Magic and Motor-Cars, or How a Fairy Moved Up in the World by Galadriel Coffeen

This one, in the foothills of the Cooley Mountains, is a little more nondescript, but once again - the car 'magically' rolls uphill. The second stop on our tour of Ireland's magic roads takes us to Co Louth, and out to the beautiful Cooley Peninsula on the loop between Dundalk and Carlingford. Here's another clip of the magic road in full effect - this time with a BMW full of bemused Lithuanian tourists and a techno Twin Peaks soundtrack for added effect: There's a new one been planted since though - so park up between the rock and the tree and marvel as forces unknown fight gravity on your behalf. The place to stop was once also marked by a tree known locally as the Fairy Tree, until some fairy-hating miscreants chopped it down in 2011.

Normally these stretches of road can be hard to find but this one is helpfully marked by a big rock with 'Magic Road' written on it, which is nice. Perhaps Ireland's most famous 'magic road' is in Waterford, located along a country road close to Mahon Falls, in the beautiful Comeragh Mountains.Īnd yes, as this clip shows, if you stop your car in the right spot it will proceed to roll uphill. So your eyes, rather than the fairies, are playing tricks on you.Īround the world, magic roads are known as 'gravity hills' or 'magnetic hills', and there are hundreds of them.įrom the comfort of our desks, and making liberal use of Google Maps, we went to find three of the most famous examples in Ireland. It's an optical illusion, where the layout of the landscape makes it look like the slope is going one way, but in fact it's going the other. The explanations for the magic road phenomenon vary depending on who you're talking to - and either fairies or 'magnetic fields' are often cited - but the real answer is pretty simple. Yes, Ireland's 'magic roads' are 'a thing' - a stretch of roadway, usually well off the beaten track and hidden up a succession of byways and boreens, where if you stop the car and let the handbrake off, the vehicle will mysteriously and eerily roll uphill.

Magic and Motor-Cars, or How a Fairy Moved Up in the World by Galadriel Coffeen