Public access to the countryside in Ireland is more limited than almost anywhere else in Europe – no right to roam, no access to land, no network of footpaths across the landscape and minimal legal protection for existing rights of way. When Tim Hannigan discovers a forgotten web of paths recorded on an old map of Ireland, he sets out on an epic journey to find out how the country lost its ways.
 
The Pathless Land offers an important new perspective on contemporary debates about extending the “right to roam” in Britain and is also a deeply personal journey for the author. Born in Britain, but of Irish ancestry and living in County Galway, there are awkward questions about landscape and identity, and about the connections between walking and belonging, to be answered as he struggles to find his way across a pathless land.