“Glenanaar, the glen of slaughter, is a deep ravine, running directly north and south through a lower spur of the mountains that divide Cork and Limerick.” So wrote Canon Patrick Augustine Sheehan in his novel Glenanaar, published in 1905. Nowadays the Canon Sheehan Loop makes a superb walk through Glenanaar Forest in the southern ranges of the Ballyhoura mountains.
Walking the forest track, we gazed south over “Canon Sheehan Country”. The vale around Doneraile and Kildorrery lay low, its frosted hills riding like islands in a smoky sea of mist. Canon Sheehan brought out just this wintry aspect in Glenanaar: “As the weather was intensely cold, there were none of the usual thaws, but the frost knit the snow-flakes together and crusted them all
