Vandeleur parkrun Kilrush

What to Expect

Vandeleur parkrun is a free, timed 5km event held every Saturday morning at 9.30am in the woodland surrounding Vandeleur Walled Garden on the edge of Kilrush. It is the west Clare entry in the county’s set of four parkruns, alongside Lees Road in Ennis, Clarisford in Killaloe and Illaunmanagh in Shannon, and has been running since March 2016. The route follows the estate’s woodland paths and forest tracks, sheltered from the Atlantic wind that comes up the Shannon Estuary, and the surface can soften after rain.

parkrun is not a race. It began as a single free weekly 5k in London in 2004, reached Ireland in 2012, and everywhere it operates it works the same way: turn up, run, jog or walk the course, and finish through a funnel staffed by volunteers who scan a personal barcode to record your time. Nobody is timed out and nobody finishes last without a tail walker behind them. Registration is done once, online and free of charge, and the same barcode works at any parkrun in the world. Full results are published on the event’s page within a few hours, with age-graded times alongside the raw finishing times. The event depends entirely on volunteers, and marshals, timekeepers and barcode scanners are needed every single week.

Good to Know

• Every Saturday at 9:30am, year-round, free of charge.
• Register once at parkrun.ie before your first run and bring your printed or phone-saved barcode - without it your time cannot be recorded.
• Walkers, joggers and running buggies are all welcome; dogs are allowed on a short fixed-length lead.
• The start is in the woods at Vandeleur Walled Garden, on the Killimer road out of Kilrush.
• Trail shoes are worth having outside the driest weeks, as the woodland paths hold water.
• Volunteering is arranged through the event’s online roster; new volunteers are welcome any week.

Getting There

Vandeleur Walled Garden is about 1km east of Kilrush town centre on the Killimer road, an easy 15-minute walk from the square or a two-minute drive. There is free parking on site at the visitor centre car park. Kilrush is on the N67 coast road, roughly 45 minutes from Ennis and about an hour and a quarter from Limerick, and Bus Eireann route 336 links it with Ennis, though Saturday morning services will not get you there for a 9.30am start from Ennis.