Wonder Wander Walking Trails 2025
The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage is delighted to launch the latest additions to its series of Wonder Wander Walking Trails. Following the successful launch of the Wonder Wander Walking Trails in 2024, which saw interactive walking trail maps produced for two Architectural Conservation Areas in Meath and Waterford, the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage has partnered with the Architectural Conservation Officers in Clare County Council, Kilkenny County Council and Limerick City and County Council to produce interactive walking trail maps showcasing well-known architectural highlights and lesser-known architectural details in the Architectural Conservation Areas in Ennis and Ennistymon, Castlecomer and Freshford, Foynes and Newcastle West.
Architectural Conservation Areas are groups of buildings or places which have a distinct character and special interest. Ireland has over 600 Architectural Conservation Areas including designed landscapes associated with country houses, industrial and institutional complexes, planned towns and villages, urban squares and streetscapes.
Each Wonder Wander Walking Trail has been developed in partnership with the local community. Information sessions and workshops held in community centres and libraries encouraged discussion, engagement and storytelling from all age groups, each generation holding different sites in special regard, helping to shape unique Wonder Wander Walking Trails for the Architectural Conservation Areas.
Each Wonder Wander Walking Trail is self-guided, the interactive map providing user-friendly information on selected sites of interest, the accompanying “Scavenger Hunt” showing architectural details to keep an eye out for.
Clare: Ennis and Ennistymon
The Wonder Wander Walking Trail for Ennis begins at the O’Connell Monument, the statue-topped Roman Doric column occupying the site where the election of Daniel “The Liberator” O’Connell (1775-1847) to the British House of Commons was declared in 1828, and takes in the neo-classical courthouse and some fine Italianate banks on its route. Curiosities to look out for include a pyramidal mausoleum inspired by ancient Egypt, a monument to unrequited love and a nineteenth-century deterrent against public urination!
The Wonder Wander Walking Trail for Ennistymon begins at the Scandinavian-influenced library (1981) and, following in the footsteps of John Lennon, takes in a cast-iron hydrant decorated with the face of a ram, traditional shopfronts and a low-lying building, one of the oldest in the town, showing a roof of local sandstone flags.
Kilkenny: Castlecomer and Freshford
The Wonder Wander Walking Trail for Castlecomer begins at its elegant five-arch bridge and takes in numerous architectural set pieces including the cupola-topped courthouse and the neo-Gothic Catholic church. Castlecomer boasts a wealth of fine shopfronts, most in a Classical style, but keep an eye out for the once-common but now rare canopied shopfront in Barrack Street. Other highlights include a grand house which was once home to a pram factory, a row of red brick houses named after the wife of the landlord of the town, and a small group of Arts and Crafts houses designed by an architect who lived to read his own obituary!
The Wonder Wander Walking Trail for Freshford takes in two types of waterpump, one retaining its pail stand, one operated by a wheel, as well as a house where Charles Stewart Parnell (1846-91) addressed the townspeople as part of his campaign for Home Rule (1890). A medieval font in the grounds of the Catholic church will have you standing on your head!
Limerick: Foynes and Newcastle West
The Wonder Wander Walking Trail for Foynes takes in sites associated with its history as a packet station for transatlantic voyages and a terminus for transatlantic flights. Keep an eye out for the house where it is said the chef, Joe Sheridan, invented the Irish Coffee. The trail includes several works in the Arts and Crafts style designed by the Limerick-based architect, William Clifford Smith (1881/2-1954), including the post office with its rock faced stone work and the charming terrace of houses known as Criveen Cottages.
The Wonder Wander Walking Trail for Newcastle West showcases a wide range of architectural details which might otherwise be overlooked including a bootscraper in North Quay, a “crow’s foot” benchmark in The Square and portraits in the keystones of the Bank of Ireland. A sculptural group in the town centre, Cailín Deas Crúite na mBó (2005), remembers the butter and cattle markets which traditionally supported the local economy while a more conventional memorial, a cast-bronze plaque on the old Munster and Leinster Bank, commemorates the Newcastle West-born aviator, Sophie Pierce (1896-1939), who is on record as the first woman to make a public parachute jump from an aeroplane (1926) and who was the first pilot, male or female, to make a solo open-cockpit flight from Capetown to London (1928).
Hardcopies of all Wonder Wander Walking Trails are available from partner locations including branch libraries and county council offices.