Blog

Poulnabrone Dolmen and the Burren: the drive you do from Doolin

There's a portal tomb standing on a bare limestone hill about twenty kilometres from Doolin that's been there since roughly 3800 BC. That's older…

Fota Wildlife Park: the open-range zoo where giraffes have right of way

If you've never stood two metres from a giraffe with nothing between you and had it regard you with the mild authority of something that knows it's…

Loop Head Peninsula from Lahinch: the day Clare keeps to itself

An hour south of Lahinch, where the Shannon Estuary meets the Atlantic and County Clare finally runs out of road, there's a lighthouse that's been…

Glasnevin Cemetery and the National Botanic Gardens, Dublin

There is a half-day available in Dublin that most visitors never take, and it sits quietly on the northside wondering what it did wrong. Glasnevin…

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…

Wild Nephin National Park from Westport: Ireland's bog wilderness

There are forty-five minutes between Westport's coffee shops and one of the most genuinely remote places in Ireland, and most visitors who pass…

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…

Ulster Museum Belfast: what's actually inside the city's best free museum

Here's what most people do in Belfast: Titanic Quarter, murals tour, a feed in the Cathedral Quarter, maybe St George's on a Saturday. Here's what…

Old Head Beach, Louisburgh: the day trip from Westport most visitors skip

Westport gets the tourist, and fair enough, it's earned it. But twenty-five kilometres south-west, past Louisburgh and out to the western arm of Clew…

The Beara Peninsula, West Cork: a road trip worth the full day

The drive from Cork city heads west on the N71, through Bandon and Dunmanway, past stretches of low farmland that give you no indication of what's…

Midleton and the Old Midleton Distillery: the whiskey half-day from Cork

There's a town about 25 minutes east of Cork that most visitors from outside Ireland have never heard of, and most visitors staying in Cork drive…

Clifden and the Sky Road, Connemara's Atlantic edge

Nobody tells you how much smaller Clifden feels than you expect. After an hour and a bit driving west from Galway, through bog and granite and the…

Muckross House and Traditional Farms, Killarney: what to actually see

You'll walk past the jaunting car drivers at the main gate and think "maybe later," and then you'll come back from the house and the gardens and the…

Kylemore Abbey, Connemara: the history and how to visit

Kylemore Abbey is a Victorian castle in Connemara that a wealthy Manchester doctor built in the 1860s because he loved his wife and apparently had…

Ross Castle and the Killarney lakes: hire a boat, row to Innisfallen, stay for the morning

Get to Ross Castle before ten on a clear morning and you'll have the lake mostly to yourself. The castle sits at the end of Ross Island, three…

The Guinness Storehouse, Dublin: what you're actually paying for

Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000-year lease on the land underneath St James's Gate in 1759. He was twenty-three, he had just moved to Dublin, he had…

Where to eat and drink in Westport, County Mayo

Westport has the food scene of a place twice its size, and it doesn't make a big deal about it. A Michelin Bib Gourmand twelve kilometres down the…

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…

St George's Market, Belfast: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday

On a Sunday morning in Belfast, the queue for coffee at St George's Market starts somewhere around the fish stalls and generally ends with you having…