Grianan of Aileach

The Grianan of Aileach is a stone ringfort on a hill summit in east Donegal, a thick circular wall enclosing a level yard, with terraces and stairs built into the inner face and narrow passages running inside the thickness of the stone. It was a royal site of the northern kingdoms in the early medieval centuries, on a hill that had been enclosed long before that. What stands today owes a great deal to a nineteenth century restoration, which raised the wall back up from a collapsed ruin, so the outline is ancient but much of the masonry is not. From the wall top the land falls away to Lough Swilly and Lough Foyle.

What you actually see

• The wall walk - terraces and steps inside the circular rampart, climbing to the top.
• The mural passages - narrow galleries running inside the thickness of the wall.
• The two loughs - Swilly to the west and Foyle to the east, both from the same spot.
• The outer banks - earthwork rings surviving on the slope below the stone fort.

When to go

Open at all hours and free. Clear weather is the whole point, since the view is what the hill offers, and low cloud sits on the summit often enough to be worth checking a forecast. Sunset is popular and the small car park fills quickly. The lane up is narrow and awkward for larger vehicles.

Honest expectations

A large share of what you walk on is Victorian rebuilding rather than early medieval stone, and opinions differ on how faithful it was. The summit is cold and wind-blasted even in summer, the steps inside are steep and without rails, and the visit is short. In poor visibility there is nothing to see at all.

Nearby

Inch Island and the shores of Lough Swilly are close; Letterkenny is half an hour west.