The Ballyhoura Walking Festival (pdf) takes place every May Bank Holiday weekend. The festival is based out of Kilfinane, a lovely little village in Limerick, but there is a good chance that you’ll end up tramping across the elevated parts of Tipperary as well. It’s a great weekend, and a lot of the energy is generated by the Ballyhoura Bears, the local hiking club. It’s been eight years since I participated in the festival – the May Bank Holiday weekend tends to have a number of hiking events happening all over the country. The picture above was taken on a hike during the 2007 Ballyhoura festival, and shows hikers gathered at the mouth of Lough Curra, a lake formed by ancient glacial erosion on the side of Galtymore mountain, the highest in the Galtee mountain range.