Turlough Hill (), also known as Tomaneena (), is a mountain in County Wicklow in

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

and site of Ireland's only pumped-storage hydroelectricity plant. The power station is owned and operated by the ESB and can generate up to of electricity at times of peak demand.

The mountain

The historian

Liam Price Liam Price (February 1891 – 1967) was a County Wicklow judge, historian and former president of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (RSAI) who published work on historical topography and the history of placenames, especially for the co ...

recorded that the mountain was known locally as Tomaneena; Turlough Hill is the name given to it by the ESB when they surveyed the site for the pumped-storage scheme. It is high and is the 136th highest summit in Ireland. The summit is located to the south-west of the upper reservoir and is easily reached via the tarmac access road that begins at the top of the

Wicklow Gap Wicklow Gap () is one of the highest Irish mountain passes served by an asphalted road. It is located in County Wicklow, Ireland. Geography The pass is opened between Tonelagee (Nort east) and Turlough Hill / Camaderry (South). It connects ...

. It is also possible to reach the summit from

Glendalough Glendalough (; ) is a glacial valley in County Wicklow, Ireland, renowned for an Early Medieval monastic settlement founded in the 6th century by St Kevin. From 1825 to 1957, the head of the Glendalough Valley was the site of a galena lead min ...

or from the summits of neighbouring

Camaderry Camaderry () at , is the 90th-highest peak in Ireland on the Arderin scale, and the 112th-highest peak on the Vandeleur-Lynam scale.Mountainviews, (September 2013), "A Guide to Ireland's Mountain Summits: The Vandeleur-Lynams & the Arderins", Co ...

and

Conavalla Conavalla () at , is the 69th–highest peak in Ireland on the Arderin scale, and the 85th–highest peak on the Vandeleur-Lynam scale.Mountainviews, (September 2013), "A Guide to Ireland's Mountain Summits: The Vandeleur-Lynams & the Arderins", ...

mountains. The underlying geology of the mountain is

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies under ...

, covered with

blanket bog Blanket bog or blanket mire, also known as featherbed bog, is an area of peatland, forming where there is a climate of high rainfall and a low level of evapotranspiration, allowing peat to develop not only in wet hollows but over large expanses o ...

, which is a habitat for heather,

purple moor grass ''Molinia caerulea'', known by the common name purple moor-grass, is a species of grass that is native to Europe, west Asia, and north Africa. It grows in locations from the lowlands up to in the Alps. Like most grasses, it grows best in acid so ...

and moss. A number of alpine plants grow near the summit:

dwarf willow ''Salix herbacea'', the dwarf willow, least willow or snowbed willow, is a species of tiny creeping willow (family Salicaceae) adapted to survive in harsh arctic and subarctic environments. Distributed widely in alpine and arctic environments ar ...

, cowberry,

crowberry ''Empetrum nigrum'', crowberry, black crowberry, or, in western Alaska, blackberry, is a flowering plant species in the heather family Ericaceae with a near circumboreal distribution in the Northern Hemisphere. It is usually dioecious, but there ...

, fir clubmoss and

common bilberry ''Vaccinium myrtillus'' or European blueberry is a holarctic species of shrub with edible fruit of blue color, known by the common names bilberry, blaeberry, wimberry, and whortleberry. It is more precisely called common bilberry or blue whortle ...

. To the north-east of the summit, at the head of Glendasan valley, is Lough Nahanagan (), a corrie lake carved by a

glacier A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its Ablation#Glaciology, ablation over many years, often Century, centuries. It acquires dis ...

at the end of the last ice age.

The pumped-storage scheme

The Turlough Hill Power Station is owned and operated by the Electricity Supply Board (ESB). Construction commenced in 1968, and the station became fully operational in 1974.

Name

Whilst the original name is Tomaneena, renaming it ‘Turlough Hill’ has a certain validity. The pumped storage station draws water from the mountain top lake, which thus becomes a ‘dry lake’. There is a geological feature known as a Turlough; it is defined as "(in Ireland) a low-lying area on limestone which becomes flooded in wet weather through the welling up of groundwater from the rock. Origin late 17th cent.: from Irish ''turloch'', from ''tur ‘dry’'' + ''loch ‘lake’.''"quoted directly from Apple Computer’s Oxford Dictionary of English 3rd edition, 2010. See also Whittow, John (1984) The Penguin Dictionary of Physical Geography, p.556.

References

Bibliography

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External links

Turlough Hill
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ESBTomaneena
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Mountain Views
{{Mountains and hills of Leinster Mountains and hills of County Wicklow Mountains under 1000 metres