Molls Gap to Mám Éan — Connemara and Kerry Highland Pass Circuit via Maumturk Mountains

Mám Éan — the pass of the birds — sits in the Maumturk Mountains north of the R336 in Connemara, a rough track climbing to a saddle at roughly 1,100 feet where a small saint’s well and a stone oratory mark the route of an ancient pilgrimage path. The drive up from Maam Cross on green-lane quality track is tight, boggy at the edges in wet conditions, and littered with embedded limestone. The companion leg, Molls Gap on the N71 in Kerry, is the smoother of the two — a legitimate paved pass between Kenmare and Killarney — but the connecting back roads through Sneem and over the Beara and north via Kilgarvan are where the proper back-road overlanding happens, linking the two regions via genuinely remote tarred and untarred single-track lanes.

Mám Éan specifically requires a high-clearance vehicle — a standard crossover will ground out on the rocky crown. The surface is wet, soft-shouldered bog track above the 700-foot contour; traction control is your friend. No fuel between Maam Cross and Kenmare via these routes. The payoff is extraordinary: the Twelve Bens on your left, Lough Corrib country behind, and the Atlantic showing silver through every gap. Go between May and September; winter turns the bog margins into traps. Wild camping is legal under Irish access norms in open mountain.