Free entry for English Heritage members
This place is cared for by the Office of Public Works, which runs Ireland's national heritage sites as Heritage Ireland. English Heritage members are entitled to free entry to all OPW sites from the first year of membership. Show your current membership card at admissions.
More information
The ticket covers the visitor centre exhibition and film; the monastic site and the national park trails are free to everyone. Sold at the desk only, no online booking. One free admission comes with a paid ticket for the visitor centre car park. OPW's general rule gives free admission to children under 12 and to visitors with disabilities and their carers. Free for English Heritage members showing a valid card, from the first year of membership (every OPW site; the named members on the card). Heritage Card holders free.
OPW's Child/Student rate; no age band given on the page, and OPW says children under 12 visit free. Free for English Heritage members showing a valid card, from the first year of membership (every OPW site; the named members on the card). Heritage Card holders free.
OPW's Group/Senior rate; no age given on the page. Free for English Heritage members showing a valid card, from the first year of membership (every OPW site; the named members on the card). Heritage Card holders free.
OPW's family ticket; the page does not define the family. Free for English Heritage members showing a valid card, from the first year of membership (every OPW site; the named members on the card). Heritage Card holders free.
OPW's visitor centre car park beside the monastic site, run by APCOA, about €4 per car per day with one free admission to the centre included; the Upper Lake car park (Wicklow County Council) is also charged and a free council car park at Laragh is a 3 km woodland walk away. Not a Trust car park, so membership does not cover it.
OPW's own car park at the visitor centre is managed by APCOA, open 8am to 8pm with payment by coin or card at the machine or to the attendants at the gate; OPW set the charge at €4 per car in 2019 (buses €25, minibuses and camper vans €15) and 2026 visitors still report €4 a day, though OPW publishes no current charging calendar. Paying for this car park entitles one person to free admission to the visitor centre. The Upper Lake car park at the end of the valley road is Wicklow County Council's, charged at the entrance, with toilets and the National Park Information Office where the trails start, a 20-minute walk from the centre along the Green Road; the council's free car park in Laragh, beside the Woollen Mills, is a 3 km walk through the woods. Cars on the double yellow lines along the valley road are ticketed or towed. A bus stop named Glendalough Visitor Centre serves the centre.
Driving pin: OPW's visitor centre car park, which OPW's page and the national park name as the car park for the monastic site.
Glendalough is a glaciated valley of two lakes in the Wicklow Mountains where St Kevin founded a monastery in the sixth century. His foundation grew into one of the most famous religious centres in Europe and a place of education and pilgrimage through the Middle Ages, and the remains of this Monastic City are dotted across the glen: a superb round tower, the cathedral, St Kevin's stone-roofed church and other medieval churches and decorated crosses from the tenth to twelfth centuries. St Kevin's Bed, a small cave in the cliff above the Upper Lake, may be a prehistoric burial place older than the saint. The monastic site is free to walk at any hour; the ticket buys OPW's visitor centre beside it, with an exhibition, a model of the twelfth-century settlement and the fifteen-minute film Ireland of the Monasteries. Nine waymarked national park trails start nearby, dogs on a lead, and the boardwalk along the Lower Lake gives spectacular views up the valley.
Open any reasonable time in daylight.
Prices, non-members
The visitor centre opens all year: daily 9.30am to 6pm from mid March to 14 October, last admission 5.15pm, and daily 9.30am to 5pm from 15 October to mid March, last admission 4.15pm; closed 23 to 29 December inclusive; last admission to the buildings and toilets is 45 minutes before closing and OPW's toilets close at 4.15pm in winter. The monastic site itself is open at all times and needs no ticket. Free admission to the centre for everyone on the first Wednesday of each month. OPW suggests one to one and a half hours; guided tours are listed but no times are published, and groups book by email.
The visitor centre is fully accessible, with a wheelchair-accessible toilet, but access to the graveyard is very difficult for wheelchair users and the walkways are uneven. A bookshop counter sells leaflets and postcards; no cafe at the centre (a hotel stands by the car park). The exhibition is darkened and the film is shown in a darkened theatre; a quiet space is available on request. Food and drink may not be taken into the centre.
Dogs: Pet dogs on a lead are welcome at the monastic site and throughout the valley, which lies in Wicklow Mountains National Park; whether they may enter the visitor centre building is not confirmed. The nine waymarked Glendalough trails, the Wicklow Way and St Kevin's Way through the valley, dogs on a lead under the national park's code.
Photo: Glendalough's round tower and the stone-roofed St Kevin's Church with its small belfry, among trees below the wooded valley side, seen from the Green Road. Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Glendalough_St._Kevin%27s_Church_and_Round_Tower_2016_09_14.jpg. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0. Resized and cropped for display; derivatives retain the source licence.
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Dog friendly
3 km loop, about 45 minutes, easy, on track and boardwalk with a 20 m climb, from the National Park Information Office through the oak woods and along the Lower Lake boardwalk; the park recommends a short detour to the Monastic City, and from the visitor centre car park the Green Road joins it directly. Dogs: Dogs on a lead at all times under the national park's code.
Dog friendly
8 km loop, about 2 hours, moderate with a 160 m climb, views over both lakes, the monastic settlement and Laragh, passing St Saviour's Church and the Monastic City; re-routed to bypass Poulanass waterfall after storm damage. Dogs: Dogs on a lead at all times under the national park's code.
Dog friendly
9.5 km strenuous mountain loop above the Upper Lake on boardwalk and steps; boots and rain gear needed; the White Zig Zags are being upgraded from 20 July 2026 for five to six months with the trail open except on helicopter days. Dogs: Dogs on a lead at all times; the park warns that cliffs are a danger to dogs.
