Best Waterfall in County Leitrim, Republic of Ireland - Map and Reviews

Glencar Waterfall in the Glencar Lough valley in County Leitrim, close to the Sligo border, is one of the most celebrated waterfalls in the west of Ireland, a slender cascade falling approximately fifteen metres from the limestone escarpment above into a pool below, set within a wooded valley of considerable beauty. The waterfall is associated above all with the poet W B Yeats, who grew up knowing this landscape intimately and immortalised the waterfall in The Stolen Child, his early poem of fairy enchantment in which the fairies call a mortal child to a world of natural magic, using the waterfall's setting as a symbol of that enchanted Irish nature. The Glencar valley runs east to west between the Dartry Mountains to the north and the limestone hills of Sligo to the south, the lough at its centre reflecting the surrounding cliffs and woodland in a landscape that has the contained, intimate quality of a sheltered mountain valley quite different from the open Atlantic coastline of the Sligo coast. The waterfall descends from the northern limestone escarpment above the lough, its flow varying considerably with the season, at its most impressive after prolonged rain when the thin white cascade swells into a more substantial fall. The Yeats association gives the waterfall a literary resonance that extends its appeal beyond purely scenic or geological interest. County Sligo as a whole is Yeats country, the poet's childhood and adult landscape that provided the imagery for much of his most celebrated work, and the waterfall at Glencar is one of the specific places most directly named in his poetry. The grave of W B Yeats at Drumcliff churchyard beneath Ben Bulben, a short distance from Glencar, completes the Yeats pilgrimage landscape of Sligo.