Trim CastleIreland's largest Norman castle: a square keep inside a curtain wall on the bank of the Boyne.Guide
Ireland with kids: a county-by-county shortlist
The places that work with children in Ireland fall into five kinds: castles you are allowed to climb, parks built for running about, caves, beaches with a shallow shelf, and animals. This is one or two per county, sorted by kind rather than alphabetically, so you can pick by what the day needs rather than by where you happen to be.
Castles you can actually climb
A ruin you can go up beats a restored house you walk through. Trim Castle is the largest Norman castle in Ireland and the keep is a guided climb. Cahir Castle in Tipperary sits on an island in the Suir with its towers and walls intact enough to get lost in. Athlone Castle is a museum inside a castle and is built for it.
Bunratty Castle and Folk Park is the one to pick if you want a whole day out of one ticket: the castle is furnished and climbable, and the folk park behind it is a village of thirty buildings with animals in it. King John's Castle in Limerick has an archaeology floor under glass that children tend to like more than the adults expect.
Parks built for running about
Ireland has a quiet strength in what it calls discovery and activity parks, which are old estates or old bogs turned into somewhere to spend four hours. Lough Key Forest and Activity Park has a tree canopy walk, a viewing tower and boats. Castlecomer Discovery Park has woodland, a lake and fallow deer in a walled garden.
Lough Boora Discovery Park is a worked out bog with sculpture across it and flat cycle tracks, which is the easiest terrain on this page for small legs. Lullymore Heritage and Discovery Park does the same in Kildare. Avondale House and Forest Park has a treetop walk. In the cities, The Phoenix Park has enough space to lose a day in.
Caves, which are weatherproof and a genuine surprise
A cave is the best rainy day with children in the country because it is the same weather underground every day of the year and it is properly strange. Aillwee Cave has a river cave, a waterfall and a birds of prey centre at the entrance. Doolin Cave twenty minutes away has the Great Stalactite.
Dunmore Cave is a shorter visit with a better story: Viking-age human remains were found in it. Mitchelstown Cave has about two kilometres of passage. The Arigna Mining Experience is a real coal mine guided by the men who worked it, and older children take it seriously.
Beaches with a shallow shelf
For swimming rather than scenery you want a wide beach with a slow slope and room to spread out. Marble Hill Beach on Sheephaven Bay is the best of them. Rosslare Strand and Brittas Bay are the east coast answers and both have enough parking to actually get in.
Enniscrone Beach is five kilometres of hard flat sand, which is the sort you can walk a buggy on. Inchydoney Beach has two strands either side of a headland so one of them is always out of the wind. Laytown and Bettystown Beach is the closest long strand to Dublin.
Animals, gardens and a reserve full of geese
Fota Wildlife Park near Cobh keeps most of its animals in open paddocks you walk among rather than behind bars, and it is the single best animal day in the country. Wexford Wildfowl Reserve on the north slob is the opposite: hides, a tower and thousands of geese in winter, for children who will sit still.
Blarney Castle is worth it for the grounds rather than the stone: there is a poison garden, a rock close and a set of caves under the keep. Kylemore Abbey has a walled garden a mile from the house with a shuttle between them. National Botanic Gardens is free and has the glasshouses.
Trains, boats and a cable car
Anything that moves counts as an attraction when you are eight. The Cavan and Leitrim Railway at Dromod runs restored narrow gauge stock. The Dursey Island Cable Car at the end of the Beara peninsula is the only one in Ireland and crosses a sound with a tide race under it.
For boats, the shortest crossings are the ones to try first: Spike Island from Cobh is a hop across a sheltered harbour, and Inis Oirr from Doolin is about half an hour. A long sailing in a swell with a child is a thing you do once.
Two honest warnings
First, cliffs. Cliffs of Moher, Dun Aonghasa and Mullaghmore Head are all remarkable and none of them has a rail in the places where the view is best. They are fine with children who hold a hand and wrong for children who run.
Second, distance. Ireland looks small on a map and the roads are slower than the distances suggest, particularly in the west. Two hours in a car is two hours, and the difference between a good day and a bad one with children is usually how much of it was spent driving rather than what was at the end.
Questions people ask
What is the best place in Ireland for a family day out?
Bunratty Castle and Folk Park in Clare, if you want one ticket to cover a whole day: a climbable furnished castle plus a village of about thirty buildings with animals in it. Fota Wildlife Park in Cork is the best answer if the children want animals.
What can you do in Ireland with children when it rains?
Caves, because they are the same weather every day: Aillwee and Doolin in Clare, Dunmore in Kilkenny, Mitchelstown in Tipperary. Failing that a folk park, where you are inside a building most of the time and outside for a minute between them.
Are Irish castles safe for young children?
The restored ones with guided climbs, like Trim, Bunratty and King John's, are managed and have rails and stairs. Open ruins in fields do not, and neither do the cliff top sites. The difference is whether somebody sells a ticket at the gate.
The places in this guide
35 places, each with a page of its own.
Trim CastleIreland's largest Norman castle: a square keep inside a curtain wall on the bank of the Boyne.
Cahir CastleCahir Castle sits on a rock island in the Suir, keep and walls and towers all still standing.
Athlone CastleA Norman castle sits on the west bank of the Shannon in the middle of Athlone, run as a museum.
Bunratty Castle and Folk ParkThe restored 15th century tower house sits beside the N18, with a village of old farmhouses and shopfronts rebuilt in the grounds.
King John's CastleA Norman castle on the Shannon at King's Island, with curtain walls, drum towers and an excavated site under the courtyard.
Lough Key Forest and Activity ParkLough Key's forest park runs along the shore near Boyle, with a canopy walk up in the trees and wooded islands out on the water.
Castlecomer Discovery ParkEighty acres of estate park in Castlecomer with two lakes, a coal mining exhibition and a treetop walk.
Lough Boora Discovery ParkA worked out bog was turned into a park, and it now has lakes, cycle paths and large outdoor sculptures left out in it.
Avondale House and Forest ParkCharles Stewart Parnell's home, in five hundred acres of forest with a treetop walk and a slide in the grounds.
The Phoenix ParkThe walled park on the edge of the city has a wild deer herd in it and long straight roads through it.
Aillwee CaveThe cave system runs inside Aillwee Mountain above Ballyvaughan, walked on a guided route past old bear hibernation pits.More guides
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