Best Places to Visit in Ireland: Dublin, the West Coast & Castles

The capital keeps the Guinness Storehouse, Kilmainham Gaol, Trinity College and the pubs of Temple Bar within walking distance of each other. The DART train reaches the fishing village of Howth in half an hour.

Galway is the base for the west coast: a small harbour city of painted shopfronts and street musicians, an hour from Connemara and 90 minutes from the Cliffs of Moher.

Killarney sits at the start of the Ring of Kerry, beside a national park of lakes, oak woods and mountain passes. Muckross House, Torc Waterfall and the Gap of Dunloe are all inside the park boundary.

Cork covers the south, with the food stalls of the English Market, Blarney Castle a short drive outside town and the harbour at Cobh where the Titanic made its final stop.

Belfast pairs Titanic Belfast and black taxi tours of the political murals with quick access to the Causeway Coast. The Enterprise train from Dublin takes a little over two hours.

Kilkenny is the medieval stop on Ireland’s Ancient East. A Norman castle, a 13th-century cathedral and a slate-roofed lane called the Butter Slip sit inside a compact centre full of pubs.

Intercity trains run from Dublin to Galway in about two hours 45 minutes, to Cork in roughly two and a half hours and to Belfast in a little over two. Bus Éireann covers the towns the railway misses. For the Ring of Kerry and the Wild Atlantic Way you want a car, and traffic drives on the left.

The best time to visit Ireland is May to September, when daylight can last until 10pm around midsummer. July and August bring the warmest weather and the largest crowds, while May and September are quieter and cheaper. Rain arrives in every month, so pack layers whenever you travel.

Dublin hotel rates are the biggest line in most budgets, and they climb during rugby weekends, concerts and St Patrick’s Festival. Outside the capital, guesthouses, pub lunches and regional trains keep daily costs moderate. Book car hire early if you are travelling in July or August.

Popular routes include a Dublin city break, a west coast drive from Galway down to Kerry, a castle circuit through Ireland’s Ancient East, and a loop from Belfast along the Causeway Coast to Derry.

Ireland has thousands of castles. Blarney, Bunratty, Malahide, Trim, Kylemore Abbey and Dunluce on the Antrim cliffs are among the most visited, and many pair the tour with gardens, a folk park or a banquet in the great hall.

Irish dishes lean on what grows well in a wet climate: soda bread, seafood chowder, coddle, bacon and cabbage, and potatoes in a dozen forms. Add a full Irish breakfast, oysters in Galway and a brewery or whiskey distillery tour.

The Wild Atlantic Way runs 2,750 km down the west coast from Donegal to Kinsale, taking in the Cliffs of Moher, Achill Island, Connemara and the Dingle Peninsula. Drive it in stages rather than end to end.

Live traditional music happens most nights in Galway, Doolin, Dingle and Dublin, usually free in the corner of a pub. Bigger dates include St Patrick’s Festival in March, the Galway International Arts Festival in July and the Oyster Festival in September.

Kilmainham Gaol, EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum, the galleries at Titanic Belfast and Bunratty Folk Park cover the rebellions, famine and emigration that shaped modern Ireland.

Six national parks cover Killarney, Connemara, the Burren, Glenveagh, Wicklow and Wild Nephin. Shorter walks include the Howth cliff path outside Dublin and the Causeway Coast Way in Antrim.

Dublin to London takes about 90 minutes by air, on one of the busiest short-haul routes in Europe. Ferries from Dublin and Rosslare also carry cars, which suits travellers combining both countries by road.

Scotland shares much of Ireland’s Celtic history and a similar mix of coast, castles and whisky. Flights from Dublin and Belfast to Glasgow and Edinburgh take under an hour.

Ferries from Dublin and Rosslare reach Holyhead and Pembroke in a few hours and land you close to Snowdonia, the Welsh castles and the Pembrokeshire coast path.

Direct flights connect Dublin with Paris, Nice and Bordeaux, and ferries sail from Cork and Rosslare to Roscoff and Cherbourg for travellers bringing a car across.

Iceland sits about two and a half hours from Dublin, which makes waterfalls, glaciers and volcanic coastline an easy stopover on North Atlantic routes.