“Fantastic”, “fabulous” and “a national treasure” are among the terms people use to describe an autumnal day on the Bray to Greystones cliff walk.
The 7km trail in Co Wicklow rises to about 100ft above sea level, with 180-degree views taking in Lambay Island, Howth Head, Dalkey Island, Killiney Hill, Bray Head and the Irish Sea.
There are walkers (some with dogs), joggers and visitors from the Netherlands; New York, Arizona and Boston in the US; and, of course, Dublin.
After taking off at 10am, three friends – Mary Bowles, Mary Kelly and Madge Conboy-Browne – meet about 30 people, all smiling and well disposed to a chat about how “fabulous” an experience the cliff walk is, as they cover a route they have been back and forth on for decades.
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However, the walk has officially been closed since February 2021, a decision Wicklow County Council attributes to safety concerns posed by coastal erosion at the Greystones end and rockfall at the Bray one.
The council commissioned an engineers’ report on the walk, which found no great difficulties to reopening it. However, council chief executive Emer O’Gorman has said implementing the report’s recommendations “will involve securing funding to complete the necessary work, after which a pathway will be developed when deemed safe to do so”.
Campaigners and locals argue the council has not been proactive enough about reopening the route.
“The Sugarloaf [mountain] is dangerous to climb, but it is not shut,” says Bowles as she, Kelly and Conboy-Browne zip up their jackets to walk from the Greystones side.
The trio are not members of the Friends of the Cliff Walk – a group that has been cutting back brambles and ditches along the path, though they do approve of their work.
“It is not good enough for the council to say ‘it is not safe’ and to just close it,” says Kelly. “They should do something about it.”
Her friends agree, with Conboy-Browne and Bowles saying previous local authority administrations had always moved the walk further inland when the sea caused partial collapses.
Bordered by cliffs and flowering gorse, the women walk to the tune of birdsong and occasional toots from Dart trains, passing frog ponds and looking down at seals playing in the sea.
One of those encountered is Tommy Fogarty, a member of the Dublin-based GPO Walkers, who is out with his dog Teddy.
“If it was properly open, we would be out here much more,” he says.
The walk is deemed not to be “properly open” because a barrier of high palisade fencing, with a locked gate, has been erected by the local authority near the Bray end of the walk. There were barriers on the Greystones side, but these have been surmounted, dismantled or otherwise dumped to one side by people unknown.
The ‘Bray gate’, as it has become known, remains in situ and is as far as many tourists and walkers will go.
About six metres of a fence at the seaward edge of the walk has fallen away due to the cliff underneath collapsing.
The trio keep to the landward side of the path, with Conboy-Browne suggesting it is hardly beyond engineering capabilities to build a bridge. Bowles says a simpler solution would be to move the path into the field for a short distance, with Kelly saying shifting the path was what “was always done”.
Further along, two women with a lurcher dog are heading back, having reached the ‘Bray gate’. The trio enthusiastically explain it is possible to bypass the gate by walking inland for about 30 yards.
At a high point coming out of Greystones, the cliff walk offers a link to another, higher trail around Bray Head. This looped route was created in anticipation of a visit by Queen Victoria, who never arrived. The trail remains and it is possible to reach Bray this way, via the cross on the Bray side of the head.
There is a brief discussion about why so few seagulls are visible. Kelly reckons it may be down to there being so few fish left in the area. Bowles says she is sure this is the case.
A woman and a man out jogging explain, with a laugh, that they “climbed over” the ‘Bray gate’. Two joggers in blue tracksuits smile and wave as they head towards Greystones.
Another walker, Ciaran McGrath, stops to say hello. He has been living in Greystones five years.
“I love it here for the three-minute chats, the questions you get from foreigners,” he says cheerfully.
The group passes an area where efforts to protect the Dart line have included putting wire netting on the cliff face and spraying this with concrete. A fence of reinforced steel netting was also put up at the seaward side of the walk.
In the past, when the walk was first blocked by a barrier, people crossed beyond the fence and on to a narrow ledge exposed to a sheer drop. The barrier now lies on the ground and walkers once again use the original path.
“The barrier just made it more dangerous for walkers,” says Conboy-Browne.
[ Closure of Bray-Greystones cliff walk has ‘cost the economy €73m’Opens in new window ]
The next walker encountered is Miriam McEnroe, a New Yorker who says she is a second cousin of the retired tennis player John McEnroe. She has relatives called Walsh from Bray, and a conversation ensues with Kelly, who says she is a Bray native and her maiden name was Walsh.
McEnroe’s friend, Patricia Peterson, says she has been in Ireland for a month researching her ancestry. It was an emotional journey, she says, and she will have to come back.
At the ‘Bray gate’, a man peers through the 9ft-high palisade fence. He has walked out from Bray and wonders how to get to the other side. The trio explain he can take an inland detour to get around it.
Moments later, he is walking down the hill, delighted to be able to continue on to Greystones, where he plans to have lunch. He says he heard about the walk from colleagues in Boston and was determined to see it.
At the northern side of the ‘Bray gate’, the group encounters a family of six from the Netherlands. They intend to walk as far as they can before turning back.
Over coffee on Bray seafront, the trio are pleased to have completed the walk in about two hours and 15 minutes.
It is “fantastic”, “fabulous,” and “a national treasure”, the women agree, noting the mental health benefits of fresh air and exercise.
They speak of their experiences on the Cinque Terre routes in Italy and the Santiago de Compostela in Spain, and express wonder that anyone would try to close Ireland’s answer to these internationally famous amenities.
“It cannot be closed,” says Kelly, with her friends in agreement. “People will always walk the cliff walk.”
