Full Irish.

The campground itself is pretty basic and all the tents were sited closely together – think festival camping but quieter. There are large cooking areas that are shared by all the campers since you cannot build your own fire. It’s not anything like camping in the US (especially the National Parks), but it worked to get us out into nature and to relax.

Immediately adjacent to Roundwood is the Vartry Reservoir, two reservoir lakes formed in the mid-1860s (lower) and 1920s (upper). This reservoir is connected to a water treatment facility and provides water for the region, including a portion of Dublin. We walked completely around the larger lower reservoir – walking off our breakfast and enjoying the great weather. The walk around takes about 2 hours, but we have a habit of making walks like this take roughly 50% longer than most others – not too surprising if you know us and how we absorb a place our first time through it.

The trip to Roundwood was pretty great, but if we were to compare campgrounds our vote is for Camac Valley near Clondalkin. If you plan to do day trips throughout Glendalough and Wicklow, however, Roundwood is a great base camp.

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