Millstreet Country Park
Millstreet Country Park is a 500 acre environmental nature park in Cork Ireland. It includes a large visitor centre, gardens, archeological sites and stunning scenery.
Take a walk on the wild side
Charlie Wilkins, Great Outdoors gardening correspondent, The Irish Examiner
“Irelands heritage is renowned, and houses, castles and gardens are inseparable in Irish culture. Their horticultural contents are varied, rich and well documented, but there’s a newcomer among the established, and I blush to admit that up to very recently I had never visited the ‘Glenveigh of the South’, Millstreet Country Park. The experience will stay with me for life such is the beauty, the lonliness and the vastness of this refuge within the Boggeragh Mountains of north Cork
A visit here is a must if you love wild landscapes, sheltered gardens, flora and fauna, herb-rich meadows, developing arboretums, blanket bog, even deer pasture. And if you don’t feel like doing some of the longer trails, avail of the courtesy coaches which ply the mountainside tracks.
Walking trails range from the leisurely Gardners Stroll among the well-kept ornamental gardens, to the slightly longer Wetlands Trail and the spectacular Tuarin na mBlath Trail (wildflowers trail). Longer trails, especially the Carrig Leabra Trail, are the most ardous, but also the most rewarding in terms of scenery and the sense of adventure and achievement. The same could be said for the Mushera Moor Trail. It takes one to true wilderness and to the highest ground in the park at 365 metres above sea level.
The unforgettable Sensory Garden with its many aromatic species, created specifically for physically and mentally challenged visitors is an experience not to be missed. The character of generously planted shrubs and trees is quiet unlike those in other gardens throughout Ireland, for they consist in the main of evergreen varieties interspersed with the ‘bare-knuckled’ forms whose flowers are borne directly on naked branches. The blooms on these may be small and un-flamboyant but they can be exceptional vessels of scent, and perfume the air for yards.
The park experience (and all its walks) show the changing face of the landscape and the flora and fauna within it. You won’t see it all in a single visit, but you’ll go back again and again if you love the wild outdoors.”