Tonelagee, Mullaghcleevaun and Mullaghcleevaun East Top, Wicklow, Ireland (Hewitts and Marilyns).

Tonelagee, Mullaghcleevaun and Mullaghcleevaun East Top, Wicklow, Ireland (Hewitts and Marilyns),
I’m keeping these summaries short as I’m on a two month tour of Ireland and there’s a lot of hills to hike and therefore lots of entries. All mapping used are view ranger digital OS 1:50 or 1:25. You will get the best results by uploading my wikiloc gpx giles into this mapping software.
Parking for this route was at a small car park at the start point. It’s a forestry entrance so room for one or two vehicles max. It’s also rough ground. It’s on the old military road at the base of a prominent rock mound called Carrigshouk spot height 571 or 3 depending on your map. To start head NW along the forestry road for a few hundred meters and then turn left on a feint path. This will take you to the edge of the forest where you turn NW again. You then follow the forest edge on indistinct trails. Follow the gpx trail and when you start ascending Stony Top the trail gets better. At Stony Top you head generally west for the 1.5km boggy tramp up Mullaghcleevaun. It’s a bit of a slog but not bad going to it’s trig pointed top. You then head south for at least 5km to Tonelagee. Now the next 4kms is paradise if you like bog trotting. The path is vague to say the least and non existent often. The peat hags, tumps and ravines are continuous and make for a constant undulating journey. If the mist or cloud is also in then you also need good nav skills as there are hardly any identifying features at all on this plateau. If it’s also very wet that will bring on the obvious ‘sinking in the swamp’ problem. Saying that I quite liked it, it was very different and today after a dry week it slowed us down to only 3-3.5kms an hour but at no time did we get more than ankle deep in the black sludge. Ascending Stony Top where there is a vertical stony plinth was heaven as you are back on a path. The same onwards to Tonelagee (trig point). The route now follows the northern high rim of Lough Ouler where you descend sharply to this heart shaped lake. Then head NE on a reasonable path for 2km to the road with a ford crossing just before. Then simply head north for another 2km on the road to the start point.
All in all a scenic wild in places 16.7kms with 812m of ascent done in 5hrs 21min.
Note: If you follow our gpx trail then you won’t go far wrong as although quite a hard hike we think we caught most of the paths right and varied off track very little (it was cloudy on the top).