Guided tours taking place at Mullaghmeen Forest

To celebrate National Trails Day and the incredible amenity that is Mullaghmeen Forest Park, there will be two guided tours of the looped walks on Sunday 3rd October.Starting at 2pm from the carpark, there will be guided tours of the looped walk which is a gentle climb through Europe’s largest planted beech forest.A massive 400 hectares of limestone outcrop topped with beech.Beech is not the only tree at Mullaghmeen and the autumn wander will bring walkers past Sitka Spruce, Scots Pine and fir trees. Further up a section of the forest is a nursery, planted with native Irish species. In this arboretum will be found whitebeam, hornbeam, wild cherry and bird cherry, whitethorn and blackthorn, crab apple and spindle, alder and elder.The summit cairn is 261m, so walkers will enjoy the privilege of standing on the highest point in Westmeath. The guides are free and use of Mullaghmeen is also free. So this is an excellent opportunity to explore with experts a fabulous free amenity just 20 minutes from mullingarTo get to Mullaghmeen, travel into Castlepollard, take the exit for Water lane, travelling past Mergon. Just 7 km out this road you will see a sign for the Forest park’s carpark on the left hand side.Also free and in the same area is the exceptional OPW site Fore Abbey, the largest Benedictine ruins in Ireland. A new part of the abbey has been re-opened to the public, allowing the public to enter the church and admire the windows and towers from the inside.