Hiking in the Mourne Mountains
The Mourne Mountains, also called the Mournes or Mountains of Mourne, are a granite mountain range in County Down in the south-east of Northern Ireland. They include the highest mountains in Northern Ireland, the highest of which is Slieve Donard at 850m.
During the 18th Century the coast from Newcastle south to Greencastle
was notorious for smuggling. Brandy, wine, tobacco, tea and silk entered
via the Isle of Man and were conveyed over the Mournes to Hilltown along
a path which became known as the Brandy Pad.
Nowadays a
popular walking route, the Brandy Pad still crosses the Mournes from
east to west and extends from the coast at Bloody Bridge to the pass of
Hare’s Gap on the mountains’ northern rim.
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