View

Lullymore Heritage & Discovery Park

Lullymore Heritage & Discovery Park is a day visitor attraction located on a mineral island in the Bog of Allen between the villages of Rathangan and Allenwood in North West Kildare. The Park was officially opened by President Mary Robinson in 1993 and has developed its facilities to presently provide a quality blend of education, leisure and fun to both Irish and overseas visitors. In addition to vital local community services the park has become an important regional centre for both employment and training. Lullymore Heritage & Discovery Park is open to the public and for community use 7 days a week all year round.

The Heritage Park Committee was formed to help establish alternative enterprise in the area due to the pending closure (at the time) of Bord Na Mona and the E.S.B. The people of the area had been dependent on both of these companies for full time/seasonal employment for the previous 40 years. Our committee identified tourism as a sustainable means by which the people of the area could in the future supplement their income, now that the sources, on which they had a historical dependency, would no longer be around.

 The aim is to create a successful, viable visitor attraction. The values and standards we wish to demonstrate are to successfully wean the community into a way of life that will be both satisfying and financially rewarding for the community. We hope the success of our endeavors will be judged by the development of a major day visitor attraction which will create employment, alleviate disadvantage, enhance our Community and act as a catalyst for further development and tourist related employment in our area.

Our new Biodiversity Boardwalk, the first of its type in Ireland, meanders serenely through glassy lakes and rejuvenating peat land of birch, heathers and bog cotton. It tells the story of how the Irish midlands great raised bogs, 10,000 years in the making are at the dawn of a new era.

Having been harvested by industry for over half a century for energy, the Parks cutaway peat lands are establishing welcoming habitats for a wide range of flora and fauna.

There’s so much to discover on this trail – learn about bog bodies, how peat lands formed and how people have utilized them for heating, energy and even to preserve butter!

The flora and fauna of this peat land landscape is as dramatic as its history. Depending on the time of year, look out for insect eating plants like sundew, frogs, newts, dragonflies and many species of water birds and butterflies as well as a whole host of other wonderful plants and creatures.