St Moling's Trail - Driving Route

St Moling’s Trail is a signed driving route through the south of County Carlow, one of Carlow’s Trails of the Saints. Running for around 70 km (44 miles), it can comfortably be driven in a day and follows a mix of regional and country roads through the Barrow Valley, the dominant landscape feature along the way.

The trail is named after St Moling, a seventh-century saint remembered as one of the four great prophets of Ireland. The monastery he founded at St Mullins, on the banks of the River Barrow, is the centrepiece of the route. The ecclesiastical site there, together with St Moling’s Holy Well, marks the spiritual heart of the trail.

Beginning in the village of Borris, the route links a series of churches and heritage sites, among them Borris House and the Sacred Heart Church in Borris, St Laserian’s Church at Ballinkillin, Lorum Church, the isolated Temple Moling burial ground at Ballinree, and the small early medieval church at Killoughternane. It ends across the county boundary at Duiske Abbey, the Cistercian church in Graiguenamanagh.

The route takes in quiet countryside and riverside settings, and is well suited to visitors interested in early Irish Christian history and the wider landscape of the Barrow Valley.