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Ireland
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When to visit
Attractions in Ireland
1. Cliffs of Moher (Liscannor)
Quick facts: Winds carry the cry of seabirds as sheer cliffs plunge roughly 214 meters into the churning sea, creating a dizzying perch where puffins and guillemots nest in dense colonies. A panoramic sweep of ocean and rock stretches for miles; movie fans will spot familiar cliff-top scenes from blockbusters while coastal paths let you stroll close enough to taste the spray.
Highlights: On storm nights the sea roars beneath the cliff, wind whipping salt spray against a 214-meter drop while phosphorescent plankton sometimes make the surf glow electric blue. Local lore credits Cornelius O'Brien, who built a round stone lookout in 1835 now called O'Brien's Tower, with starting the guided coastal walks tradition, and some guides still count more than 20,000 cliff-nesting seabirds like puffins and razorbills each spring to monitor local weather and fish stocks.
2. Giant's Causeway (Bushmills)
Quick facts: Roughly 40,000 interlocking basalt columns step down into the sea, forming a geometric mosaic you can walk across like a natural staircase. Sea spray and the hollow roar of waves make the stones feel alive, and the hexagonal joints click underfoot as you hop from column to column.
Highlights: When the tide drops you can scramble across roughly 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, many with near-perfect hexagonal tops and some rising waist-high, their smooth black faces warm under your palms and salty spray stinging your nose. Local legend names a giant, Finn McCool, as the cause, and an old fisherman's trick, tapping a column like a huge stone xylophone at first light, supposedly yields a low, bell-like note that some say helps steer their nets home.
3. Guinness Storehouse (Dublin)
Quick facts: Warm malt and toasted barley aromas greet you as interactive exhibits guide you through brewing processes, sensory tastings, and the craft of pouring a flawless pint. Head up to a circular rooftop bar for sweeping skyline views while you savor the creamy head, a finale that helps explain why more than a million people make the trip each year.
Highlights: You can learn the two-part pour for the signature stout, timing the pour with a 119.5-second settle so the roasted barley aroma and velvety, three-finger cream head form perfectly in your glass. The seven-story brick atrium is actually built in the shape of a pint when seen from above, and the top-floor bar rewards you with a cold glass and panoramic skyline views that make the dark, coffee-like flavors pop.
4. Trinity College & Book of Kells (Dublin)
Quick facts: A hush falls as sunlight slants through a long oak hall, rows of leather-bound spines rising like silent sentries and the air carrying a faint, papery musk. Peer at the illuminated Gospel pages and you'll find hidden animals, playful marginalia and jewel-bright pigments that still glow, details that make even seasoned scholars grin.
Highlights: Step into the dim, echoing Long Room, a 65-meter barrel-vaulted hall lined with more than 200,000 of the library's oldest books and the warm, leathery scent of centuries of pages. Behind museum glass, the Chi-Rho page from around 800 AD explodes in jewel-like pigments and such microscopic knotwork that you can easily spend five minutes tracing a single inked knot before moving on.
5. Newgrange / Brú na Bóinne (Donore)
Quick facts: Winding through a mossy mound, a narrow stone passage funnels a sliver of winter sunrise into the inner chamber for about 17 minutes, illuminating ancient megalithic carvings. Walkers often sense the weight of human hands across millennia in the carved spiral motifs and polished kerbstones, a surprising intimacy for a structure whose makers remain mysterious.
Highlights: Built more than 5,000 years ago, a circular stone mound about 80 meters across hides a 19-meter-long passage that leads into a low, echoing central chamber. At the winter solstice a narrow beam of golden sunrise, channeled through a small roof-box above the entrance, lights the chamber for roughly 17 minutes, warming damp flagstones and making the carved spirals and lozenges glow.
6. Blarney Castle (Blarney)
Quick facts: Kissing a smooth, weathered stone requires leaning backwards over a low parapet, and locals say the resulting "gift of the gab" has helped keep conversations lively for generations. A climb through mossy battlements and winding gardens opens onto dramatic views, secret rock formations, and a fairy-tale atmosphere that makes wandering the grounds feel like stepping into a living legend.
Highlights: At the top of a 15th-century tower visitors lean backward over the battlements to press their lips to a rough, dark limestone slab while an attendant steadies their ankles, a bizarre ritual said to grant the gift of eloquence. On busy summer days hundreds of people form a noisy serpentine queue scented with wet stone and cut grass as they wait, some whispering that Cormac MacCarthy popularised the practice generations ago.
7. Killarney National Park (Killarney)
Quick facts: Misty trails wind through ancient oakwoods where red deer step from the ferns and shimmering lakes reflect craggy peaks so clearly you could swear they are painted. Birdsong fills the mornings and the hush of evening brings frequent canoe sightings, while more than 2,000 recorded species, including plants, birds and mammals, make it a hotspot for wildlife lovers.
Highlights: At dawn the lakes often lie like black glass, mist threading through moss-draped oak and yew while the scent of peat and wood smoke hangs thick in the air. A local tradition still sees families tending a specific ancient yew by an old monastic ruin for more than 500 years, and you can hear curlew calls and the soft creak of boats as guides point out deer grazing along the shoreline.
8. Skellig Michael (Portmagee)
Quick facts: Sharp sea-spray and wind-sculpted stone frame a steep stairway of roughly 600 steps up to clustered beehive huts, giving a startling sense of remoteness. Visitors often hear seabird colonies and feel the microclimate shift as they climb, picturing monks tending tiny terraced gardens and sleeping in snug stone cells.
Highlights: Climb roughly 618 weathered stone steps to a cluster of squat, drystone "beehive" huts from a 6th-century monastery, their tiny doorways forcing you to crouch while wind and salt spray bite your face and silver light skates across the slabs. Folklore says the monks hauled peat, seaweed and even a single cow up those cliffs to survive, and in summer the terraces brim with thousands of nesting seabirds and comic orange-beaked puffins that burst into the air like confetti when startled.
9. Dingle Peninsula & Slea Head (Dingle)
Quick facts: Wild Atlantic surf hammers the cliffs, sending luminous sprays and drawing wheeling gannets and seals into the surf. Along a twisting coastal road you’ll pass stone beehive huts and early Christian remnants, each viewpoint offering sudden panoramas of stacked rock shores and offshore islets.
Highlights: A solitary bottlenose dolphin named Fungie charmed local boats for 37 years, surfacing so close you could count the barnacles on its dorsal fin and taste the briny spray. Local life still moves in Irish: step into a pub on a Saturday night and you might hear sean-nós singing and fiddles, feel the peat smoke on your skin, and watch elders trade place-name stories older than maps.
10. Rock of Cashel (Cashel)
Quick facts: Clambering up the grassy slope reveals soaring medieval stonework, a slender round tower, and weathered carvings that catch the light like tiny ancient jewels. Kings and bishops once held sway on the hill, leaving myth, high crosses, and atmospheric ruins that still draw photographers at golden hour.
Highlights: Clamber up the worn limestone steps to the hilltop and you can step inside a 12th-century Romanesque chapel consecrated in 1127, where faint medieval fresco pigments, reds and ochres, still catch the sun on cracked plaster. From the ruined cathedral's battered archways the wind lifts the low cry of meadowlarks and the view sweeps across the fertile plain for more than 20 kilometers, a panorama that explains why kings once chose this spot for their seat.
Traditional Sweet Dishes
Barmbrack
Barmbrack is a sweet fruit loaf traditionally served at Halloween, with objects like a ring or coin baked inside to predict the finder’s future, turning a slice into a playful fortune-telling ritual.
Irish apple cake
Irish apple cake is a rustic, buttery cake studded with tart apples, often served warm with cream or custard, and it showcases Ireland’s love of simple, home-baked comfort.
Carrageen moss pudding
Carrageen moss pudding is a silky pudding set with Irish moss, a red seaweed used for centuries as a natural thickener and folk remedy for sore throats.
Traditional Savory Dishes
Irish stew
Irish stew traditionally combines lamb or mutton with potatoes and onions, it began as a humble peasant dish and grew into a national symbol of hearty, no-nonsense comfort food.
Boxty
Boxty are potato pancakes made from a mix of grated raw and mashed cooked potatoes, giving them a uniquely crispy outside and tender inside and inspiring the old rhyme 'Boxty on the griddle'.
Colcannon
Colcannon is creamy mashed potatoes folded with cabbage or kale, and there was a custom of hiding rings or tokens in it at celebrations to foretell lovers’ fortunes.
Traditional Beverages
Guinness
Guinness is a dry stout famed for its velvety head created by nitrogen, and its characteristic 'surge and settle' pour was engineered to produce that iconic texture.
Irish whiskey
Irish whiskey is often triple distilled for extra smoothness, it was once the world’s most popular whiskey before wars and trade barriers nearly wiped out the industry in the 20th century.
Irish coffee
Irish coffee blends hot coffee, Irish whiskey, sugar, and cream, it was reportedly invented to warm cold transatlantic travelers at Shannon Airport and later became a global classic.
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Day trips
Glendalough (Wicklow)
Monastic ruins and glacial valley in Wicklow Mountains.
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Getting there
Train stations
Intercity to Cork, Limerick, Waterford
Services to Belfast, Sligo, Rosslare
Cork-Dublin intercity and regional lines
From Dublin Airport take the Airlink 747/757 bus to the city; taxis and buses also available.
Click to get eSim for Ireland
The easiest and most affordable way to get mobile internet wherever you travel.
Visa & entry
EU/EEA/Switzerland, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea
Many nationalities not listed as visa-free (e.g., India, Pakistan, Nigeria, China) typically need a visa
Check the INIS website for up-to-date visa rules and apply in advance if required.