Best Scenic Place in County Roscommon, Ireland - Map and Reviews

Lough Key Forest Park is one of Ireland's most celebrated woodland parklands, set on the southern shores of Lough Key in County Roscommon. Managed by Coillte, the Irish forestry company, it encompasses roughly 800 acres of mixed woodland, open water, bog garden, and parkland that together create a rich and varied natural environment. The park draws visitors from across Ireland and abroad, offering an unusually complete package of natural beauty, heritage interest, adventure activities, and tranquil walking that few comparable sites in the country can match. Its combination of a great shimmering lake scattered with wooded islands, a dramatic ruined castle, and towering conifers and broadleaves makes it one of the most photogenic places in the Irish midlands. The land at Lough Key has a long and layered history. In medieval times the area was closely associated with the MacDermot family, who built a castle on Castle Island, one of the lake's small islands, and used Lough Key as the territorial heart of their kingdom in north Roscommon. The lake itself appears in early Irish annals and was a site of considerable strategic and cultural importance. Rock Castle, a later structure whose ruins still stand in the park, was built by the King family, who acquired the estate in the eighteenth century and developed it into a formal demesne with fine gardens, a walled garden, and pleasure grounds. The King family connection gives the park much of its designed landscape character, and their influence can be felt in the mature specimen trees that line many of the paths and the elegant parkland layouts that survive today. One of the most romantic stories associated with Lough Key concerns the poet Thomas Moore, who visited in the early nineteenth century and is said to have been moved by the tragic love story of Una MacDermot and Tomás Costello, who are buried on Trinity Island in the lake. Moore drew on this legend when he wrote his famous song "The Young May Moon" and, more directly, "Oh! Doubt Me Not," linking the lake forever to the Irish Romantic literary tradition. The island graves and their story lend a melancholy, poetic atmosphere to the lake that still feels palpable when the water is still and the light is low. Physically, the park is a place of extraordinary sensory richness. The woodland is a mixture of tall Scots pine, Norway spruce, and larch interspersed with native oak, ash, and birch, creating a shifting canopy that filters light differently depending on the season. In spring the floor is carpeted with wild garlic and bluebells; in autumn the broadleaved sections turn amber and gold while the conifers remain a dark, constant green. The smell of pine resin on warm days is pervasive and intoxicating. The lake is never far from view, and the sound of water — whether as gentle lapping on the shore or the splash of waterfowl taking flight — accompanies almost every walk through the park. The bog garden, one of the park's quieter corners, has a hushed, primordial quality, its mosses and bog cotton giving way to reflective dark pools. The park contains Rockingham House, or rather its dramatic basement shell — the main house was destroyed by fire in 1957, leaving only the underground tunnel system and service areas, which visitors can still explore today. This underground passage system, originally used by servants to move unseen between the house and outbuildings, is now one of the park's most intriguing features, offering a genuinely atmospheric walk through vaulted stone corridors. The walled garden has been partially restored and is a peaceful enclave of structured planting within the wider wild landscape. For active visitors the park offers a treetop walkway called the Treetop Walk (or Moylurg Tower area), which gives elevated views across the canopy toward the lake and islands. There is also the Tree Zone adventure play area, extensive cycling trails, and rowing boats available for hire on the lake, allowing visitors to reach some of the islands and see the ruined castle up close from the water. Anglers are drawn here by the lake's reputation for pike, perch, and bream, and the lakeshore provides several designated fishing stands. Birdwatchers will find the park rewarding throughout the year, with great crested grebes, kingfishers, herons, and various duck species commonly seen on and around the water. The park sits just outside the town of Boyle, which is approximately three kilometres to the southwest. Boyle itself is a pleasant market town with a superb Cistercian abbey, Boyle Abbey, which is one of the best-preserved medieval abbey ruins in Ireland and well worth combining with a visit to the park. The wider county of Roscommon offers Strokestown Park House, Roscommon Castle, and the beautiful landscapes of the Shannon-Erne waterway system. The park is positioned in the Northern Midlands, a region that remains less visited by international tourists than the west coast, giving it a genuine sense of undiscovered quiet even in summer. Access to Lough Key Forest Park is straightforward. It lies directly off the N4 Dublin-to-Sligo national road, making it accessible from Dublin in under two hours and from Sligo in about forty minutes. There is a large car park at the entrance and an entry fee is charged per vehicle. The park is open year-round, though some of the activity facilities are seasonal. Summer brings the most activity and the fullest range of facilities, but autumn is arguably the most beautiful time to visit, when the deciduous trees colour dramatically against the dark water of the lake. Spring, with its wildflowers and birdsong, is also exceptional. The park has a café, a visitor centre, and accessible paths for those with mobility considerations, though some of the more adventurous trails require sturdier footwear. A detail that surprises many visitors is the sheer number of islands in Lough Key — there are around thirty in total — each with its own character, history, or legend. Some are little more than a clump of trees and rock; others, like Trinity Island with its ruined priory and the graves of the ill-fated lovers, carry centuries of human story within their small perimeters. When the lake is glassy in the early morning and mist hangs between the islands, the scene has an almost mythological quality that makes it easy to understand why this particular body of water attracted so many stories, so many poets, and so many noble families across the centuries.