Lough Tay is a small, dark lake in the Wicklow Mountains, roughly an hour’s drive south of Dublin. It’s called the Guinness Lake because its near-black water and pale beach look like a pint of stout from above. The Luggala estate around it also belonged to the Guinness family from 1937 to 2019. The lake is private, so you see it from the R759 viewpoint.
There’s a lake in Co. Wicklow that looks like it was poured rather than formed. Black water, a strip of pale sand at one end and granite cliffs dropping straight into it.
This is Lough Tay, better known as the Guinness Lake. The nickname is half joke, half history. A branch of the Guinness family really did own the land around it for over 80 years.
Here’s why it got the name, a sand myth worth binning, and where to stand for the view without hopping anyone’s fence.
Where is Lough Tay?
Lough Tay sits high in the Wicklow Mountains in Co. Wicklow, south of Dublin. It lies between Djouce mountain (725 m, 2,379 ft) and Luggala, also called Fancy Mountain (595 m, 1,952 ft).
For readers outside Ireland, a lough (say it “lokh”) is simply our word for a lake, from the Irish loch. And no, this isn’t Loch Tay in Scotland.
It’s small, at about 48 hectares (119 acres), and up to about 35 m (115 ft) deep. It made my list of the most beautiful lakes in Ireland.
Why is Lough Tay called the Guinness Lake?
It looks like a pint
The water is close to black, with a curve of pale sand at one end.
In Ireland, Guinness is “the black stuff”. In Irish, stout is leann dubh, literally “black ale”. From above, the lake looks like a pint of it with the head still settling.
The Guinness family owned the land
The second reason is no joke. The Luggala estate, which takes in the whole lake, was owned by members of the Guinness brewing family from 1937 until 2019. Eighty-odd years is plenty of time for a nickname to stick.
Here’s my short video on how Lough Tay got its nickname.
Did the Guinness family import the white sand?
Nearly every guide to Lough Tay says the Guinness family shipped in white sand to make the lake look more like a pint. Visit Wicklow, the county tourism site, states it as fact. Wikipedia repeats it, citing Visit Wicklow.
I couldn’t find any evidence behind it. What I did find points the other way.
Mr and Mrs S.C. Hall described the lake in the early 1840s, and again in their 1853 handbook to Ireland. They called Lough Tay “a small dark lake”. By Mr La Touche’s “cottage-mansion”, they wrote, the beach “consists of pure white sand”.
The Guinnesses didn’t arrive at Luggala until 1912, about 70 years later. So the imported sand story is unproven at best, and quite likely wrong. Nobody has produced a shred of proof.
Why is Lough Tay so dark?
People noticed the colour long before anyone thought of a pint. In 1827 the Rev. G.N. Wright wrote of “the dark lake and bold impending cliffs of Luggelaw”.
The usual explanation is peat. Water draining off bogland is generally stained brown, and these hills are bog over granite. Add the depth and the shadow of the cliffs, and the lake looks close to black.
How to see Lough Tay without trespassing
The short version: you look down on Lough Tay. You don’t walk down to it.
The Lough Tay viewpoint and parking
The classic view is from the R759, the mountain road between Roundwood and the Sally Gap. Visit Wicklow says the best view is where the road meets the Wicklow Way.
There are woodland car parks along this stretch, including Ballinastoe Wood and the J.B. Malone car park. Use those, not the verges or gateways. It’s a narrow mountain road, and a car abandoned on a bend for a photo is how accidents happen.
The Wicklow Way walk
For a better angle, walk a short stretch of the Wicklow Way from the road. The path climbs partly on old sleepers (railroad ties) and boardwalk to a memorial stone for J.B. Malone.
Malone proposed and championed the Wicklow Way, which opened in 1980 as Ireland’s first waymarked long-distance trail. It runs about 130 km (80 miles) from Marlay Park in south Dublin to Clonegal, Co. Carlow.
Is Lough Tay private?
Yes. The lake and its shore belong to the private Luggala estate. In 2018 the trustees said in a statement, reported by the Irish Times, that “there are no public rights of way” on the estate.
Past owners have at times let walkers in through a pedestrian gate by the road. That was their choice, not a right, and it has changed over the years. If a gate says private, it means private.
Getting there from Dublin
Allow roughly an hour by car from Dublin. Head for Roundwood, then follow the R759 north towards the Sally Gap. Without a car, a Dublin day tour that stops at the viewpoint is the simplest option.
One warning for winter. The R759 isn’t on Wicklow County Council’s gritting (road salting) schedule, so it can be icy, dangerous or closed after snow.
Luggala: the house at the head of the lake
A banker’s Gothic lodge
The white house by the beach is Luggala Lodge. Peter La Touche, of the Dublin banking family, built it as a Gothic lodge, usually dated to 1787. The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage puts it at around 1790 to 1800.
According to Wright’s 1827 guide, La Touche gave visitors tickets so they could use the house for several days at a time. An early holiday let, with a banker as host.
How the Guinnesses got it
The estate later passed to the Viscounts Powerscourt. In 1912 Ernest Guinness, of the brewing family, began renting the lodge and the shooting. In 1937 he bought it as a wedding present for his daughter Oonagh.
Note that it was Ernest, not Arthur. Arthur Guinness died in 1803 and never owned Luggala, whatever you read online.
In January 1956 a fire gutted the lodge, reportedly from faulty wiring. It was rebuilt soon after, and the heritage inventory calls it a “faithful reproduction of a late 18th century hunting lodge”.
The Garech Browne years
Oonagh handed Luggala to her son Garech Browne in 1970. Garech, a direct descendant of Arthur Guinness, founded Claddagh Records and was central to the forming of The Chieftains.
Under him, Luggala became a gathering place for artists. The Irish Times names Seán Ó Riada, Seamus Heaney, Paddy Moloney, Lucian Freud and Michael Jackson among his guests. Heaney said that at Luggala “you do cross a line into a slight otherwhere”.
Garech died in London in March 2018, and his ashes were scattered at Lough Tay.
Who owns Lough Tay now?
Not the Guinnesses. In 2006 Garech reportedly sold about 1,600 acres to the State, and that land is now part of Wicklow Mountains National Park. The lake wasn’t part of that deal.
The remaining 5,000 acres or so, including all of Lough Tay, went on the market in 2017 at €28 million. It sold in 2019, reportedly to an Italian aristocrat, Count Padulli di Vighignolo. The Property Price Register records €11,585,000, around $13 million at the time.
Lough Tay on screen
According to RTÉ and the estate’s 2017 Lisney sale brochure, films shot at Luggala include Zardoz (1974), Excalibur (1981), Braveheart (1995) and King Arthur (2004). The Tudors filmed there too.
Vikings and Kattegat
RTÉ also lists the History series Vikings among the productions shot at Luggala. Wikipedia and most location guides say Lough Tay stood in for the town of Kattegat.
More recently, the Netflix romcom Irish Wish (2024) used Lough Tay for a key scene, according to RTÉ.
What does Lough Tay mean?
The Irish name is Loch Té (say it “lokh TAY”). You’ll often read that it means “tea lake”. That one doesn’t hold water, if you’ll pardon the pun.
The Placenames Database of Ireland, logainm.ie, records “Logh Tea” in the Down Survey of 1655 to 1657. Tea was barely known in Ireland then, and the Irish word for tea is tae anyway. Nobody knows for sure what Té means.
Luggala is disputed too. Liam Price suggested Log an Lágh, roughly “hollow of the hill”, but the hill-names scholar Paul Tempan doubts it. If old names interest you, see my piece on English words that came from Irish.
Nearby: Sally Gap and Glendalough
Sally Gap
Carry on north along the R759 and you reach the Sally Gap, about 503 m (1,650 ft) up, where it crosses the Military Road. That road was built between 1800 and 1809, after the 1798 Rebellion, so Crown forces could reach rebels hiding in the mountains.
The Sally Gap is on one of the greatest Irish road trips on the site.
Glendalough
Lough Tay isn’t in Glendalough, though people often ask. Glendalough is a separate valley further south, roughly half an hour away by car through Roundwood and Laragh.
St Kevin founded his monastery there in the 6th century. It’s on my list of the most beautiful places to visit in Ireland. The two are close enough to do in one day.
Lough Tay FAQ
Why is Lough Tay called the Guinness Lake?
From above, its dark water and pale beach look like a pint of Guinness. The Guinness family also owned the surrounding Luggala estate from 1937 to 2019.
Did the Guinness family import the sand at Lough Tay?
There’s no evidence they did. Travel writers already described a beach of “pure white sand” there in the 1840s, decades before the Guinnesses arrived.
Can you walk down to Lough Tay?
Not as of right. The lake and shore are on a private estate with no public rights of way. View it from the R759 and the Wicklow Way instead.
Can you swim in Lough Tay?
In practice, no. There’s no public access to the shore without permission, and the water is deep and cold.
Was Vikings filmed at Lough Tay?
Yes, on the Luggala estate, and the lake is widely credited as the setting for the town of Kattegat. The real Kattegat is a stretch of sea between Denmark and Sweden, so the town is fiction.
Who owns Lough Tay and Luggala?
Not the Guinness family any more. The Luggala estate, lake included, sold in 2019 for €11,585,000, reportedly to Count Padulli di Vighignolo.
More Irish places and stories
- The most beautiful lakes in Ireland
- The Great Blasket Island
- The best things to do in Dublin
- The most beautiful places to visit in Ireland
- Top 10 Guinness drinking countries
- Irish slang words
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