Donegal ranked as the 3rd best county for summer walking trails

Donegal was ranked as the third best county for walking trails in Ireland.

The analysis, done by Trailblazers, found that the Bluestack Way was Donegal’s top walking trail choice for walkers and hikers.

The Bluestack Way is a 65 km long-distance walking trail that runs from Donegal Town to Ardara via Glenties.

The trail includes quiet tarmac local roads, rough bog roads, and wet moorland tracks, with fantastic views passing through Lough Eske, the Bluestack Mountains foothills, an ancient graveyard at Disert, and the Owenroe River.

Cork came in first on the list, and Kerry came in second on the list by Trailblazers, an Irish outdoor and cycling specialist store.

Rebecca Ryan, the marketing manager at Trailblazers, said: “Ireland is made for walking, from gentle greenways to mountain trails, and interest in getting outdoors keeps growing every year,

“Wherever you are in the country, a great walk is rarely far away, and there's something out there for every age and ability.

“For a summer walk, it's worth knowing that busier spots like Glendalough, the Cliffs of Moher and the Waterford Greenway have visitor centres, parking and cafés close by, while remoter routes such as the Bluestack Way and Sheep's Head reward those who come well prepared."

The data was gathered from trail counts, and distances were taken from the National Trails Register and Sport Ireland Outdoors, filtered to trails listed as walking activities. Each trail was counted once under its listed county, with trails spanning multiple counties excluded for a clean per-county comparison, leaving 983 single-county walking trails across the 26 counties of the Republic. Search demand was assessed using publicly available Google Trends data for walking- and hiking-related search terms over a 12-month period. The combined score sums each county's rank for trail count, total distance and search demand, with a lower score indicating a stronger overall offering.