EBike Touring Life

06/09/2026

Cycling the from to

Cyciling the Grand Canal back to Dublin this short 30km section tak...

05/09/2026

abbey is the 17th stop as we cycle the valley although strictly speaking it’s outside the valley on the Mattock tributary river. It’s only 1000 years old having taken over from our last stop at Monasterboice as a new Christian orthodoxy was imposed after the Norman conquest across Ireland. From here it’s 12km of backroad cycling to Slane - if you scroll back through my feed you’ll find multiple posts about the Hill of Slane

04/09/2026

Stop 16 of the takes us through the Elizabeth Drummond gate for a steep hilly loop which gets us off the busy R168 for a bit as we make our way from the High Crosses as Monasterboice to the abbey that replaced their monastery at Mellifont. We are roughly following the Mattock here which flows into the Boyne towards the end of Bru na Boinne

03/09/2026

has a and no less than 3 early Christian High Crosses on the site of a monastery founded by St Buite in 521 which lasted until as in many places around Ireland a nearby more orthodox monastery was established in the wake of the Norman invasion. There’s an interesting progression in several locations of very old ‘pagan’ sites seeing nearby early Christian sites where in turn get replaced by more orthodox Norman orders

Stop 15 while the valley

03/09/2026

The Boyne is world famous for its Neolithic monuments so it’s a litttle surprising to find the dolmen erected cerca 2000 at
drop 14 the Boyne - it may confuse future archeologists but is also a mark in the continuous human presence over 1000s of years. Next up another recent set of standing stones, these from only 1000 years ago

02/09/2026

Stop 12 of my valley cycle was the
High Cross which is located in the grounds of St Fechin’s. St Fechin had a monastery there in the 7th century but little of this remains except for this - on this return leg to - I’ve ventured a little outside the Boyne valley although mostly I think still in the catchment

02/09/2026

was the 12th stop of my cycle around the valley by - I added a short exploration of the which is the nature reserve at the very tip of the northern mouth of the Boyne - if you venture in stay on the gravel roads as particularly in the spring there are ground nesting birds off road. Be useful if the council added some proper bike locking frames at the entrance although it doesn’t look like it gets much official tlc.

Now I swing north and west to complete a loop back to my starting point that morning at Slane via some High Crosses & big enough hills

01/09/2026

As we return to the mouth of the but this time towards the northern exit at there are very extensive salt marshes and the channel particularly in this dry weather is a narrow strip far from the shore.

01/09/2026

the p10 - Why was near once called
Obelisk bridge

This was part of the site of the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 and although Irish republicans have almost as little time for King James as King Billy the colonial monument to Billy’s victory was rapidly removed (1923) after the limited independence achieved. The Obelisk had stood here from after 1736 when the foundation stone had been laid and George IV visited it as part of the trip to Ireland in 1821.

Oldbridge is a very much safer point to cycle across the Boyne than the bridge at Slane if you want to cycle the backroads loop of the Neolithic monuments at the bend in the Boyne - you do still have a short section of the busy national road to cycle

31/08/2026

You can get right down water level when the at Curly hole on the north bank just up from Old Bridge. Somewhere here is the pool the Salmon of Knowledge was caught out of although in terms of that spot is thought to be about 2km or so upriver
My 10th spot while touring the Boyne valley