Stone Steps to Climb the Grianan of Aileach
While the Grianan of Aileach is certainly a very historically significant monument, I can’t help but feel a bit underwhelmed by the whole visit. The Grianan of Aileach is certainly not huge by any means. The walls are five meters high and around 4 meters thick. You could go around the walls in a few minutes. I probably takes longer since some parts of the wall are a little iffy. You do need to be careful here since some parts may be quite narrow and some will be slippery especially after some rain. We had kids with us when we visited so I was ever mindful of them suddenly darting off on their own. From the top of the stone wall, you can see the rest of the county but only on a good day. It was threatening to rain and it was becoming more and more cloudy, and thus more and more difficult to see far.
Small Passageway at the Grianan of Aileach
To climb up the Grianan of Aileach, you have to climb some stone steps built into the wall. Some of the steps here are very narrow and you can potentially have a nasty fall if you are not careful. Try to climb up or down the more worn steps. Some of the steps here are overgrown with plants and may make it difficult to climb. There are actually some passageways inside the stone fort, possibly to make more use of the stone fort as storage. It would have been interesting to crawl through these passageways but it is off limits to visitors, probably for safety reasons. There is a small entrance to mark the entrance of the passageway.
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