Iorras Beag [Errisbeg]

About Iorras Beag [Errisbeg]

Rising directly above the coastal village of Roundstone, this rugged hill offers a perspective far grander than its 300-metre height suggests. The climb is short and stony, rewarding walkers with a superb view of the white sands at Dogs Bay and the lake-strewn wilderness of the Roundstone Bog stretching toward the Twelve Bens.

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Did You Know?

• •The name translates from the Irish Iorras Beag, meaning 'Little Peninsula,' referring to the rocky headland it occupies on the Connemara coast.
• •The summit provides a celebrated view of the tombolo at Dogs Bay and Gurteen Bay, where two back-to-back white sand beaches are separated by a narrow strip of rare machair grassland.
• •Botany enthusiasts visit the slopes to find the Mediterranean heath (Erica erigena), a rare plant found in very few Irish locations and otherwise native to Spain and Portugal.
• •To the north, the view across Roundstone Bog reveals a vast mosaic of hundreds of small loughs, an area famously documented by the cartographer and writer Tim Robinson.
• •Despite its modest elevation, the complex terrain of granite boulders and hidden boggy hollows ensures that a direct ascent rarely feels like a straightforward walk.