Slieve Carran Nature Reserve: Brown Route (Burren NP)

A stone’s throw away from the well-known Mullaghmore Trails lies Slieve Carran Nature Reserve, a place of exquisite limestone formations and quiet beauty in the Burren National Park.

There are three walking trails in the Nature Reserve and all of them are relatively easy. As they are so close together and not long in distance, you could manage to walk all three in one day.

This article focuses on the Brown Route of the Slieve Carran Nature Reserve Walking Trails.

Distance + Time needed:

The Brown Route is looped and 2.7km long. Calculate about 40 minutes to complete this walk.

Difficulty:

Easy. The walk barely has an incline and is more of a stroll.

How to get there (parking):

Unfortunately there is no public transport to Slieve Carran Nature Reserve, so you will need your own means of transport to get to the walking trail.

There are no signs guiding you to the Nature Reserve, so it would be best to use Google Maps or an alike medium.

There is a small parking space here which caters towards all three walking trails.

Rough map of the Brown Route. See marked: The parking spaces and the Limestone pavement on the trail.

How to get on the walk:

The parking spaces are in front of an iron gate, which is also the starting point of the walking trails. Follow the brown discs for this route.

What to expect from the walk:

The whole walk is off-road and mostly on grassy terrain. It can get muddy after the rain, so walking boots are recommended. You will also be walking over sections of limestone rock.

You will walk past ‘Eagle’s Rock’, which is a mountain in the Nature Reserve with some impressive limestone cliff faces.

There is one section in the walk which is a big area of limestone slabs (this formation is called a ‘limestone pavement’). This is definitely the highlight of the walk and very impressive.

At this point the route loops back to the start of the walking trail.

The ‘limestone pavement’ on the Brown Route in Slieve Carran Nature Reserve.

Public toilets:

There are no public toilets on this route.