Gortin Glen Forest Park: Walks, Sculptures and a Quiet Sperrin Taster
Gortin Glen Forest Park covers 400 hectares of conifer and broadleaf woodland in the foothills of the Sperrin Mountains, about 15 minutes north of Omagh in County Tyrone. It is the kind of place that barely registers on most visitors' itineraries, which is exactly what makes it worth the detour.
The park has six waymarked walking trails, 13 kilometres of mountain bike trails, a scenic forest drive, a destination play park for children, and one of the three Giants of the Sperrins - a large recycled-wood sculpture by the Danish artist Thomas Dambo. Darach the Guardian sits on the slopes of Mullaghcarn above the park. The views from up there across the Sperrins are excellent on a clear day.
Gortin Glen Forest Park is free to enter and free to park. It is open year-round. There is a cafe, toilets, and picnic areas. If you are visiting the Ulster American Folk Park in Omagh, Gortin Glen is the natural afternoon pairing - 15 minutes up the road and a completely different experience.
What to Expect
The walking trailhead is between the main car park and the amenity building. Six colour-coded trails fan out from here, ranging from short family loops to longer routes that climb into the higher ground. The trails are well maintained with gravel surfaces on the lower routes. The upper trails get rougher and muddier, particularly after rain.
The scenic forest drive is a 5-mile one-way loop road through the park. You can drive it in 20 minutes, but pulling over at the viewpoints stretches it to an hour. The views south across the Gortin valley and north towards the Sperrins are the highlight. There is a sika deer enclosure along the drive where you can usually spot deer from the road, particularly in early morning or late afternoon.
The Thomas Dambo sculpture - Darach the Guardian - is the newest addition and the one pulling visitors who would not otherwise come to a forest park in Tyrone. It is a large figure built from recycled wood, sitting on the slopes of Mullaghcarn. Reaching it involves a walk uphill from the car park - around 45 minutes each way depending on your pace. The sculpture itself is impressive, but the real reward is the view from Mullaghcarn across the Sperrins. On a clear day you can see for miles in every direction.
The destination play park near the car park is genuinely good for families. It is large, well-equipped, and set in woodland. Children burn energy while adults drink coffee from the cafe. The cafe itself is basic - hot drinks, sandwiches, tray bakes - but it exists, which is more than you can say for most forest parks in Northern Ireland.
The honest negative: this is a working forest, and logging operations close trails without much warning. If you have come specifically for a particular walk, check at the car park noticeboard or ask at the cafe. Mobile signal is patchy inside the forest, so do not rely on downloading trail maps on arrival. The mountain bike trails are good but not signposted as clearly as they could be - first-time riders should stick to the waymarked routes.
Gortin Glen is busiest on summer weekends and school holidays, when the play park fills up. But even at peak times, the walking trails absorb people quickly. Once you are 15 minutes along any trail, the car park noise disappears and you are in proper forest. On a weekday outside school holidays, you might have the entire upper section of the park to yourself.
How to Get There
Gortin Glen Forest Park is on the B48 road, about 12 kilometres north of Omagh. From Omagh town centre, follow signs for Gortin on the B48. The park entrance is well signposted on the right as you approach Gortin village. The address is Glen Park Road, Gortin, County Tyrone, BT79 7SU.
From Belfast, the drive takes around 1 hour 50 minutes via the M1 and A5 through Omagh, then the B48 north. From Dublin, allow about 2 hours 40 minutes on the same route via Dungannon and Omagh. From Derry, it is about 45 minutes south via the A5 and then the B48.
There is no public transport to the park. Gortin village has an occasional Ulsterbus service from Omagh, but the park is a 20-minute walk from the village. A hire car is essential. Parking in the forest park is free and the car parks are large enough that finding a space is never a problem, even on busy summer weekends.
Where to Stay Nearby
Omagh is the nearest town with a full range of accommodation, about 15 minutes south. Gortin village itself has a couple of B&B options. For the full list of places to stay across the county, see the County Tyrone guide.
Between Omagh and the folk park, about 20 minutes from Gortin Glen. Family-run with a restaurant. Rooms from around £90 per night.
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A Note on the History
Gortin Glen was planted as a commercial forest in the mid-twentieth century, part of the post-war forestry programme that transformed bare hillsides across Northern Ireland. The Sperrins were largely treeless moorland before the plantations. What you walk through today is an engineered landscape - sitka spruce in dense blocks, with broadleaf areas added later for biodiversity.
The Giants of the Sperrins sculpture trail was installed in 2024 by Thomas Dambo, a Danish artist known for building large recycled-wood figures in forests around the world. The three sculptures - Darach the Guardian at Gortin Glen, Nowanois the Storyteller in the Glenelly Valley, and Ceoldan the Stargazer at Davagh Forest - form a trail across the Sperrins. The project was a collaboration between Mid Ulster District Council, Fermanagh and Omagh District Council, and Derry City and Strabane District Council.
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