Discover Ireland’s largest National Park located in the majestic Wicklow Mountains region of the east.
Wicklow °C
21. 11. 2024
8:56
Wicklow Mountains National Park stretches across almost 23,000 hectares south of Dublin. The largest of Ireland’s National Parks and the only one in the east, Wicklow features wide-open vistas, winding mountain roads and fast-flowing streams that descend into the deep lakes of the wooded valleys, including St Kevin’s monastic settlement at Glendalough.
Discover how you can help us conserve the park’s biodiversity and landscape, or plan your visit to explore the uplands on a hike or scenic drive. A true flavour of Ireland’s ancient wilderness awaits you in the park.
A small but dedicated team manages and looks after Wicklow Mountains National Park. They fall into four main areas – conservation rangers, the education team, the maintenance team and the managers and office staff.
A typical day for a conservation ranger involves working on one of our many conservation programmes: surveying wildlife, liaising with other agencies, farmers and the general public, law enforcement. or catching up on paperwork. Every day brings different challenges, and sometimes it helps if you are good at crawling through a dusty attic space in search of bats or dangling off a cliff on a rope!
Office staff operate the front desk and the phones in park headquarters and look after paperwork while park managers look after the whole park and the staff that work here. But office staff don’t stay in their offices all day, you’ll also see them out in the wilds, checking visitor counters, or assisting with conservation projects.
Our education guides work with visiting school groups, take smaller children on nature awareness activities or teach ecology fieldwork to teenagers. They also manage the Information Office, assist visitors to the park and organise events for the public.
The General Operatives (GOs) that form the maintenance team are a highly skilled bunch. Much of the infrastructure that you see in the park – boardwalks, signs, gates, benches and more, were all constructed by the GOs.
They also maintain the park by keeping grass trimmed, paths swept and collecting thousands of bags of litter each year. In remote areas of the wider park, they do everything from tree surgery to drain maintenance.