Take the second turn left after leaving Killbeheny on the Mitchelstown-Cahir road (N8), at the sign indicating a forest and picnic area (1km).

Drive up this road for 1km and take the first turn right at the signpost for the forest.

Follow this road through the entrance to Galty Castle Wood and continue for 1.5km until you reach the carpark. Having parked your car, make your way downhill following the roadway and blue waymarkers to the bridge over the River Funshion.

From here follow the blue waymarkers, which indicate the longer walk in the Galty Castle Woods.

There are other shorter walks indicated by white and green waymarkers, but for the purposes of this, the blue walk is more interesting and opens up the whole vista of the Galtees.

As you approach the bridge, note the very fine old moss covered walls, indicating the cleanliness and clear air within these woods.

Below the bridge you will see a water mill, which functioned as a turbine generating electricity for Galty Castle on the eastern side of the bridge.

Having crossed the bridge, the ground rises up to a signpost for the forestry picnic area. At this corner a blue waymarker, indicates a turn right up a gradual incline for approximately 30m. Take the left hand fork around a 'U' turn not waymarked and continue climbing.

After a further 100m you reach the site of Galty Castle, of which all that remains are the red sandstone stables and an outline of the tennis courts. The castle, was approximately 100m east or back of these buildings.

Galty Castle was built in the late 1700's as a hunting lodge for the 2nd Earl of Kingston.

It was remodelled by the 3rd Earl in the 1820's. The castle was demolished in 1940 and its stones were used to build the Catholic Parish church at Glanworth. Continue on past a row of delightful stone houses, beautifully landscaped and set into the hillside on your right. Presumably these housed the workers on the Galty Castle estate.

As you continue on, a magnificent view opens to your left, over the woods and up into the Galty Mountains. Eventually you will arrive at a farm tucked into the Glen and overlooked by Coopers Wood and Knocknagalty Hill.

Approaching the farm, follow the blue waymarker across the bridge over the Attychraan River. Before the bridge on your right (on the eastern side of the river) there is a gateway to a path through Coopers Wood; - (this will be part of walk 13.2). Continue over the bridge up the winding road keeping the farm on your right and turn left at the second gate immediately before the farm gate and continue down a grassy path until you meet an old wooden bridge.

Cross the bridge and follow the waymarker up a steep wooded pathway or track which exits on a forestry road.

Turn left at the fork at the top of the track, and return to the car park (1km).

It is better that this walk be followed in an anti-clockwise direction as it is prettier and easier to follow.