If you’re looking to experience some of Ireland’s most magnificent sites, then here are some of the best we have to offer. Everywhere you go there’s widespread beauty and magic. It’s always a good time to visit Ireland, especially if your visit involves a road trip around the Emerald Isle. Over 80 percent of Ireland’s visitors come for the scenery alone, and I can’t say I blame them! From the blustery coastlines of the Wild Atlantic Way to the calm, serene peaks of the Midlands, each landscape is filled with legends, tales, and folklore dating back to Viking and Celtic times. So whether it’s for a day trip or a weekend break, you’ll never be too far away to go and explore them all. Ireland has so many wonderful locations, but the great thing about living here is that it’s a fairly compact island. Many of the country’s best fishing loughs (lakes) are in the midlands, and the riverbank towns of the Shannon often have a history going back to the days of Saints and Scholars. It’s not “a long way to Tipperary” at all-nor to counties Westmeath, Offaly, or Roscommon. But don’t neglect to explore Ireland’s inland counties too. On the east coast, you’ll find the Wicklow Mountains, neolithic Newgrange, and of course Dublin, Ireland’s vibrant capital. (If you enjoy opera, Wexford has an opera festival every October.) A short distance inland, Kilkenny is Ireland’s best-preserved medieval city, and the surrounding countryside is absolutely peppered with the timeworn ruins of abbeys and monasteries. In the “sunny southeast,” the old Viking settlements of Waterford and Wexford are small cities with magnificent beaches on the doorstep. Sir Walter Raleigh was its mayor back in 1588. Along with the cultural delights of Cork City, its charms include the harbor town of Kinsale, noted for its gourmet restaurants and foodie weekends, color-washed Clonakilty with its hand-painted shop-fronts, and historic Youghal-and we do mean historic. On the south coast, Cork is Ireland’s largest county. Yeats who was entranced by the legendary landscapes of county Sligo.
(There are supposedly 365 little islands-one for every day of the year.) Nor do many follow in the footsteps of the poet W.B. Connemara, the Aran Islands, Galway City, the Cliffs of Moher, and the Ring of Kerry are all rightly on the tourist trail, but not so many visitors explore the historic seaside town of Westport or the myriad islands of Clew Bay in County Mayo. From the heathery mountains of Donegal down to the witchy-fingered peninsulas of Kerry, the entire western seaboard delivers a bonanza of scenic splendors. The difficult thing will be deciding where to settle. Sure, there’s a rain shower now and again-but without them you would never see a rainbow.
Even in winter, you can be out and about. Thanks to the Gulf Stream, it rarely gets bitterly cold. One of the joys of living in Ireland is the changing seasons. It’s gorgeous…the kind of spring day that begs you to pull on your boots and go for a hike. Today, lambs are gamboling in my neighbor’s meadow, primroses bloom in the hedgerows and robins and chaffinches are busy nest-building. And you are never too far away from a beach, a fishing spot, a golf course, or a literary gathering. Narrow lanes are the haunt of stray sheep, stray cows, and the occasional stray donkey. Cheery farmers wave at you from tractors. Green fields are hemmed with little stone walls. There are old-fashioned horse fairs, cozy pubs where fiddle music rings out into the night, and seaside towns with houses painted all shades of the paint-box. It really does come with a storybook landscape of castles, sheer cliffs, and swans gliding across looking-glass lakes. Ireland is just like you have probably imagined. The Irish: The Warmest People in the World
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