Avondale House and Forest Park, Rathdrum: Parnell's Wicklow home

Avondale House is the birthplace of Charles Stewart Parnell, and if the name means nothing to you yet, it will. This is the man who came within a…

Glenmalure: Wicklow's longest valley and wildest half-day

Glenmalure is twenty kilometres of glacial valley running back into the Wicklow Mountains, and it's the closest thing Ireland has to genuinely…

Wicklow Gaol: what you find inside the county's oldest prison

Most people drive through Wicklow town on the way to somewhere else and barely slow down. It's understandable. The mountains are up ahead, the…

Brittas Bay: the beach Dubliners escape to in summer

On any sunny Saturday in July, the N11 south of Bray moves the way a river moves when something has blocked the outlet: slowly, with a quiet…

The Vale of Avoca, where Thomas Moore wrote the poem and the mill never stopped

The Vale of Avoca runs south from the Wicklow Mountains in a long corridor of oak and ash, the kind of valley you'd drive past without stopping and…

The Military Road through Sally Gap, Wicklow's best drive

The Military Road is the old army road that runs straight over the top of the Wicklow Mountains, and it is still the best drive within an hour of…

Powerscourt Estate, what to actually see

Powerscourt Estate, ten miles south of Dublin in County Wicklow, has one of the great formal gardens in Europe. The Italianate terrace stepping down…

Greystones to Bray cliff walk, the Dubliner's secret

The Bray-to-Greystones cliff walk is one of the best things you can do in a half-day from Dublin. Six kilometres along a path cut into the cliff…

The Wicklow Way, planning a section walk

The Wicklow Way is Ireland's oldest waymarked long-distance walking trail, opened in 1980. It runs 130 kilometres from Marlay Park in south Dublin to…

Wicklow Mountains, the underrated Dublin escape

Most visitors to Dublin think of the Wicklow Mountains as the place where Glendalough is. They are actually a national park covering 220 square…

Walking Glendalough, what makes the monastic site special

Glendalough, in the Wicklow Mountains, is a sixth century monastic settlement set between two glacial lakes in a narrow steep valley. It is one of…