Corn Hill Co. Longford

The highest point in Longford

Highs don’t come much lower than Corn Hill in County Longford, in fact at 278 meters it’s the third lowest county high point in the country, with only Mullaghmeen in WestMeath and Slieve Na Calliagh/Loughcrew in Meath boasting lesser elevations. (All three of these mountains offer child friendly walks, the latter two situated in particularly interesting surroundings.)

However, with a pleasant access road leading to the transmission mast on the ‘summit’ Corn Hill is a fine locale for a family outing, taking only 15 minutes or so each way. Having said that, I’m not sure it would be worth a specific journey if you weren’t on a mission.

I had the pleasure of walking up Corn Hill (aka Cairn Hill) with my parents and my son. After a pleasant drive from Edgeworthstown spent enjoying the lush summer fields and spotting Celtic Tiger houses, the mast on Corn Hill comes into view a couple of miles out.

Approaching Corn Hill

We parked up outside the access road gates and from there it’s a simple walk up the grassy track to the summit, which is just past the mast. Unfortunately the views in many directions are hidden by trees and with my parents around I didn’t dare urge my three-year old to shimmy up the mast in order to see more.

Laughing in Longford

In spite of its low elevation, Corn Hill does have decent views particularly to the south. Every time I go up the hills I tell myself I need to bring an overview map of Ireland so that I can identify mountains in the distance.

Views to the south from Corn Hill

Corn Hill was the last of the easy walks for this challenge and I have now reached the top of all the mountains that are close to Dublin and relatively simple to ascend. All of the remaining mountains are mountains, such as Slieve Donard, Galtymore and Mweelrae. I look forward to tackling them.

Hiking Corn Hill – Resources

I didn’t buy map sheet 34 for this walk as this is probably the shortest and easiest County Top to reach.

To reach Corn Hill we drove to Edgeworthstown and followed signs for Derrynacross. In reality though, we used GPS navigation as there are plenty of turns involved in the journey.

We had lunch in a cafe called ‘Bia Deas’ in Edgeworthstown. They serve coffee in teapots and heinz tomato soup as soup, in a room furnished with brightly coloured fake flowers. No michelin star as of yet.

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