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Guides

These are the longer pieces. A county page tells you where to go in one county. A guide takes a route or a region that crosses several of them and tells you how to actually do it, which stops are worth the detour and which ones we would leave out.

Waves breaking against the Cliffs of Moher on the Atlantic coast

5 min readThe Wild Atlantic Way from Clare to DonegalThe northern half of the coast road, county by county, with the stops we would make and the ones we would drive past.

South-east view of Inchydoney beaches. The peninsula dominating the bottom of the image is Virgin Mary's Point

5 min readIreland's best beaches, province by provinceTwenty beaches worth the drive, sorted by province, with what each one is actually like when you get there.

A marble bust between the bookshelves of the Long Room at Trinity College

5 min readA first-timer's week in IrelandSeven days that take in Dublin, the Boyne valley, the southwest and the Burren without spending the whole week in the car.

Stalactites hanging in a chamber of Aillwee Cave

5 min readIreland in the rain: what to do when the weather turnsIt rains on about half the days of the year, so here are the places that are better in it, county by county, plus the outdoor ones that do not care.

Bronze age gold ornaments in a case at the National Museum of Ireland on Kildare Street

5 min readFree things to do in IrelandThe hills, headlands, dolmens and city museums where there is no ticket office at all, and the honest rule for telling which is which.

Sun over the cliffs and the long strand on Achill Island

5 min readIreland's islands you can reach in a dayTwelve islands off the Irish coast that work as a day out, what is on each one, and the one rule that decides whether you get there.

Trim Castle and its curtain wall at sunset

5 min readIreland with kids: a county-by-county shortlistOne or two places per county that work with children, grouped by the kind of day they are, from castles you can climb to parks built for running about.